Writings of Stefon Mears

I have very little experience with creative nonfiction.  Now that I have that alarmingly inaccurate sentence down, let me explain it.  I’ve read many books over the years that would be filed under creative nonfiction, if I organized my personal library that way.  Of course, I barely organize my personal library in the first place, so there’s little danger of that happening.

For that matter, I’ve written a respectable amount of creative nonfiction, in that I keep this blog on as regular a basis as I can (and I’ll be steadier once the semester begins, but I may take a break for the residency), I post intermittently in a private LiveJournal account, and spill thoughts and memories all over perfectly innocent paper on a purely random basis.

I have even taken an undergraduate level class through the U.C. Berkeley Extension, and enjoyed it a great deal.  Still, I feel as though I have very little experience with creative nonfiction, because I’ve read very little of it from the perspective of a writer.

Well, the new semester hasn’t started yet, but I can already feel that changing.  I’ve started on my reading assignments, and I noticed that all three of the selections in my Craft of Creative Nonfiction class had a common element: each told multiple stories that all related to an event-driven common theme.  For example, in only one chapter of Passage to Juneau I’ve learned more about commercial fishing, the Alaskan fishing run, its risks, the fishing community, and the American Indians native to the region (and their art) than I ever knew before*, and all of it related to the author fitting out his boat for a voyage.

Up until now, I had thought about writing essays and the like in terms of framing a given story, often with a goal of conveying a related idea, but it seems to me now that this showed me only the surface of what it should be doing, or at least what it could be doing.

I can’t say this surprises me, since I know that a given work of fiction will certainly contain more than a single story, but it is interesting to see what the other side of the coin looks like.

Hmm, if fiction and nonfiction are different sides of the same coin, where does that leave poetry?  On the edge, of course, binding the two together with its approach to expression.

*which, admittedly, was very little

One thing I like about the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts is that the students don’t follow cookie-cutter class schedules from semester to semester.  Between the electives and the flexibility of the requirements, there is broad room for customization.  People do generally take a heavier schedule early on to allow for more time spent on the thesis later, especially students who will try to complete the program in two years.

With this in mind, I have been shaping my plan to let me slowly focus more and more on my major and thesis.  This takes me almost entirely outside my genre next semester, as I will be taking both craft and workshop classes in nonfiction, and a directed reading in fantasy.  Now obviously fantasy is a subgenre of fiction, but in this case the class is oriented toward writing for children and young adults, as opposed to a more general look at fantasy fiction.

In other words, it is technically fiction, but according to the class list it doesn’t count towards the fiction major, so it’s still outside my genre.  If you kind of squint your eyes and look at it just right.*

As part of the program I am required to take a craft class and a workshop in a different genre, and those two classes don’t have to be part of the same major.  I could take craft of poetry and CYA workshop, if I wanted to.  I chose to take both in the nonfiction major because I could see myself continuing to write nonfiction throughout my life, and this may be my best opportunity to learn more about it.  I may try to squeeze in a craft class from one of the other two, if I can find the room in my schedule, because frankly, I could use them.

The course in fantasy may be an elective, but for me it might as well have been mandatory.  My bookshelves contain more fantasy than anything else (well, perhaps not more than folklore and mythology, but it’s close), so I could not possibly skip this class.

Of course, what worries me now is how many must-take classes I’m going to see on that schedule every semester.  I thought that hardest part of leaving, when that time comes, would be missing the people and the fun I have in the program.  It might just be accepting that I can’t take every class and moving on with my life.

Fortunately, I have plenty of time before it comes to that.

*All right, I’m teasing.  Children and Young Adult is a classification because it is a different approach to writing, with its own goals, styles and priorities.

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On the submission front, I have sent a short story (one written this past semester) to Realms of Fantasy.  Wish me luck!

Well, despite the sense of motivation I feel, I must say that my initial reaction on hitting my first real break has been to do nothing more complicated than relax and play.  I’ve taken a solid week off from anything very productive, and am considering continuing this way through Memorial Day, to make sure my perspective is fresh on return.

