I just started a new Bible study that Heather has put together, and all the girls who are participating have been emailing introductions to the group so that we know a little about each other before we start posting this weekend.
By the by, I’m the crazy Southern participant. Sort of a stereotype, actually, but usually good for some comic relief.
Anyway, several of the women are writers. Not the way I’d say, “I’m a writer” and then collapse into a fit of giggles – they are for real, working-on-a-novel / get-paid-for-it-and-everything writers. My writing has never earned me one red dime – though my Southern lit. professor in college really liked a paper I did comparing The Color Purple to Ellen Foster, and she said she might like to enter it in a contest, but she never, you know, did.
It’s a rich writing legacy here at BooMama, is all I’m sayin’.
I’m always a little awed by people who can write fiction, because I SO cannot. I’ve talked about my limited skillz before. But thinking about these women who can and do write imaginative works reminded me for the second time in the last week about my college creative writing class.
Y’all.
Let’s just say that if it hadn’t been a requirement for an English degree, I would’ve never. ever. in a million years. taken. it.
Here’s what I remember – and Laura and Daph can fill in what I can’t recall because they took the same class from the same professor (but mercifully not at the same time I did – or I would’ve been forced into seclusion or at the very least would’ve donned a wig – the Raquel Welch collection, perhaps? – to cope with the sheer embarrassment of it all).
We sat in a semi-circle, and our appropriately bespectacled professor sat on one end of it. The first part of the semester we wrote poems, which I have TOTALLY blocked from my memory. Because have I mentioned how literal I am? And you want me to compare a tree to honesty? Why? Why would I do that? What does one have to do with the other? Why would we care?
You can see why I might have some problems crafting a poem.
The second part of the semester we wrote a short story, and it had to be 15 pages long. I cranked it out over the course of a weekend – I just wanted it DONE – and at the time, I was pretty proud of myself for completing it. Fiction is not, as they say, my thang.
I wish I could explain the mental block I have when it comes to that genre of writing. All I know to tell you is that I have no imagination. I have never sat around and dreamed of being someone else. I have never thought, “Gosh, I wonder what it would be like to live in New York,” and then created an imaginary world to accompany my musings. Because, hello? I don’t live in New York. I’ve never wondered what it would be like if I switched lives with one of my friends. Because you know what? I can’t. And don’t even get me started about acting, because the attraction of pretending to be someone else in a made-up situation is COMPLETELY lost on me.
I’m not so much of a skit person, if you were wondering.
So back to creative writing. I wrote a story about a girl (who was really just me with dark hair) who was really close friends with a guy (who was really just Bubba in a different fraternity because at the time he had transferred to another college and I missed him terribly), and the guy was killed in a car wreck (sorry, Bubba – something dramatic had to happen…I couldn’t just have us riding around singing like we did in real life…that would’ve only gotten me to page four), and then dark-haired me was very sad, and then she went back to the Bubba-esque character’s fraternity house, and sat in a rocking chair, and made her peace with everything.
Gripping, isn’t it? And not AT ALL cheesy.
That’s not even the worst of it. The worst part is that we had to make copies FOR EVERYONE IN CLASS and then READ IT ALOUD, and when I finished reading it, here is the absolute nicest thing my professor could say about it:
“Well, um. Okay. We’ve all had close friendships like that, haven’t we?”
Really, at that point, any back-of-my-mind questions I had about writing professionally were pretty much done forever.
But professional or no, what I love about blogging is that I don’t have to pretend. I can be me, for better or worse. I don’t have to create a person with a different name and dream up all the details of her life, because HAVE MERCY I can hardly remember how old I am, much less figure out how Laurel Marie St. Clair, the daughter of European royalty but currently “toughin’ it” in the big city to prove to her daddy that she is a Serious Businesswoman, is going to meet her handsome prince in chapter 10.
And that last sentence? It exhausted me.
So hats off to all you fiction writers. I don’t know how you do it.
But I hope I get to read it one day.
It’s funny you write about this ’cause I am no writer either, and in my college they let me get my English requirement through a class called “Creative Writing” which I don’t remember much of it except at the start of the semester the professor said “You won’t be graded on gramer and form but on substance”
WOOOHOOO! Exactly what I needed! But I guess, now it shows, and I am in the “we will just have to excuse her ’cause she knows NOTHING about grammer” group of blogs. But I DO know when to use I vs. me! I think. Oh, and my bad spelling is hereditary, and I use spell checker when it is easy, and I am not going to type, copy, past, just to not possibly offend some spelling sensitive somebody . . . (I hope your not!) :-)
BooMama,
Everytime I come here I am tickled to pieces and I LOVE the way you write…like you’re having a friendly conversation with us…very matter-of-factly.
Your a doll…we southern gals gotta stick together! ;-)
I’m not sure why it’s taken sixteen years for me to get wind of this….but I am LAUGHING! from my fictional grave!!! :) Not about the story as much as picturing you reading it aloud!
