Reason for the Telling

I'm one of those people who carved out a couple years (the last years of my twenties, to be exact), pushed the pause button, and hitched my wagon to a life of writing (and teaching writing). I was pursuing my MFA in fiction during this time, and more than anything, my goal was to strike at the heart of good story telling--to locate that dubious secret woven through certain narratives (we all know the ones), which spark bright with hilarity and carry just beneath their lines a particular density--the opacity of loss, something utterly human and true. I care deeply for words. I'm irked when they're tossed into sentences without care, and I don't mind spending the better part of my day pondering their sequence. In fact, I think it may be the most useful way to spend the hours as any.

One of the questions often raised in our writing workshops, the whole group of us seated around a large oval table as we dug into the lines of a student's story was, "Why now? What's the reason/occasion for the telling? Why this day and not last week?" It was a question intended to probe us writers and the particular author in question, to consider what the real drive behind the story was--what was essential about the specific moment the story began? The details matter, so does narrative tension, dialogue, showing/not telling, all of which hinge on the exact moment we encounter the characters. It's easy to start a story too soon; it's even easier to stick a character in a scene that does nothing to advance the story. So often we just want to see our characters sit in a bar and drink whiskey--and why not? We give our fictitious friends opportunities and experiences we often wish for ourselves.

I finished the program in 2011 (loved it, and will surely talk about it here more, sometime), taught English for several years after that, and I'm now working at a university as an academic advisor. I'm also striving to find any and all time available to feed my creative curiosities, roam the out of doors, and love on the people I adore.  I find myself wondering now, as I begin this blog, what is the reason for the telling here? What is my purpose, my aim, what's with my timing? I'm still considering the answers to these questions, but certainly one of my primary goals is connection: connection with other bloggers and writers, with readers, with new communities, and with my own thoughts--as often as I can get them down on the page. What a gift these spaces are to a writer, and I truly am thankful for a well-established venue in which to share.

Mostly I want in on the fun, and what better time to start than now?