THE WORKSHOP

...But jazz to me is one of the inherent expressions of Negro life in America: the eternal tom-tom beating in the Negro soul--the tom-tom of revolt against weariness in a white world, a world of subway trains and work, work, work; the tom-tom of joy and laughter, and pain swallowed in a smile. Yet the Philadelphia clubwoman is ashamed to say that her race created it and she does not like me to write about it. The old subconscious "white is best" runs through her mind. Years of study under white teachers, a lifetime of white books, pictures and papers, and white manners, morals, and Puritan standards made her dislike the spirituals. And now she turns up her nose at jazz and all its manifestations---likewise almost everything else distinctly racial.....

....An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose....

....We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad, If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves..... Langston Hughes, The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.



They say that every lover leaves you with something. That no matter how bad the relationship was, there is some good to be found. And conversely, no matter how good the relationship was, there was some sign there of something not quite right. I believe this to be true about all things, all experiences. There is something good in every experience. We just have to seek and be open to finding it. And the good is not always of grand proportion. Sometimes, the good takes longer to find.

Last year when I went to Iowa I was on fire. A well published friend of mine encouraged me to take the Showing vs. Telling: The Effective Use of Detail. She said the instructor was great and that the knowledge she gained changed her writing altogether. Let me tell you why I went. I went because I know that most first novels fail for one of two reasons: it's either a poorly conceived story or the author lacks knowledge of the craft of fiction writing. Both situations can be cured. The first time author can learn what it takes to be a storyteller. The first time author can learn how to write fiction. The former requires freeing of the imagination. The latter requires serious work and commitment. Let's look at craft. What literary devices are necessary in the writing of good fiction? Well, in my opinion, an author must, MUST, master three things if she is to write a good novel: 1) dialogue, 2) showing vs. telling, and 3) point of view. Point of view and the showing are the two main things that make most first novels fail or win. Think about when you read a good book. You are engaged in the story and you move through the story through one person's point of view. You grow, fail, cry, weep with one charachter (or another). This is what you want. You don't want to want to be in and out of every person's head in the book. You don't want to be in the middle of the scene, seeing the scene through John's eyes, then all of a sudden, without warning, the narrative slips to Mary's eyes. And without fail, most, MOST, first time writers do it unconciously which is a red flag that screams: AMATEUR.

So, I went to Iowa last year knowing that I wanted to know how to write that lyrical, descriptive type of prose that pulls you so far in that you cannot even remember that the stove is on high and there's no water in that pot of rice that's about to burn the whole house down. I wanted to know. And I found out. I came back from Iowa in absolute awe, not only of my instructor, but of the work I'd been able to transform after the workshop. I sung praises of Iowa and vowed to return every year for the rest of my life. I'd found a secret lover.

I went back this year again, this time for mastery of Point of View (POV). I knew what was happening in my narrative and I didn't know how to control it. I knew that I wanted an Omniscient, God-like, see-all narrator but I knew that I didn't want to carry that througout the whole novel. I needed to examine the rules of POV and juxtapose them with my novel to see what I did and didn't want to change and how I would change what wasn't working. I also wanted to examine those rules and see how far I wanted to bend them.

You see, in my mind, what is art if it's not about bending the rules? If it's not about questioning those things around us and within us? How does life move forward if we are always sticking to what we know? And that's why I gravely disagree with that dictum to "write what you know." How boring is that, for the writer and the reader? But that's a topic for another day.

So when I get there, I find my instructor this time to be the author of five novels and holder of an MFA from the University of Iowa, which by the way boasts one of the best writing programs in the country. I have some serious opinons about MFA holders but I was willing to give this one a chance. And she more or less proved everything I'd ever thought.

As is not uncommon to me, I was the only black person in the room for the whole weekend. For some reason, I can always count on one hand the number of blacks out there and most times they are already published. Perhaps it's the cost, I don't know. Maybe it's the location. But I'm always ready to be the Lone Star. What bothered me most about this instructor (aside from her sloppy notes, typed in a size 9 font), was the fact that she was well read within the narrow confines of her own race, which bothers me a great deal. I am always bothered by people who don't read black, hispanic, carribean, portuguese, female or other writers. Why? Because it is an immediate flag to me that you have a very narrow sense of being. How, in this day and age, can you feel comfortable reading the work of only one race or nationality of people? How can you feel comfortable knowing only one language? Listening only to your 95.5 KISS FM? Aren't you aware that there is a whole world outside of your Anytown, USA? How can you only watch network TV? If you are to give yourself any present at all come Christmas time, wouldn't it be a subscription to satellite so you can gain access to World Link, the Discovery channel, CBC (Canadian Broadcasting) ?? And I am equally apprehensive to study under anyone who chooses NOT to expand their reading horizons; whose choice of reading is always some version of what is deemed to have "literary value," (read: what white intelligensia says is good enough).

Disclaimer: I am not advocating or suggesting the reading of junk. I am not advocating any commitment to finishing junk once you identify it is junk. What I am saying is, there is GOOD stuff out there written by a multitude of GOOD writers who happen to come in all shapes, shades, and sizes. And since I am a very discriminating reader, I very rarely even make suggestions of books to read or buy because I know I don't read junk or listen to junk.

The other thing is, I don't read literary criticism. Why? Well, I can only repeat what Martin Lawrence once said about why he doesn't read reviews of his movies.

"What is a critic? A critic is somebody who can't do what you do, so they spend their time and energy criticizing what you do to put food on their table and keep the *!*4# bills paid."

So you can understand the energy in this room when this MFA holder reads my manuscript and immediately says that what I'm doing won't work, that it violates the rules. Whose rules? Her rules.

