Author Archives: writerspilecki

Liebster Award!

I am honored to have been nominated for the blogging Liebster Award by Nicole from How to Fangirl for Adults. Go check out her blog! The Liebster Award is an award by bloggers for bloggers that is passed forward, and it has some other cool bells and whistles too!

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The Rules:

  • Thank the person who nominated you and post a link to their blog on your blog
  • Display the award on your blog–by including it in your post and/or displaying it using a “widget” or a “gadget”. (Note: The best way to do this is to save the image to your own computer and then uploading it to your blog post)
  • Answer 11 questions about yourself, which will be provided to you by the person who nominated you.
  • Provide 11 random facts about yourself
  • Nominate 5 – 11 blogs that you feel deserve the award, who have less than 1,000 followers (Note: You can always ask the blog owner this since not all blogs display a widget that lets the readers know this information!)
  • Create a new list of questions for the bloggers to answer
  • List these rules in  your post (You can copy and paste from here).
  • Once you have written and published it, you have to inform the people/blog that you nominated that they have been nominated for the Liebster award and provide a link for them to your post so that they can learn about it (they might not have ever heard of it!)

Nicole’s Questions

  1. If you had unlimited resources and time, what would be your dream cosplay or costume? Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’d have said Xena: Warrior Princess but I am way to short to carry it off.
  2. Your current favorite song? “On the Road of Experience”
  3. Do you have any pets? If not, what kind of pet would you like to have? Yes, a tuxedo cat named Musashi.
  4. What is a movie everyone needs to have seen in their life? The Princess Bride. Crazy quotes for ever occasion.
  5. When did you write your very first blog post? Late last November.
  6. Do you write outside of blogging? If so, what do you write? If not, what do you like to do outside of blogging? Mostly poetry these days.
  7. Where is your favorite place to write? Coffee shops.
  8. What is your guilty pleasure TV show? Like that really bad reality TV and TLC type of stuff? Xena: Warrior Princess and anything Joss Whedon does.
  9. What is your number one fandom? (yes, you have to pick one) Xena, but I really want to BE Agent Carter.
  10. In one word how would you describe your blog? Diverse.
  11. What is the absolute best type of ice cream out there? Starbucks coffee almond.

11 Facts about Myself

  1. I lived in Japan for two and a half years, teaching English and studying kendo.
  2. On a good day I can write a sestina in one sitting.
  3. I have a mini Stonehenge in my office at MIT.
  4. I never know what to do with Kale.
  5. I still have a dumb phone.
  6. I went on Pottermore and got put into Ravenclaw.
  7. I alternate months of ridiculously productive writing with months like a vast Desert of No Writing Ideas.
  8. I have almost four octaves when I sing.
  9. I have never owned a car.
  10. I have never had a cavity.
  11. I looooooooves Boston.

My Questions

  1. What is your favorite book to reread?
  2. If you could be any hero, who would you be?
  3. What is the hardest part of writing for you?
  4. How do you avoid writer’s block?
  5. What movie would you watch if you were feeling down?
  6. Do you speak/read a second language? Which one?
  7. What do you like best about blogging?
  8. Spartans or Ninjas? Why?
  9. Captain America or Ironman?
  10. What is your favorite summer drink?
  11. What weird writing rituals do you have, if any?

My Nominations

  1. The Insightful Panda
  2. Bookminded
  3. Pop Cultured Randoms
  4. Pop Cult HQ
  5. Like Mercury Colliding

That Blank Stare

That blank stare, neck cocked up at that blank

Screen. You want not to beg. You want only

The elusive idea, the original question, the timely

Answer. It’s not motivation that is lacking,

Only the electricity flying between neurons

That passes for insight that you can pass on:

All the right words in all the right places,

So that somewhere on the other side of this

Big blue planet, another human being reads

What you wrote and says, “Oh!” and “Yes!”

And “I had always thought it was only me…”writers-block

Haters Gonna Hate

The_Great_Wave_off_KanagawaSo about a week ago Optional Poetry posted this: “July 8, (or, a response to the request that I stop writing poems about the ocean).”

Okay, so I am here to say that nobody, no friggin’ body has the right to tell you what to say or not say, and I do not care who they are. They could be your thesis advisor and they do not have that right. Not. Not. Not.

As Marge Piercy says somewhere, “I never don’t say what I came to say.” Say it diplomatically. Say it kindly. But say it. Say what only you can say about whatever it is that moves you so strongly to speak.

Just the Annoying Sidekick? Hardly!

jaynes hat

Here at San Diego Comic Con, the creator of Buffy, Firefly, Dr. Horrible and Dollhouse, and the director of two Avengers movies, just told us the nature and purpose of existence. He also revealed one of his next projects: a “Victorian female Batman” called Twist.