But the itch is there.  I may compromise and allow myself ten or fifteen minutes of freewriting a day, just to give myself the creative output without adding any requirements.  Soon, though, I will return to actual writing projects.

Not that I’ve been entirely inactive – I’ve submitted a short story to the LA Review and another to Soundings, and am heavily considering giving two more pieces a light once-over: one for a writing contest that only runs through the end of this month and the other for a major fantasy magazine (wish me luck!).

On the MFA front, now that my assignments are finished I have one more duty to my classes: evaluations.  I’ve never evaluated a class or professor before, so I m relying on my old standard approach: be honest and hope for the best.  In some ways, this will be very easy because I have had a fantastic time in these classes and I’ve learned a great deal, so I have many good things to say.  The downside is that I’m having trouble finding much to point out in the way of weaknesses and recommendations.

I’ve heard a couple of people wonder about the anonymity of these evaluations, but to me it seems like a silly question.  I’ve just spent six months with these people in classes of three and five students, talking casually and frequently in our online discussions – how could they possibly not know who will have which opinions?  To my, the question of anonymity misses the point.  The point is to provide us an opportunity to let them know three things: how much we got out of the class, what worked well for us, and what did not.  There rest is a matter of details.

Speaking of evaluations, I’ll be getting my own grades in the next week or two.  I think I did well in these classes, so I should come through all right.

This is getting a bit longer than I expected, so I’ll save talking about planning for the fall semester for my next post.  Sorry this one was late.  I blame it on post-semester indolence.

Time management becomes a trick in a low-residency program.  At the beginning of the semester I looked at my activities and wondered what would survive contact with my MFA program.  This is how it has played out, to date:

• Work:  Work continues unabated, which is important to maintaining the style of life to which I have become accustomed: fed, clothed, housed and able to cover bills.  I have snuck in a few minutes of homework here and there when things are slow, but no one seems to mind.
• Capoeira:  I’ve been able to keep up my schedule for both training and teaching, but I have gotten hurt a couple of times (right now I’m benched with a hand that is most likely sprained).  I suspect I’m not doing enough stretching on the off days.
• Gaming: I’ve continued running my once-a-month D&D campaign, and playing in two other once-a-month games.  4^th Edition has made this much easier for me, because the mechanics of preparing for the game take much less time than in previous editions.
• Other social gatherings:  Do occasional e-mails and text messages count?  I’d say this is the area that suffered the most cutbacks.  In the last few months I’ve been able to make it to a Rock Band gathering – my first – but that’s it.  Fortunately my wife and I have still found time each other.

All of these changes and considerations are, of course, to accommodate my class work.  I’m glad I love what I’m studying, because low-residency or not this is a real graduate program, complete with attendant workload.  I’ve done a pretty good job of maintaining my focus and getting as much out of each assignment as possible, but that may be one of the advantages of returning to school after working for several years: I know how to motivate myself.

I haven’t been perfect though.  I’m sure I could have read some of my assigned reading more closely.  I think I’ve made up for that a bit by working even harder on the assignments: everything I’ve turned in since the residency has been either completely new writing or a substantial revision of an existing piece, revised for that assignment.

My personal writing time has shrunk considerably.  I tried to fit it in early in the semester, but found I was getting too exhausted mentally to continue work on anything substantial.  I’ve fit in some time for flash fiction and short story writing, but I’ve held off working on the novel until the summer break.

This is actually as much for the good of the novel-in-progress as anything else.  I’ve been deep in the study of the craft of fiction, examining every tool in the writer’s toolbox from as many angles as possible.  It’s fantastic, but it also has me constantly re-thinking what I’ve written in light of this week’s topics.  This is great for my writing, but not conducive to working on a long form project.  Better to wait until the semester is over and I’ve had a chance to assimilate what I’ve learned.

