Essays: More Formal Scribblings of a Future Essayist

I'm in my first "upper division" English class here at school. I'm really excited. It's called "The Art of the Essay." It's taught by a really brilliant woman. I'm in love. Allow me to explain.

I've been fascinated by essays and essay writing since last fall, when I took a personal essay class and wrote some really, really good stuff. I wrote things I'm really proud of as a student and as a budding writer in her own right. Now I'm taking a class that focuses solely on the essay as a form, and its rich history and its uses today and what all of that means. I'm unbelievably stoked. SO, I've added a new page! The page, as you can see, is called ESSAYS: More Formal Scribblings of a Future Essayist. I may shorten it. I have yet to decide. Anyway, each week she assigns an in-class writing assignment, so I will be posting them as regular blog posts, but if you miss one or want to go back (because I have so many avid readers and fans, right?) I'll also post them on the PAGE for essays. Aren't I smart? Yeah, yeah, shut up, Willow, I know.

So here's the first one. It was in response to an essay by Carlos Fuentes entitled "How I Started to Write," and I highly suggest reading it. At least part of it. He's not my favorite person since I'm not a fan of his personality, but his writing intrigues me. I hope you feel the same. Someday soon. We'll see. Cheers...


from: Art of the Essay

response to "How I Started to Write," by Carlos Fuentes 9/01/2010

Carlos Fuentes has a unique, yet definitive sense of self. When he finally figures himself out - a Mexican nationalist with a certain sense of justice - he then tries to make sense of what that means to him as he tries to identify himself as a writer. It happens when he is 14, in Chile, and realizes that his 400 page opus searches for a language that he finds his own. He realizes his urgent need to be a Spanish writer (linguistically, not ethnically. More on that later.).
His sense of self is strongly political, ethnocentric, and geographical. But he also beautifully identifies himself as a writer. He writes in Spanish. He writes as a Latino. He writes critically, with a situational-awareness I admire. He writes himself in a way that makes me want to keep reading.

My own sense of self is both definite and ambiguous, and certainly contradictory. I am at once childish and old for my years. Equally amused by make-believe and tea parties as I am by spending an evening in with a good book and my knitting. I work in the ever-advancing field of advertising - using new forms of technology every day - but do my own writing by hand or on my 1947 typewriter. My sense of self is heavily dependent on my sense of what I do. I am a passionate student. I am a writer. I am a reader. I am a reader who writes.
The writing I want to do is varied. I want to write children's books, chapter books, elementary fantasy, young adult fiction, memoir, poetry, music lyrics, essays, non-fiction researched works that combine personal anecdote with facts and my own observations. Specific to [The Art of the Essay, ENGL 463], I want to develop my voice as an author. Distinct from tone, I feel, which is dependent on content, but my way of phrasing, my kind of topics, my kind of words that speak and echo and mean more than they appear.

Love all, trust few, do wrong to no one. ~ William Shakespeare

~Willow

Judy Moody: Puttin' Glendora in a Mood, Pt. 2

SO. To finally conclude my thoughts on Judy Moody taking over my hometown, the first two days were rather uneventful. HOWEVER. Days 3 & 4 were much more exciting.

Early morning of day 3, I got to work early (mostly just to find a parking space, secondly to scope out the set - I'm curious, not a stalker. Promise.) and explored a little. I talked to one of their security guys, and apparently I was missing out because MEGAN MACDONALD WAS IN MY SHOP!!! (Again, it's not really mine so much as my place of work, but I feel a sense of pride and ownership sometimes. Get over it.)