So during Joss Whedon’s big one-man show panel here at Comic Con, a fan dressed in a Jayne hat and a Sunnydale T-shirt asked what was the meaning of life, what was the nature of reality, and how we could be sane and happy in the world. And Whedon responded:

“You think I’m not going to, but I’m going to answer that. The world is a random and meaningless terrifying place and then we all—spoiler alert—die. Most critters are designed not to know that. We are designed, uniquely, to transcend that, and to understand that—I can quote myself—a thing isn’t beautiful because it lasts.”

Whedon added that “the main function of the human brain, the primary instinct, is storytelling. Memory is storytelling. If we all remembered everything, we would be Rain Man, and would not be socially active at all. We learn to forget and to distort, but we [also] learn to tell a story about ourselves.”

And Whedon said, “I keep hoping to be the hero of my story, [but] I’m the annoying sidekick. I’m kind of like Rosie O’Donnell in that Tarzan movie.” He keeps hoping to be Tarzan, but finding that he’s that weird monkey that nobody can tell if it’s a girl or a boy.

“My idea is that stories that we then hear and see and internalize—and wear hats from and come to conventions about… We all come here to celebrate only exactly that: storytelling, and the shared experience of what that gives us.” The shared experience of storytelling gives us strength and peace, Whedon added. You understand your story and everyone else’s story, and that “it can be controlled by us.” This is something we can survive, “because unlike me, you all are the hero of your story.”

Anders, Charlie Jane. “Joss Whedon Just Explained the Meaning of LIfe to Us.” io9.com. 11 July 2015. Web. 12 July 2015.

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We Shall Have to Wear the Shades

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Dear heavens. I can barely remember a summer like this one, when we have gotten so much good news, not just in general but more so for those on the margins. So let’s make a list of the Outrageously Cool things that have been happening lately in the news and the world.

  • The American women’s soccer team decidedly TROUNCED its Japanese counterpart.
  • “Every single player on the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team is getting her own Sports Illustrated cover. In celebration of the team’s World Cup win, the magazine is publishing 25 different covers this week: one for each player, one for coach Jill Ellis, and one small group shot” (Sports Illustrated). So, basically, SI is finally taking a moment out of its decidedly masculinist, patriarchal agenda to pay tribute to some awesome women. Who Are Actually Wearing Clothes.
  • The Supreme Court just legalized “gay marriage,” so folks can love who they want, although we are still working on that whole “not discriminating against folks thing.”
  • Agent Carter has been renewed for a second season, with ten episodes.
  • Serena Williams just won Wimbledon. Again. And when she got body-shamed by a hater, J.K. Rowlings supported her on Twitter.
  •  The last of Boston’s snow finally melted. Finally.

Language, People!

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So last week my writing students at MIT were given a piece by science fiction writer Samuel R. Delany’s book About Writing. The passage I like best says, “Use the precise word. Don’t say ‘gaze’ when you mean ‘look.’ Don’t say ‘ambled’ or ‘sauntered’ or ‘stalked’ when you mean ‘walked.’ (And don’t say ‘walked’ when you mean one of the others.) As far as the creative writer goes, the concept of synonyms should be a fiction for high school and first-and second-year college students to encourage them to improve their vocabularies. The fact is (as writers from Georg Christoff Lichtenberg [1742-99] in the eighteenth century to Alfred Bester [1913-87] in the twentieth have written), ‘There are no synonyms'” (4).

Similarly, poet Marge Piercy says (somewhere probably in this book but I cannot find it) that every poet should have, in addition to a good dictionary and thesaurus, a set of Peterson’s Field Guides to trees and flowers and birds. There is a difference between a grackle and a sparrow, a walnut tree and an oak. Similarly, when you get a good thesaurus, that means Roget’s, NOT Mirriam-Webster. For “Color” Mirriam-Webster says things like “hue” and “tint.” Roget’s gives you all kinds of reds, oranges, yellows, greens, etc. Some are from flowers, others from gems. Always look up the thing to see what it came from.

Particulars persuade, people. So watch your language!

Delany, Samuel R. About Writing. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 2006.

Piercy, Marge. Parti-Colored Blocks for a Quilt. Ann Arbor: U Michigan P, 1999.

The Hokey-Pokey of Writing

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So back in May I talked about the bit in a piece of writing, usually a long piece of nonfiction, which you always end up cutting. It served you as a writer to get from idea A to idea M, but it no longer serves your readers, so it must go. The problem is that it’s not always obvious which bit or how much of it is the bit you need to cut and which bits you need to keep. Sometimes you cut a section, then put it back in, then take it out again, or possibly take another bit out and then put it back in again. After a while you throw your hands up in despair and run away weeping, which is actually a really good idea.

But let’s face it folks, that really is what it’s all about. And if you don’t believe me, check out this video of bagpipers proving it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6vDtKlyET4

Often what you need after finishing a draft, particularly a frustrating draft, is distance. Walk away. Do something else. Eat something. Do your laundry. Read a book. Play with the cat. While you are gone, with luck, the writing will set like Jello, and your choices will be clearer.

