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Why Do Big Books Get All the Attention?

4/1/2019

A teenager walked up and down the aisles of Barnes and Nobles, searching for the perfect book. In her mind that meant something weighty, something she would have to put time into to finish.

“Short books just turn me off,” she told her friend.

It is understandable that readers might want the challenge of reading a lengthy book, something they know will take weeks, if not months. Perhaps they think the subplots and extra detail might make the book better, and that short books can’t have a full, satisfying story. I used to maintain this mindset; I was this girl, who thought that reading bigger books made me smarter and more interesting. I thought they were better because they had more to say.

Originality? There is No Such Thing!

2/1/2019

by Leo Kirschner

There is no such thing as originality! Don’t believe me? Go visit your local cineplex. 2018 brought us A Star Is Born, the fifth - yes fifth! - film adaption of the tragic love story between a celebrity in decline and his younger female protege. Want more proof? Robin Thicke’s hit 2013 “Blurred Lines” sounded very much like Marvin Gaye’s 1977 single “Got To Give It Up.” The courts thought so, too. Even in literature, Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight begat E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey. British folklore, mythology, even The Lord of the Rings found themselves interwoven in JK Rowling’s epic Harry Potter-verse.

We are living in a culture where ideas are recycled and creativity is not highly regarded. I’m not the only one who believes this is true. In Mark Twain's Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review, the famed writer offered up a similar viewpoint: “There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope... We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”

Good Morning, Good Luck, and Get Writing

1/1/2019

Image via Pixabay

by Joe Gramigna

Discipline is hard. I’ve tried many times to reinvent myself via practices that I planned to follow diligently. The first few weeks, everything’s peachy. The 5 a.m. gym sessions get my blood flowing. The kale and green concoctions don’t yet taste like bug spray and depression. The lavender incense lightly laps against my nostrils to center a newfound meditation routine.

Around the end of the month, when I’m about to rise from the ashes of my unenlightened self like a Phoenix emerging from Plato’s cave…

I give up. The distractions of daily living get to me. Then, I get even harder on myself for not living up to my goal and eventually try to replace the failed practice with a new one, fail again, and the cycle of personal crucifixion starts anew.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve taken to a new practice that has proven beneficial and seems like I might be able to implement daily for the long haul. I hope.

It’s called “Morning Pages” and comes from a manifesto on the creative process by writer Julia Cameron. It’s a simple idea with some complex outcomes: as soon as you wake up in the morning, you write three stream of consciousness pages longhand.

I’ve always been a big fan of new age, spiritual, or far-out practices, despite failing at meditation routines countless times. When I first heard Cameron talk in Jungian terms about “meeting your shadow and taking it out for a cup of coffee” or, in meditation terms, to write down “cloud thoughts,” I was intrigued. Writing has always come second-nature to me. Sitting on a floor with my legs crossed and spine erect while trying not to focus on the tortured thoughts that scroll across my mind… not as much. The idea of Morning Pages sounded like a good middle ground.

When writing these three pages each day, it’s important not to attempt to be artful or overthink the prose in anyway. They can be “whiny, petty, grumpy,” according to Cameron, used for putting negativity to the page. Or, they can be joyous. The important thing is to write whatever thoughts are flowing through the mind, taking them from the internal and thrusting them to the external.

Image via Pixabay

Image via Pixabay

Here’s an example from one of my negative passages: “My retainer might actually be messing up my teeth. When I open and close my mouth, my bottom teeth seem out of line, slightly to the right, as compared with my top teeth. I really don’t feel like going to the fucking orthodontist again, though.”

I awoke and felt my retainer askew in my mouth, so that was on my mind as I turned to open my notebook for the morning. It also got me thinking about my slightly crooked jaw, which plunged me headfirst into a morning soliloquy about my physical flaws, not wanting to go to the orthodontist, and other overly critical analyses of my being.

I know this sounds like a slippery slope to suicide by starting each morning like this, but I’ve found it to be mentally freeing. By writing down the swirls of activity, from worry to lust to elation, that echo through my mind each day, I can work towards the maintenance of a level-head and semi-clear mind throughout the rest of my day. Think of it as the writer’s form of meditation or kundalini yoga.

Other Morning Pages passages have been more neutral: “My 7th birthday. In the front living room. It was sunny outside. Some of my classmates were there. A magician performed. He took my grandmother’s ring, wrapped it into a napkin, set the napkin on fire, threw the flaming mass into the air, it poofed into smoke, and then he removed the ring from his inside pocket. Still don’t know how he did that.”

Whether it’s mystical memories or body-image problems, Morning Pages allow me to purge. As Cameron says, putting these thoughts on the page stops them from “eddying through your consciousness throughout the day.” It’s easy to let thoughts become our reality, but putting them down on paper works paradoxically to make them both more and less real. More, in the sense that they’re in a physical form that others can potentially come across. Less, in that they’ve been quantified and explained in intelligible (semi, hopefully) scrawls that are less daunting to confront than the mystifying babble of self-talk.