So, I ran in, tried to be cool about it, and there she was, standing next to my boss chatting like they were old buddies. She doesn't look like I expected, for starters. She was a little older than I expected, and wore glasses and had curly, slightly frizzy hair. She reminded me a bit of Mrs. Frizzle from Magic Schoolbus. To give you an idea. But a completely different body type. If that makes sense. Her husband was there, as well, and introductions were made. I have to admit, I was a little shy (to those that don't know me IRL, I am NOT shy), not because I was afraid or intimidated, but because I have this thing about meeting famous people that I don't want to make them feel self-conscious or more important than they are. I guess it has to do with getting a vibe that they want to be treated normally, and are just as excited as we are about things, so I try not to treat them like the Queen but rather like special guests from a foreign country who you want to feel comfortable instead of awkward. That was a really long sentence, I apologize.

Anyway, she shook my hand, and we exchanged pleasantries, and then I mostly continued opening the store as normal, turning on lights, speaking when spoken to, commenting on the book and otherwise keeping my mouth shut for fear of babbling like a baboon who wants her manuscript published. Ms. MacDonald was a very pleasant woman who seemed excited to be visiting, and promised to come back and sign our books for sale, which was exciting, but was needed on set.

Shortly thereafter, a small ginger kid was seen bopping around outside wearing the most ridiculously mismatched outfit I've ever seen. Yet it worked. She was wearing a blue shirt and brown shorts and blue-and-green striped knee-high socks and penny loafers. Did I mention she has bright red hair and an Australian accent? Meet Jordana Beatty, the 9 year old Australian bookworm who was cast to play the lead as Judy Moody herself. Unfortunately, I did not get to meet her myself.

Shortly after that, a small boy with blond, spiky hair came buzzing into the store with several adults tailing after them, wearing a t-shirt with bugs on it and khaki pants and asked me if I had any Star Wars books. Guessing at who he was, I led him over, and pointed out some promising titles. Then he turned to me and said, "I'm Parris, by the way. Or Stink. I like both names." I laughed, shook his hand, and then met his mother and several handlers. He seemed like a super nice little kid, and offered to sign all of our books as well. As himself. It was pretty entertaining.

After that, BlueChair became the regular hangout for some key members of the cast, specifically the kids. They were all completely polite and really sweet, not to mention fun to be around. Ms. MacDonald eventually came around and signed all of our books for us, and overall we were pretty busy pulling books and helping various members of the crew find things for their children and other small relatives. I found it very interesting that next to no one on the crew had read the books or even knew the film was an adaptation of a children's series. Disappointing and surprising and generally a bit disturbing. But maybe that's just this bookworm's perspective.

The next day the crew got a really late start, and the temperature climbed even higher (passing sweltering and going straight to Saharan), and the kids (Jordana and Parris, especially) spent almost all their time off-set in the store. Unfortunately, I worked night-shift that day so I missed the afternoon excitement, but instead got the evening surprise.

Zombies. Is that what you think when you think children's movie? Me neither. Yet zombies we had, and copious amounts of them, too. No, they didn't use any locals (that I know of, though they should have and I believe perhaps intended to), but they used our streets. I was very surprised to see quite a few really well made-up zombies hanging out outside the store once the sun started going down, and took up a stake-out position across the street as soon as I closed. I still don't know what the zombie portion of the film is about, only that there is a part in the Judy Moody movie that features the making of a zombie film. A movie within the movie, if you will.

And then they were gone. The next day (Friday), all that was left was clean-up, and they did it rather quickly. The cameras were packed up, the giant lights were shipped off, and the painting and sidewalk chalk was washed away or put back to its original condition. And life went back to normal. Didn't it?

Some people have asked me if my tiny town was changed by this event. I don't think it really was. We were starstruck, to be sure, and a little dazzled by the fact that a very large film was shot in part in our humble village, but we're the same people. We're still quaint, we're still tiny, and the only changes we expect is that they'll be back next summer to film the sequel.


And that's all this reporter has to say. So. What's your mood on the matter?

Love all, trust few, do wrong to no one. ~ William Shakespeare

~Willow

Judy Moody: Puttin' Glendora in the Mood, Pt. 1

I'm honestly not in the world's greatest mindset to be writing this, so bear that in mind, dear Dorothy, as you proceed.