I haven’t been idle though.  Here’s an example of how I am applying my studies so far.  Two years ago I wrote a short story that I liked.  I looked at it six months ago and knew something was wrong with it, but could not figure out what.  One month ago I reread it, saw why it didn’t work, and knew how to fix it.  My rewrite was well-received by my workshop group, and from their comments I can see one or two little things to change that would make it even better.  One more revision and I’ll see what I can do about getting it published.

I read reddit sometimes, one of those build-your-own-news sites where people discuss links to web pages that interest them.  It also has a system for self-posting, where people talk about themselves and their lives, and ask each other questions.

I was reading the comments made to a post about a person whose supposedly rehabilitated friend died of a heroin overdose.  The commentary ranged from sympathy for his loss to debate about heroin, and I developed the impression that a number of redditors, active members of the reddit community, either are currently or were previously addicted to opiates.

A quick search through the archives seemed to confirm this, at least anecdotally.  Reddit has had many posts about opiates, their usage, methods of quitting and their effectiveness, addiction generally, and question-and-answer sessions.  A few of these posts, and several of the discussions I read, were actually pro-opiate use.

Opiates scare the hell out of me.  I am not a drug-user.  Heck, I can still remember getting tested for allergies at Kaiser when I was a child.  Some of those little needle tests left small lumps on my forearm, but one or two left very large lumps.  My allergist pointed one of them out to me and said very clearly, “I want you to remember something.  This large lump here is hemp.  You are very allergic to hemp . . . and all related plants.”

It was years before I learned why he was so emphatic, but the echo of his warning kept me away from the drug scene.  Still, I went to college in Berkeley and I performed in live casts for The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  I’ve been around my share of drug-use.  I didn’t know anyone who personally admitted to using opiates, but I knew friend-of-a-friend stories that I found frightening.

How much truth was in those stories?  I have no idea.  For my purposes in this entry, it doesn’t matter.  I’m not here to debate whether using heroin, or any opiate, is a controllable pleasure or a death sentence.

My point is that I find the idea of opiate use scary.  Tales of the all-consuming craving for the drug that can develop, of the personal sacrifices that become more and more common as the addiction builds, terrify me.  More than that, I find the so-called positive side of the drug, a singular ecstasy so intense that beside it all other pleasures seem distant and tremulous, just as awful.  But I read those posts and comments in reddit, even when they discussed some details.  Why would I do that?  Some people slow down to look at accidents.  I don’t.  Some people get a vicarious thrill from the news.  I don’t.  But I read every one of those posts and comments.

So why was I doing it?  Through reflection I’ve been able to come up with a few reasons.  One is a simple curiosity.  These people are doing hideous things to themselves on a progressive, daily basis, and I can’t help but wonder what they get out of it, what their reasons are and what ways they justify or excuse their behavior.

There’s more to it than that, though, and I think this approaches some of the reasons I write.  Why I write is a topic deep enough for at least one post of its own, but part of the answer is to explore the human experience.  It would be easy for me to write about heroic characters whose stories need not touch on the disasters and horrors that can be found in real life.  Such stories certainly have their place, and I may tell a few of those now and again.  But that’s not all I want to write.

I’m not going to wax poetic about lofty goals and the role of art, or anything like that.  I simply want options.  Not every character has to save the world; some people have to face personal problems the like of which I never, ever want to experience.  To write about those people, much less to do it well, I need to understand them.  It doesn’t matter if they are politicians, fighter pilots, or heroin junkies.

Does this mean I want to write about a heroin junkie?  Not necessarily, although I won’t rule it out.  But addiction, compulsion and self-destructive behavior have been around as long as there have been people.  If I can understand this behavior, I can create deeper, more realistic characters and more involving fiction.  Everything a writer sees, hears, smells, tastes, touches and reads can be drawn on for writing material.  The broader the scope, the broader the potential subjects.

But there are many things to read in this world, many ways to expand one’s available resources.  Why read something disturbing?  Because anything that affects one emotionally also provides a clue about how to affect a reader.  That’s worth studying on its own.