Dinty Moore, the editor of Brevity Magazine, posted this quote—taken from an AWP panel—on Facebook this morning: "Your prose begins at the first moment you startle yourself."
The post above his on my page read, "I love, love, love my dusting mitt. Thanks Norwex!"
The post below it read, "You don't know what you've got til it's gone. For instance, toilet paper."
So you understand why it stood out.
That, and because when I read it, my mind flashed to my pantry.
It's 2008 and I'm standing in my kitchen, opening my pantry to look for—what? dinner? a snack? a boredom cure?—and I see the box of strawberry Fruit Roll-Ups on the bottom shelf, there between the green ceramic canister of flour and the box of Honey Bunches of Oats, and I think, "Fruit Roll-Ups remind me of Steve Parker."
Fruit Roll-Ups remind me of Steve Parker.
Fruit Roll-Ups remind me of Steve Parker.
I dash from the pantry, the door left hanging open, and root around in the junk drawer—the drawer we call "the drawer under the microwave," even though the microwave hasn't been there for five years—for a pen and a notebook, and I scratch, "Fruit Roll-Ups remind me of Steve Parker" across its face.
Two, three hours later, I'm still scratching. Only now I've pulled out the laptop, and I'm sitting at the kitchen table, outright ignoring my children as they destroy the house around me, and I fill a blank canvas with 15 pages of stories about my blue polyester Galaxy Twin Theater uniform, and his white '66 Mustang, and an iridescent green prom dress. And I write about making out on country roads after dark, and a hastily wrapped gift, and how I stopped at the grocery store every night after work to see his toothpaste-commercial smile, until I what I'm really writing about—small towns and big ideas and teenage regret—surfaces.
And I can't stop. Even though there's dinner to make and calls to return and life—real life, today's life—to live.
Nearly a month earlier, I'd submitted my first-ever semester packet to Vermont College of Fine Arts, where I was a new creative writing MFA student. That packet consisted of a newspaper column I'd written months earlier and an airy essay on whether I wanted to get pregnant again.
The resulting advisor comment that most sticks in my head is, "I don't know what to do with this."
Which is always heartening.
Except not.
I froze. I was certain that I was, actually, a shitty, shitty writer and no one had dared tell me. I was rocked by the realization that I still had two years of this MFA program ahead of me and nothing to say--a feeling I then confirmed every day that I sat down to write my next packet, only to get back up again, empty handed.
And then, one day, I opened the pantry door and found inspiration in a box of Fruit Roll-Ups. And I found the understanding that writing is a little bit magic, or it requires a little bit of magic, or maybe it just feels like magic when it's right.
And, yes, that was startling.
* And, no, Steve Parker isn't his real name. But this is the Internet, people, and wouldn't "Steve Parker" be surprised and probably more than a little creeped out by seeing his name here?
The post above his on my page read, "I love, love, love my dusting mitt. Thanks Norwex!"
The post below it read, "You don't know what you've got til it's gone. For instance, toilet paper."
So you understand why it stood out.
That, and because when I read it, my mind flashed to my pantry.
It's 2008 and I'm standing in my kitchen, opening my pantry to look for—what? dinner? a snack? a boredom cure?—and I see the box of strawberry Fruit Roll-Ups on the bottom shelf, there between the green ceramic canister of flour and the box of Honey Bunches of Oats, and I think, "Fruit Roll-Ups remind me of Steve Parker."
Fruit Roll-Ups remind me of Steve Parker.
Fruit Roll-Ups remind me of Steve Parker.
I dash from the pantry, the door left hanging open, and root around in the junk drawer—the drawer we call "the drawer under the microwave," even though the microwave hasn't been there for five years—for a pen and a notebook, and I scratch, "Fruit Roll-Ups remind me of Steve Parker" across its face.
Two, three hours later, I'm still scratching. Only now I've pulled out the laptop, and I'm sitting at the kitchen table, outright ignoring my children as they destroy the house around me, and I fill a blank canvas with 15 pages of stories about my blue polyester Galaxy Twin Theater uniform, and his white '66 Mustang, and an iridescent green prom dress. And I write about making out on country roads after dark, and a hastily wrapped gift, and how I stopped at the grocery store every night after work to see his toothpaste-commercial smile, until I what I'm really writing about—small towns and big ideas and teenage regret—surfaces.
And I can't stop. Even though there's dinner to make and calls to return and life—real life, today's life—to live.
Nearly a month earlier, I'd submitted my first-ever semester packet to Vermont College of Fine Arts, where I was a new creative writing MFA student. That packet consisted of a newspaper column I'd written months earlier and an airy essay on whether I wanted to get pregnant again.
The resulting advisor comment that most sticks in my head is, "I don't know what to do with this."
Which is always heartening.
Except not.
I froze. I was certain that I was, actually, a shitty, shitty writer and no one had dared tell me. I was rocked by the realization that I still had two years of this MFA program ahead of me and nothing to say--a feeling I then confirmed every day that I sat down to write my next packet, only to get back up again, empty handed.
And then, one day, I opened the pantry door and found inspiration in a box of Fruit Roll-Ups. And I found the understanding that writing is a little bit magic, or it requires a little bit of magic, or maybe it just feels like magic when it's right.
And, yes, that was startling.
* And, no, Steve Parker isn't his real name. But this is the Internet, people, and wouldn't "Steve Parker" be surprised and probably more than a little creeped out by seeing his name here?