So Monday and Tuesday (today) were more set-up days than anything, but I figure they're worth documenting. So some back-story is in order.

About a month ago, a rather intriguing character walked into the store. She had long, straight blonde hair (obvious dye job, but not in a tacky way), wore waaaaay too many bracelets (also not in a tacky way), and was in purple from head to toe (totally not tacky. In fact, my kind of woman if I was inclined in that direction.). Basically, the moment I set eyes on her I knew she was different. She walked right up to me and said, "I need to talk to the owner or someone in charge." This was, of course, the week my boss was on vacation and had left me in charge as the "manager" for the week and I was already feeling a little overwhelmed. Nevertheless, I spoke up and said, "Well, I'm the manager, how can I help you?"

"Well, I'm a location scout for the film Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer, and I need to get your signature that you're cool with us being out there kinda taking over your sidewalk."

I wasn't okay with that, at all, but after she explained what was going on, I was pretty excited. They were going to be filming at the pet shop next door, and the restaurant, also next door, and at the pizza shop by the coffee place across the street. We'd be smushed in the middle. Yes, smushed. Smooshed. You get it.

OH. For those of you who don't work in children's bookstores, Judy Moody is a series of what we call Young Reader-Chapter Books. They're a little more advanced than young reader books (Magic Treehouse and I Can Read books like Dick & Jane), but not as full-on as grade school chapter books, such as the Ramona books or anything by Roald Dahl. Judy's a third grade girl with an irritating but adorable little brother, Stink, who has a series of misadventures through the course of the series. Stink has his own spin-off series, and the appeal is that Judy is precocious without being snotty, and realistic without being trite. "There's no mood Judy can't improve" the books say. It's almost true.

Anyway, so she said they were making a movie and would we mind if they spilled over in front of us equipment-wise and such. I called the boss, she was thrilled and said we'd be as cooperative as possible. So I signed. And we were.

They moved in on my quaint little town yesterday. They were trimming the gumdrop trees and flying American flags and there was an air of chaos, confusion, and excitement. It was just the crew though. And everyone asked me and then people started coming to me like I was the expert on what was going on. Seriously. I wanted to tell half of them to go bug the petstore lady! After all, she was the one getting her entire shop facade redone and painted and made-over. Not me. Oh well.

And then on Tuesday, the crew showed up and started stringing out power strips and extension cords and massive lamps that burned really hot and bright (it was already nearing the 100s, too). They had a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff.

That's all for now, I think. Thursday night I'll post more, when I'm sure there'll be more excitement.

Love all, trust few, do wrong to no one. ~ William Shakespeare

~Willow

Small Town Characters

I work and (sometimes) live in a small town. You've probably never heard of it unless you also call it "home." But, like all small towns, we have some small-towny things that often turn into stereotypes.

We have a million "mom&pop" shops. Technically, I work in one. Scary, I know. Antique stores, one-of-a-kind restaurants, novelty shops, places full of really random collectibles, an ice cream place, a pet store, nail and hair salons where all the old biddies in town gather to gossip and where the high school homecoming queen gets all done up for her big night - it's all here. The downtown area, especially.

But what I think makes small towns special are the characters that inhabit them. Think back to The Andy Griffith Show, where you had the sheriff, the deputy, the village idiot, the millions of mom&pop shops, the Boy Scouts, and Aunt Mae. When walking down the street, everybody knows everybody. It's actually a little scary. There are more elementary schools and churches than stop signs and lights combined, and there might be 1 bar within the city limits. It's still an article of contention between the neighboring towns and our own. Not even kidding.

But back to characters. I'm a writer, and as such I have a couple tenets in my writing I tend to focus on. Primarily, I tend to focus and emphasize characters, relationships, and character development. So, naturally, every person I see is a character. There are people I see every day, like my family and my boss, the people I only see at work, the people I only see at school, and the people I've only ever observed but never really talked to. I don't feel like delving into the categories specifically, but I will go over some highlights for you.