For all you bloggers out there….Boomama is not only a talented writer (as you all know from her blog) but she is an excellent teacher as well. Oh my, the crises she walked me through while writing papers!
Gotta run….need to get Hallmark on the phone and see if we can’t pitch that story for a mini series.
Oh my. LOL. I love coming here! :) And as you say, “Hats off to all you fiction writers. I don’t know how you do it.”
I can’t write fiction either. I guess you and I can just leave it to the experts! :) Have a good day!
I’m perfectly comfortable getting up and speaking to a group of women about whatever; I’m comfortable being me, even when I know it isn’t so slick. But the thought of being in a skit at church – on the stage – horrifies me. How they can be all dramatic and pretend to be whoever just mystifies me. And I’m amused or moved or whatever by them, for a short moment. But I’ll take real people any ole day, and you are R.E.A.L. and that’s what makes you just the best. We don’t have to sit and think, what on earth did she mean by that. We not only know, we understand because it’s so similar to how we’re feeling/thinking. Keep on being just you – we don’t need the challenge of imagining…
BTW – Sarah was an English major so you’ll be getting perfect grammer and references to old writers; Leslie (Somewhere in the Middle) on the other hand was a creative writing major and we used to ride down the road on vacation with her reading about some damsel in distress about to drive off a bridge in the middle of the night…Amazing two kids – same womb, so different…
You crack me up Boo. I am not much with fiction either, all my stories are thinly veiled references to dreams I once had (the day time ones that are all thought out, not the night time dreams that you can never remember all the parts of later)
I can write fiction, but I’m much better at just being me. Of course, some parts of my real life others might think is made up, that it couldn’t POSSIBLY be real, LOL. :-)
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, BooMama. Just keep writing about your everyday life, and we’ll keep reading and laughing with you. ;-)
I think the only time I write anything even remotely humorous or entertaining is when I am fasting. Let’s just say it’s gonna be a long time before that happens again! Well, unless I need to lose a few pounds before driving 12 hours to meet some totally new cool people!
I don’t think Erma Bombeck was much on fiction writing either — but look at her! Well, no, don’t do that. She’d dead. But when she was alive: Whew! Could she write! And my point … Oh, yes. Your gift (like our dearly departed Erma) is in taking the everyday and making it somehow, miraculously Not Boring. Even relevant. Nice gift that. (But I’d seriously like to have heard you read that story out loud to the class.)
Oh, please don’t ever start trying to write fiction boo! You are just way to good the way you are!!!
Boo – we are so alike in not being able to write fiction. But I am a realist to the degree that I don’t even like to read it. Why? It’s NOT. REAL! (But that’s just crazy old me.)
And I can do a skit at church, as long as it has me doing something that I’d actually do in real life – which usually means acting goofy. I had to do a serious one once, where I was required to CRY, and I just about died laughing during rehearsal. (Our director saw my shoulders shaking and thought I was pretending to cry, and she said I did a great job… Oh, good golly.)
I am an English major too! I also struggle with fiction. I have great ideas, characters, and plots but am too lazy to write it down. One piece of advice I have heard on writing good fiction, is writing what you know. That is why William Faulkner is so good, his characters so real. (especially to us from the South)
I’m cracking up, and feeling totally in sync with what you wrote. On the other hand, Bev was wrong–I was a creative writing major, too, not just English. And for crying out loud, I taught creative writing for a year. Sheesh, you’d think the woman who forgot about my salvation experience would at least feel obligated to remember my college major! She did pay for it, after all!! BTW–can’t write fiction. Not a lick. I stick to what I know, you know?;)
Y’all don’t have to worry about me trying my hand at fiction EVER AGAIN. :-) And Bubba, I laughed out loud at you referring to your “fictional death” – if memory serves, I didn’t tell you all the time because whenever I called you that semester on the one pay phone on your hall, you were NEVER home. Sowing your oats, I believe you were. :-)
And yes, the reading aloud was painful. For all present. No one escaped unscathed from the experience, I’m afraid. :-)
I don’t think you have anything to worry about Boo. Your audience is RIVETED! Your real life is better than any fiction I’ve ever read.
Just can’t call you BM – it’s tacky.
I’m with you on the poetry. I can’t write it. I just don’t get it. My husband, on the other hand, is a gifted poet in my opinion (which doesn’t count because, you know, I don’t get it.) The funniest thing of all is that he asks me to critique his poems, wants me to tell him what I think would work better, and I’m clueless.
You do have a gift, even if it isn’t for writing fiction, and I’m grateful that you share it with us.
I don’t care if you can write fiction or not. I LOVE reading your blog…It makes me feel GOOD and that is all that matters.
Ditto to what everyone else said! Whew, that took me a while to get through all those comments…did someone mention something about writing fiction??