Imagine a camera, with the ability to zoom in and zoom out and shift the focus around the room. Okay. Point of view is like a camera. You decide whose eyes you're going to allow the reader to see through AND you decide the distance you want the reader. You either want them close in, which for example would be: "John stood in his kitchen slicing the apples," or far away, "In the whole state of Chicago there were few men that knew what they were doing. Few like John, who knew that the only thing to do on that blustery, cold day was to grab a knife and start slicing the apples." Or, you can get really, really close and bring the reader all the way inside a charachter's head, which would read, "Damn, that Pearl. Should of never followed her to Chicago." This is called Interior Monologue.

What I've done, in the very first scene of my novel, is I have gone all the way inside my charachter's head and give four lines of interior monologue. Mine is the story of a man who embezzles money from the federal government only to find himself at the center of an organized crime ring he can't get out of. He embezzles the money not for financial reasons but personal reasons (charachter flaws) and later we see him forced to confront his weaknesses which invokes personal change / personal transformation. I open the story right in the action.

She says, No...no...no. She says there's no way she wants to go that far into someone's head without knowing who this person is, where they are, etc. I say, you need to read the next paragraph. She says, it won't work. It's got to come first. She says, in movies no camera ever goes that far in; you always get some story before hand. I say, bull-crap. I ask, have you ever seen Speed? or Heat? Heat opens up with a heist. You have no idea who these six men are, what led them to the heist, who they're working for, etc. etc. You just have to wait and be drawn into the story. She wants Steel Magnolias: a flowery setting, language and build up. I say, you only have two pages to work with when you're asking a browsing consumer to buy your book. Three pages. If the first three pages are not captivating, a browser moves to the next author in the alphabet. I know, because I'm one of them. She also did not like Lovely Bones (thought the hype was unwarranted) and when we talked about first person, present tense narratives and I gave Stephen Carter (Emperor of Ocean Park) as an example --- mind you, this black male got a four million dollar book deal for this and another book, according to my copy of Publisher's Weekly --- she says, well he's just a lawyer who wrote a book.

Excuse me? Hell, give me the law degree and the four million, I don't care.

Well. Let's just say that we did not see eye to eye. And lastly, when talking about craft and inspiration, a white woman next to me quoted James Baldwin who said, "You don't get the book you want, you get the book you get," meaning you have to allow yourself to write the story as it is, not as you think it should be, the instructor totally dismissed this woman and brought up some non-applicable quote by Gore Vidal.

So after the first day, I left feeling so dejected. So alone. So misunderstood. I called Spouse who reminded me of all the other stuff I've published and written. He reminded me that opinions are like assholes, everyone's got one. He reminded me that I have talent and with commitment I'll be okay. He reminded me that I was there to learn point of view, not fall in love with her. He reminded me that most literary types only see value in their own limited selves and to try to bring their minds out of that is an exercise in futility. A few of my classmates, who'd read the piece I brought, pulled me over and said, "Angel, your opening is really, really strong. I feel like I want to read more. It's really good and I don't think you should change one word." Another said to me, "You are really, really good." I thought of all my Earth angels who'd read this opening too, who offered critiques here and there and helped make it as good as it is. I felt moderately better, but I still headed down to the cafe for a margarita after the class was over.

Outside, I went on a stroll and walked into a bookstore. I yearned for my ancestors: Langston, Zora, June Jordan. I wanted them and if I could have invoked their spirits to join me back in my room for a discussion about what's really wrong in the arts community, I would have. I yearned for them and searched the shelves for them. I found, Their Eyes Were Watching God and The Ways of White Folks. Two copies, one of each. Isn't that just great? In a whole store of books, one copy of each and both had stickers placed over the publisher's price. The prices had been inflated by the store owners by two dollars apiece. I was even more insulted.

I wandered further down the road and for some reason the title of a new CD I'd been wanting came to me. The name is Salt and the songstress is Lizz Wright. When I turned the CD over and read the lyrics I knew that God had been with me; that all those feelings of rejection, misunderstanding, were just feelings. All those thoughts that crept in "Maybe she's right, maybe I need to change this whole thing; Maybe I don't know what I'm doing," were just thoughts. It became clear to me, as if someone had spoken it into my ear: Girl, you don't change a thing. You've got it right. It's right because you know it's right and you will know when it's wrong."

These are the lyrics:

How can you lose your song
When you've sung it so long
How can you forget your dance
When that dance is all you've ever had
It must be true
You can't separate the two
It's impossible to do
Just like the salt that's in the stew
It's all a part of you
One thing that life can't do
It can't take your song from you.


As I raced back to my room, my ancestors seemed to flood my mind.

Gwendolyn Brooks: "My last defense, is the present tense."

and Alice Walker, my elder: "I work for the ancestors."

and they reminded me, like Langston above, what it means to be a Black artist, a Black female artist in this society. And they reminded me of what they have had to endure and what I will have to endure, if I'm to leave any lasting impression in the world. They reminded me that it is my duty to tell a good story, but it is my right to tell it in the way that I see fit. They reminded me that they are still here with open arms, constantly cheering for me, to keep coming.....keep coming.....keep coming, like a mother reaching to her baby whose standing and stepping for the first time.....they invited me to step into their footprints when I've lost my way and to always remember that I am not alone in my pursuit of art, in my pursuit of life, in my pursuit of truth.

Until next time,

Be well. Be Love(d).

ANGEL

PS: The remainder of the conference went well, after my talk with Zora and Langston, and the notes I brought home, coupled with the notes that last year's instructor snuck to me (notes on POV) finally made sense. I see where I'm going and what I need to do. And I can honestly say, it was really worth the time for more reasons than one. Oh, and lastly, if it means anything at all, the MFA lady self-published those five novels on Xilibris.com, which proves my whole belief about $40,000 MFA programs: they are no guarantee. It still comes down to you, your imagination and the page. And ancestors like mine.

Peace y'all.