Hi, friends of Blubird. I've got some news.
As some of you are already aware, I write. I always have. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes out of necessity, sometimes scratching mini-essays on scraps of paper, sometimes just vicious typed lines of text; an offloading of mental excess. Sometimes holding those of you unfortunate enough to follow me on social media hostage to the lengthy diatribe that I almost always regret. In my periodic purse cleaning, it is par for the course to find mangled index cards with half-started thoughts interspersed with worn-out to-do lists scribbled over with snippets of phrasing that just had to come out. Verbal doodles.
Where and how hardly matters. What is a constant for me is that I write. I even held an ill-formed and unrealized adolescent dream of creating a life out of writing, once upon a time. That's a story for another time, perhaps.
Until I began Blubird and had a reason to write for other people, my writing had been for me alone...unread; private. Useless except to my own process, serving no purpose save that it existed...that I was able to expunge it from the cacophony of my headspace. Writing was largely an exercise in framing - of subjecting my emotional morass to the constraints of grammar and pacing; of construction. A weaving together, if you will. To put my wild thoughts and flights of fancy through their paces; to translate them. To distill me and all my intricacies to something that could be understood, even if just to myself. To capture a still frame of my wild inner world. To render; to paint; to capture the character of the thoughts and bring them through; their form and gesture. These are terms that people recognize as words associated with art. Those of us who must write understand that writing is no different than weaving, sculpting, painting, or rendering in graphite. Crafting words is creating worlds, much like a painter creates an entire world within a canvas.
Here’s the thing about writing, though: it may be created by the writer, but it is only made whole by participation with the reader. Bear with me here. I love the paradox of writing. Of all the art forms, it is the most black and white, the most REAL (besides photography, of course) - the most literal. There is something unarguably real and non-negotiable about the printed word. Yet, it is almost wholly defined by the reader. Without the reader’s engagement, it doesn’t exist, not really. It doesn't breathe. The observer, or in this case, the reader, gives it life. They define it by their attention.
This is shared by all art forms in a sense, of course, but whereas visual or physical art forms can exist for their own sake, writing must be understood in order for it to function; to resonate. You do not need to understand a painting to be moved by it. It's emotional. It certainly enhaces your appreciation if you understand it, but it's not essential. Writing is a little different. Its flow makes it participatory - it changes based on a mental give and take. It's like music. Soft form delivered through structure, like notes on a clef. We compose when we write - it’s literally called composition! Sometimes it’s a ditty, and sometimes it’s a symphony. But what is constant is that in order to relate to the observer, to connect, it must be delivered in a way that the reader can grasp and comprehend - otherwise they won’t follow.
We refer to this as reader engagement.
Writing for oneself and writing so that other people can understand what you want to say, and feel what you want to express, are entirely different things. We can manipulate the mood of the reader with the deliberate deconstruction of grammar, disrupt their inner narrative, and lull them into subjective emotional states with the unorthodox use of punctuation; cast spells with words. Sing them into a flow state with the cadences of complex sentence structure. Weave a thread of thought that forms a connection with them; compels them to follow us into the woods to see what’s just behind the tree line. Lift them up, if just for a moment, out of their own constant inner dialogue. To share the tone, the gesture, of the thing. There is a reason we say good writing “captures” the attention.
But writing without proper pacing and a good narrative flow will lose the reader and alienate them from perceiving the central idea. There is a discipline to confirming one’s writing to narrative and structure. Just as we require discipline to focus our efforts on a skill, we subject our writing to discipline so as to sharpen its focus and make it more comprehensible to the reader. It's the refinement that turns ore into gold.
It took me a long time to realize this.
In my non-Blubird world, I also write and edit other people’s writing for a living; I am a member of the editorial staff at the East Aurora Advertiser, our town newspaper. As far as day gigs go, it’s pretty much as good as it gets for a scribbler like me. In some ways, it feels like I’ve been building towards this “writing for a living” bit for a very long time, and I’m not surprised at all that the opportunity to work for a newspaper fell into my lap over cocktails at a book club meeting in 2019 when I needed it most. The fact that I now form a whole life based in the arts, both personally and professionally, is still sometimes so unreal that I'm forced to pause to make sure that I really understand how special it is that this is my reality.
It wasn’t until I began to work for the Advertiser that all the knowledge I had about the importance of verbal composition began to make sense in a way that felt real. Editing copy and proofing, and rearranging words to deliver a purposeful meaning was constructive (yes, that's wordplay. Sorry - I couldn't help myself - let's not get too serious here). I began to reframe the way I thought about writing - to reconsider it. To craft words, rather than expunge them. To subject my inner poetry to tough love. Rather than make my writing flat, it made it easier for me to express myself. It wasn’t so much that this job taught me something new. This wasn’t groundbreaking. But the act of rearranging other people’s writing gave me a clearer insight into what I didn’t like about mine, and how to make mine better.
Writing and editing for press and publication is another entirely different thing, and it is exciting in a way that only those of us blessed with a certain Type A-enthusiasm can truly understand. There is an art to crafting these words.
When we write about what moves us, then that’s when the magic happens. When we write well about what moves us, that’s when we create a space where another person can share that magic; it becomes alive. Good writing breathes in the space between the writer and the reader. It welcomes someone else into what makes you light up, and invites them to share it with you, if only for a few moments.
So beginning this week, we are trying something completely new on Elm Street - combining my love of art, of writing, and of teaching. Vanessa and I have cooked up something gorgeous - over the course of five weeks, we'll study the art of four popular art movements and artists, like modernism, abstract expressionism, the women of the Bauhaus movement and sculptural fiber artists like Sheila Hicks; and we'll write about art - for ages 11 to 14, Thursdays, during that awkward post-school window of 3 - 5:30.
Through a series of exercises and writing prompts, we'll talk about how to observe and "see," and express ourselves by writing about what moves us or captures our imagination, supplementing indoor conversation with walks within the community and art exploration in our outdoor teaching courtyard (weather permitting).
Week 1: Modern Expressionism: Seeing Color: Helen Frankenthaler.
Week 2: Shape, Line and Abstract Geometry: The Women of the Bauhaus.
Week 3: Tactile Art: Fiber and Soft Sculpture: Sheila Hicks and Lenore Tawney.
Week 4: Light, form and Modernism: Georgia O’Keefe
Week 5: Final class: we’ll work on selecting our favorites and editing for publication.
Thanks to kind permission from the paper, finished work from students in this series will be submitted for possible publication with the Voices of the Future Page in the EA Advertiser Summer and Fall Issues. We’ll learn how to write for publishing in print and with help from me, we’ll work on crafting those words.
This new series begins May 6 and runs after school until June 3. We’ll be supplementing indoor ‘classtime’ with short walks around the village, looking for real-world inspiration and examples all around us - be it shapes in local architecture, flowers in village gardens, or form and color in nature. Students are encouraged to bring a sketchbook and a camera to capture inspiration.
Our first class is Thursday, but we still have some seats open. I'm excited! I hope you know someone in your life who would be excited about this new avenue for #blubirdteaches too.
T