Icons & Action Figures

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Every once in a while, I remember what this blog was supposed to be about: poetry. How to make it, how to fix it, how to think about words and lines and tropes and all that stuff. Somewhere along the way, my recent obsession with American popular culture has kicked in, in part because, duh, Joss Whedon, but also because I am fascinated with how we construct identity and community through interacting with symbols, whether the symbols be our clothes, as my friends Meredith and Amy have recently discussed in their blogs, or music, interior decoration, or their particular fandom.

It’s not just the Greek Orthodox Church that uses icons. We all carry around in our heads the picture of a grandparent, a teacher, a college friend, a movie star, and in different ways we refer back to them at different times. Whenever I write a long piece of nonfiction, I remember my high school English teacher, Sr. Kevin White, talking about conciseness.

In my first book, which is coming along eventually, I have poems about Barbie and Ken, Raggedy Ann and Dapper Dan, Amelia Earhart, Wonder Woman, Lucy Lawless, Sam Spade, and my friends at GreenFaith. In our modern world icons and action figures are increasingly interchangeable, for better or for worse. So I don’t have to write my poetry about some incredibly high culture narrative like Paradise Lost or the Ancient Mariner. Shakespeare was popular culture once; hence all the bawdy jokes even in the tragedies. And I’m not alone in writing about women warriors: Edmund Spencer’s The Faerie Queene uses the character of Britomart, the virgin knight, to stand in for Queen Elizabeth I and British might (painting by Walter Crane). This reminds me of a folk singer who came to Middlebury College a million years ago. I still remember one of her original songs (in addition to the one about the Shrewsbury Moose):

A doll is someone who loves you,

Someone who hugs you when you cry.

I know a doll when I see one

And Rambo could be one

If he would only try!

So tell me peoples, who are your icons and action figures?CIMG1675

Testosterone Thursday

220px-Russell_Johnson_Black_Saddle_1960

So looking back at my blog today I realize that it has gotten rather estrogen-soaked, which is a shame, since it is summer, which is Buff Men Jogging Without Shirts Season (and you know how loosely I define poetry), and we really ought to take advantage of that. I was thinking about the evolution of my taste over the years, as portrayed in popular culture. As a girl, I watched Wonder Woman and Gilligan’s Island, so I had huge crushes on Lyle Waggoner (Steve Trevor) and Russell Johnson (The Professor): square-jawed American men, hard-working and smart.

More recentimagesly, I appreciate eye-candy like Daniel Craig (James Bond, etc.) or Chris Evans (Captain America). Strictly speaking, I suspect this is actually devolution. Apparently I was focusing on the right things back then and have gotten away from it since. Although the new Bond isn’t the sexist pig that most of the others have been, and Cap still has some of the better of the 1940s values (“Language, people!”) while also being a feminist.

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That’s what I am going with anyway…captain america 29oct10 02

My Apparent Thing for Rhetorical Questions in Poetry

xena+meme

So I am still working on my epic poetry about Xena: Warrior Princess, and I have started to notice some patterns, which I have noticed in my work before, but since this is (so far) a 260+ page project on a single subject, I am noticing them more now. One of these patterns is the use of rhetorical questions, which I think I use to show how the character of the speaker of a particular poem is either wrestling with a problem or coming to a solution, or just my capturing their voices. These I took just from the (so far) 54 pages I have written about Season 5.

.

Eli (Read: Jesus/Gandhi)

You let me heal the broken,

But what good is that gift if I cannot stop them from being

Broken in the first place? How does fixing the problem

Afterwards solve the problem? Why did you give me this

Troubling gift and what do you expect me to do?

.

Gabrielle

How can we live in a world in which

Fear is stronger than love? But how can we protect love

Without fighting for it?… She says, “Why don’t we all

Just walk away?” But is that even an option anymore?

.

Ares

Remind you of any particular Roman warlord? Yes, I do use this

Line on all my warlords, but it’s true I used it on you first.

.

Talia

Why are we never prepared for the surprise,

For the consequences of dalliance or domination?

Why are we never prepared for love and its confusion?

.

Xena

Her easy smile, her trust, how will I win those back?

.

Xena

I could pretend to be humble, but

What purpose would that serve?

.

Xena

What is it about rabbits?

What is it about her and these young men?

.

Gabrielle

You don’t think after four years as her sidekick

I would not recognize the heroic moment when it comes?

How many times now has her soul left her body?

How many times have I had to fight to keep her safe?

.

Athena

But how could a single god take care of all your needs?

How can a god that preaches love manage a world

At war? How can a foreign god come to our Greek soil

And reign over our people?

.

Ares

Mongolia? The Battle of Corinth?

I was always a fan.

.

Athena

Hestia, as always, focuses on the wrong

Thing, muttering in despair, “Isn’t anybody a virgin?”

And the family, as always, ignores her.

.

Xena

Why not fruit? Why not my body?

Why can’t I use both as weapons of opportunity?

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So talk to me, peoples, how do you feel about rhetorical questions in poetry? And also, this, because it’s one of Lucy Lawless’s cuter expressions.

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