Since my family is a blog entry unto itself, I'm going straight for the people that tend to walk by my place of work whom I often watch through the windows as they pass. (Trust me, the grammar in the previous sentence is impeccable.)

One of my favorites is a man named Dean. He's in his late 60s, and stoops a bit even though he's really tall. He's got longish white hair and a long white beard, a deep voice and a standard uniform of Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts and athletic shoes. According to my sources, he's something of a Jack of All Trades. He worked primarily as an artist for a long time, then got into writing for school-age kids, started a few businesses, and even owned the local castle! (More on that later.) Now he owns the Pirate House up the street (no really, it's a house designed to look like a ship from the outside, and is decorated with pirates at Halloween. It's amazing.) and spends most of his days with a group of about half a dozen other men his age and type sitting at the restaurant next door drinking white wine and reading newspapers. They make the rounds around the Village, stopping at every restaurant in the neighborhood over the course of the week. Keep in mind, these are rich old men. Nice, rich, old men. Something like that. But every time he walks by the shop, I find myself wondering what he's thinking, what goes through his mind when he passes my window, what he's really doing staring off into space with a wine glass in his hand. Things I wonder...

Then there's Ate (AH-tay), our window washer. He plays guitar and I think really wanted to be a rockstar but grew up to be a window washer instead. It's funny and sad how strange the hand Life deals us can be. Ate has an opinion about almost everything, from the weather to spirituality to my taste in movies. Politics never come up. I have suspicions but no definite answers about that where he's concerned. It doesn't really matter, anyway. But he always smiles and waves at me when I pass him on the street and notices when we've used Windex on the never-ending stream of fingerprints our windows suffer. Really, I don't think he minds being a window washer. I mean that in the way that I wouldn't mind being a window washer. As in, he knows everybody, everyone likes him a lot, and he has interesting relationships with everyone he meets. He's in the prime occupation for a people-watcher, dealing with windows all the time.

Of course there's the whole gang at Classic, the coffee shop I'm in love with. No really, I'm gonna marry it someday. They're mostly college students, trying to make a living. It's funny to watch through the seasons who the seasonal ones are and who actually lives and goes to school here. They're all great, though. And know my drink by heart. That's a major plus to them.

There are other odds and ends, of course. One of the gals at the restaurant next door, Colleen, drives a convertible, dark blue VW Beetle and sometimes gives me free Dr. Pepper (in exchange for cupcakes). The ladies at the pet shop are mother and daughter, and the grandson of the owner comes in and plays sometimes. Chip, the Village Cat, lives there and basically owns the entire street of "Downtown." And, for some reason, I mistakenly called her "Merlin" for years. I have no idea why. The FedEx guy and the mailman are both really cool, but our UPS guy is usually different. Once, someone even tried to deliver dog treats to us and almost didn't believe me when I told him we were a bookstore and the pet shop was two doors down. Crazy...

We have a little stationary store down the street, too, with a post office annex in the back, where a little old man will take your packages and stamp them in front of you, and then walk you out to hold the door open, even if you're only carrying your purse. Of course, the streets are crawling with unsupervised preteens, wreaking havoc on scooters and skateboards. But what else is new? I know most of them by name, and if I don't, I know their parents. That's the kind of small town I'm talking about. More often than not, though, I know a kid's name but have no idea who his/her parents are. I'm affectionately known as "the bookstore girl" while my boss is the beloved "bookstore lady." No lie. We're full on You've Got Mail here, and we're all characters.

And I wouldn't have it any other way.

At least, not until Tom Hanks decides to come and sponsor us personally because we're just as cute as The Shop Around the Corner....

Love all, trust few, do wrong to no one. ~ William Shakespeare

--Willow

Diners, Dives, and Late-Night Food Fiends

Sorry for the excessive alliteration in the subject, but it made me laugh.