I think that’s what a lot of my best writing does: it exposes my inner darkness to the page, freeing it from the mine of my mind like the Chilean spelunkers. I can handle handwritten words—challenge their accuracy, continue writing until I uncover their source. I’m a writer. It’s my therapy.

If something as simple as three handwritten pages can ebb the tide and lessen the roar of background noise swirling in the depths of my skull, then count me and my bedside notebook in.

Publishing in the Age of Fanfiction

9/1/2018

image via amazingstoriesmag.com

By Mikaela Langdon

Before the internet, fans of books, movies, and television shows had to keep their opinions and ideas about characters and storylines largely to themselves. At most, they might have shared them with friends or relatives. Now we’re in an age where people can share ideas at the push of a button. This has opened up the doors for something known as “fanfiction”: original stories with characters, settings, and sometimes other characteristics borrowed from popular culture. This concept originated, surprisingly, prior to the internet age in Star Trek fanzines such as Spockanalia (1967). This zine contained fanfiction written about the popular science-fiction show and was mailed to super-fans for their enjoyment. With the invention and advancement of the internet, fanfiction has practically become its own industry, allowing fans to become co-creators with the writers they so admire. These works are not intended for publication, at least not in their initial format, and give full credit to the original authors or creators. Fanfiction is not meant to overshadow the original content but rather to celebrate it. But what happens when a fanfiction author takes characters we all know and love and makes them her own, complete with a new backstory and personality? At what point does fanfiction go far enough from the source and just become regular fiction?

Reading Away the Blues

8/1/2018

By Juliana Crescenzo

I was lying in bed, my covers clung to my body; I was their prisoner. Three hours had passed since my alarm clock went off and I still wasn’t able to will my body to get up and be productive. My list of things to do became longer every day and I was stressed out beyond belief, but I could not move from that bed.

Image via Pixabay

As a society, we tend to sweep mental health under the rug because it’s easier than talking about about it. When we give names to our monsters—Depression, Anxiety, Bipolar Disorder, Eating Disorders, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder—they become real and alive, and are no longer just the Albatrosses we’ve been secretly struggling to carry in our minds. When it comes to mental health, either you are recovering, you are relapsing, or you are dying.

White Vernacular English: The Boss of Student Writing

6/1/2018

Photo: 12news

I’ve taught freshman composition courses for almost two years now, expecting my diverse body of students from multicultural backgrounds to all coalesce and perform to one standard above all others: White Vernacular English (WVE) or White American Vernacular English (WAVE). As writers, we pride ourselves on being open-minded yet authentic, and we hope our students do the same—as long as they adhere to what we consider valid style of writing. Why have the rigid, outdated principles the foundation of college composition was built on not shifted to accept other vernaculars?

And Cut—Minimalism

5/1/2018

by Rebecca Rodriguez

In high school, we are given our first copy of Diana Hacker’s Rules for Writers, which we are commanded to worship. It’s not a bad book, by any means, and (if read for anything other than MLA citation instructions) specific information on sentence structure can be found within it. In fact, there is an entire section dedicated to taking wordy sentences and tightening them. ←Example→ There is a section on tightening wordy sentences.

Although fair warning is given that short sentences aren’t always concise, wordiness is considered ultimately taboo. Not only does it focus on eliminating redundancies, but it encourages us, the writers, to cut inflated phrases (e.g. change “At the present time…” into “Now...” or “Currently...”). We also must take every opportunity to reduce a clause into a phrases, or a phrase into a single word. Though we try not to worry about these rules outside of our research papers, it’s too late. Today’s generation of writers have already been brainwashed.

Preventing the Hatred of Writing

4/1/2018

by Ashley Haden

Spending time on a college campus as finals near always leads to hearing familiar complaints in the air. These are complaints about the workload, upcoming exams, and, of course, writing papers. “I hate writing” is one of the most common complaints that I’ve noticed at a wide variety of grade levels. Students will often actively try to avoid writing if possible. Why is this?

A Handbook For Best Sellers

2/1/2018

by Elizabeth DiPietro

Young Adult (YA) books often get a bad rap for being shallow, underdeveloped, and cliché. There are huge bestselling series that have transcended to films and television shows that fit that description to a T, which only adds to the idea that YA best sellers are cliché money grabs that uneducated teens are desperate to consume. On August 24, 2017, one author decided to test this limit by attempting to steal the #1 spot on The New York Times Best Seller list.

Take A Look. It's In A Book.

12/1/2017

by Joe Magaletta

There’s a story that makes me uncomfortable. A black man has been accused of raping a white woman. We follow the story of an attorney who goes out of his way to try and prove that the woman is making a false allegation, doubting the victim in this situation. It’s an exploration of bias, the justice system, racial inequality, and compassion. These are all ideas that are worth exploring… But now I’m uncomfortable. Therefore, To Kill a Mockingbird shouldn’t be taught in schools.

This is a growing trend: the fear of being offended, of confronting triggers, of having to question ideas and explore points of view that don’t exactly mesh with our own. The political climate is as heated as ever, and the desire to hear the opposition has died down in favor of preaching to the choir.