But yes! So about two weeks ago, I was down in San Clemente with my bestie, Miss Victoria. When I visit her, we've taken to visiting a certain restaurant called Harbor House. Harbor House is one of those quirky, one-of-a-kind places that's open 24/7, and all available wall space is covered with old movie posters and framed (sometimes signed!) pictures of old movie stars. You know, the good ones. You can get anything on the menu at any time - you want pancakes with a side of french fries and a chocolate malt at 4am? They'll do it. It's one of those places. It's popular with high school kids after football games on Friday nights, or on Saturdays at 1am after Prom. It's one of those places that families go to on Sundays after church, or where college kids go get coffee and omelets on Monday mornings with dear old friends.

I'm not sure when I became part of the latter instead of the former.

Everyone should have one of these places.

For me, it's been Denny's. I know, soooooo original, right? But it's really the only place in/around town that is open 24 hours and lets dumbass broke college kids dominate a booth for 6 hours when we order nothing but 2 cups of coffee and fries. It's not as original as Harbor House, but it's the 50's diner "shiny Denny's," which makes up for its otherwise distinct lack of originality.

Then there's Jerry's. It's a hip - rather pricey! - and delicious 24-hour restaurant that has great food, a great atmosphere, and is usually a prime star-stalking ground for the "Are Youuuuuuuu Famous!?" crowd. (You know who you are.) Jerry's is great if you had a free movie ticket and have extra money for food afterwords. It's also good for sharing the enormous desserts they have. Don't bother with coffee here - go straight for real food. It's good, but like I said - on the expensive side. Still, with 6 or more friends sharing a table and food and generally having a great time, it's a blast.

We need these places. We desperately need these kinds of places where we can just run away at 3 in the morning and have a cup of crappy coffee and just be somewhere other than where you used to be. If that makes sense. We need these places where we can write songs with roommates, take pictures with boyfriends, celebrate the end of a show with theater friends, and celebrate missed birthdays and all-nighters in the summertime. Maybe I'm blowing a tiny, tiny subset of a subculture out of proportion and making it a bigger thing than it actually is. Maybe I'm not. Maybe it's something we all need at certain times in our lives, and then grow out of, or back into. Or maybe we just come to them when we need them, and float on by the next day like nothing ever happened at all. Maybe.

Starstruck

Like so many, many other people across the globe last night, I stayed up 'til an ungodly hour to watch space rocks fall through our atmosphere. No, really, Lisey (roomie) and I went out to Drollinger Field (the one on top of Drollinger Parking Structure, where rugby and soccer hotties practice) at about 1 o'clock in the morning to see the Leonid Meteor Shower. We knew it wouldn't really peak until 3:30/4am, but we figured we'd go out early, see what there was to see, and then nap until about 3:30 and go out and see the rest until 4:30.

We bundled up in layers of jackets and boots and took towels and blankets. There were already a bunch of people out, waiting, and we laid down and got cozy and waited. Of course the sprinklers hit us so we had to move, but once we settled in again, we saw a couple of faint streaks until the most amazing thing happened. The first of the big ones. It was like a fireball falling from the heavens. Very few things in my life have ever made me weak in the knees, but that did. It was huge, and left a long, sparkling trail across the sky, and lit up the world like fireworks at Disneyland. The whole even only lasted about 3 seconds, but it was brilliant and moving and completely sublime.

It was a really awesome moment. We saw one other, slightly smaller, bright flying star, but then we decided to go in because we had waited about 10 more minutes and nothing happened, and said we'd go back out at about 3:30. I went to sleep and was so unconscious that Lisey couldn't wake me up, so I'm kicking myself that I didn't get to see the rest of it, but there's always next year. Maybe the western US will be in a better position for some 200-300/hr. action like Asia was this year. Never know.

Letters

I've been thinking about letters lately. Specifically, why more people don't write them. Letters have been used for centuries as a vital form of communication, and I think it's tragic that it's considered "special" or "exciting" to get something other than junk, bills, or magazines in the mail. Maybe it's because I'm a writer-type. Or because I have a boyfriend who loves me. Or because my friends understand how crazy-obsessive I can be. But I've been writing letters for a long, long time. I like timeless things. The kinds of things that never really go out of style, that can never be successfully modernized. Things like music - we will never not need it. Or the holiday season. A good love story. And the fact that a good love story almost always includes some letter writing.

The great writers and lovers in history wrote letters. Romeo and Juliet (as much as it pains me to call them "great lovers in history," but still) wrote to each other. Abelard and Heloise wrote some truly beautiful, passionate letters to each other. Songs about love feature letters, like Jason Reeves' "Old-Fashioned Letters," which opens with the words, "You still write me old-fashioned letters/ put your perfume on the pages..." America's Founding Fathers wrote to each other constantly regarding the American Revolution, and later, Southern plantation owners wrote to each other - confidentially, of course - about their concerns about the morality of slavery. Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, William Shakespeare, Edmund Burke, Charlotte Smith - great literary figures! - all great letter writers.

Perhaps it really is because I'm in a long-distance romantic relationship. Robert and I write to each other, and while I can't speak for him, I know my heart beats faster while I'm twirling the combination of my campus mailbox to get it open. It sinks a bit when that box is empty but oh, how it pounds when I find one of those perfect cream-colored envelopes waiting for me! How could I not race up the stairs and across the bridge, past the apartments and the library and the field to my room to rip it open and read it no less than fifty times? How could I not put off homework and other commitments to compose a reply and put it with the next batch of outgoing mail?

I'm not saying that there's some major outpouring of love, tenderness, affection, and mushiness with each letter. That would be beyond ridiculous. No, many of our letters are merely reflections on what's going on in our daily lives, sharing things that somehow get left out of conversations on the phone. This is not to say that we don't dissolve into the miscellaneous "I love you"s and all that stuff. We do. But our letters are no less perfect for not being exclusively full of those phrases. There's something inherently sweet about someone taking time to sit down, pull out a nice piece of paper and a pen, and sit and put their thoughts in words. The act of writing is going out of style. You have to choose your words carefully to fit on the page, to be careful about making mistakes because there is no "backspace" with pen and paper. Then you have to put a stamp (worth 41 cents these days!) on it, effectively paying someone to carry it for you, when e-mail is cheaper. Then the waiting. Not only for them to receive your letter - which can take up to 4 days for national mail, up to a week for international - but also for them to sit and write back to you, and put it in the mail and for their letter to reach you can be another 2 - 8 days. This whole process can take 2 weeks if your pen-pal is a slow responder.

But I think it's worth it. I would gladly wait that extra week for written words from a friend or lover than an hour or two for them to respond to an e-mail or message on my wall on Facebook. Knowing they put a little more into it, a little more of themselves, a little more thought of me, a little more dedication to our relationship, makes it more than worth it.

So I challenge you. Think of a friend from high school or college that you haven't talked to lately. Think of your great-aunt Gladys who got you a sweater you now love for your birthday last spring. (I would talk about the greatness of "thank you" notes, but that's another topic entirely, and I don't want to get into preachy manners at this point.) Think about your best friend who's in college across the country. Grab a pretty piece of paper, an envelope, a stamp, and a pen (this whole process might cost you a dollar - same as a soda at a vending machine), and write them a quick little note saying hi, what you've been up to, what the weather's like, what random thing your dog ate last week - and make sure to ask how they're doing! - fold it up, stuff it in the envelope, lick it (sorry, this tends to not taste so great), slap a stamp, an address, and a return address just in case, and send it in the mail with a kiss and your best wishes.

May you have many wonderful letters to come.

More later - have to study!

Love all, trust few, do wrong to no one. ~ William Shakespeare

~ Willow