Critical Friends and the Enemy within

For the past two weeks, I've been in a kind of writing hell. I've been writing a very long short story called "The Splinter."

It's really the first time in any story that I have gone back, deleted over 1,000 word chunks and re-written. I had to do this because I kept reverting back to comfortable places to take the story. The problem was, this wasn't in the least where I wanted the story to go.

I also took on subject matter that, although I've danced around a long time, I never really tackled head on. I often use erotica as a vehicle to write about existentialism. But I've always dabbled with it in a vague angsty sort of way, a bit like Miller did. But he used sex to make the angst go away. I tend to use it to see past it.

I didn't want to make a statement with this story. I didn't want to "say" anything. I wanted to ask questions and let the characters answer in their own way. A bit like the parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant.

So I asked myself the question: what is transcendence and how do we get there? I wanted to have this question play out in the rather dour, bleak world of a poor Irish Catholic neighborhood, somewhere in the Northeast of the US.

My main character Moira, is a girl who from an early age has practiced mortification of the flesh because the stories of Saint Theresa of Avila has deeply impressed her as having found the right way to coax an ascent of the soul. She describes it in four stages and it's the fourth that Moira yearns for:

The fourth is the "devotion of ecstasy or rapture," a passive state, in which the consciousness of being in the body disappears (II Cor. xii. 2-3). Sense activity ceases; memory and imagination are also absorbed in God or intoxicated. Body and spirit are in the throes of a sweet, happy pain, alternating between a fearful fiery glow, a complete impotence and unconsciousness, and a spell of strangulation, intermitted sometimes by such an ecstatic flight that the body is literally lifted into space. This after half an hour is followed by a reactionary relaxation of a few hours in a swoon-like weakness, attended by a negation of all the faculties in the union with God. From this the subject awakens in tears; it is the climax of mystical experience, productive of the trance.

Wikipedia's entry on Theresa of Avila

But basically, all three of the main characters in the story are searching for the same thing. Union with that ultimate something or someone. And, like the blind men touching the elephant, each of them think they have a different thing within their grasp.

The presence of the sane, pragmatic, if a little jaded, Catholic priest acts as the grounding mechanism. Keeping the story in a language that is understandable.

As I always do, I posted my story on the writer's list I belong to, ERWA. This was probably a mistake because I sort of knew that a lot of people wouldn't find the story erotic. But I needed the feedback and the criticism. It would be an understatement to say that no one damned the story with faint praise.

I had some strong reactions. Emails from ex-Catholics who couldn't praise the story enough, and something very close to hate mail from some very unexpected places; critiques that were downright vicious in tone.

What's worse, it became very hard to read the crits because almost no one was just "reading" the story. Whether they loved it or hated it, it certainly got under people's skin.

One critique, from a writer in the UK who I admire and respect very much, kept insisting that this was a cautionary story about a traumatized, possibly abused girl who was a self-harmer, and that I should say that to make sure everyone "got the message".

Another person was convinced it was all about addiction and that it was my responsibility to say that it was, so everyone would know.

A long, sometimes accrimonious discussion ensued about whether my story should be on the list or not - some people felt it wasn't erotica. One of the critiquers decided to discuss it further on an adjacent list for writer discussions. I use a pen name on this list - rg

rg's story walks an interesting line - whether what is being
experienced is religious ecstasy or an addiction to an erotic desire
for pain.

The ecstasy is physically the same. The source of the desire is
different.

I think that rg's story only engages with the erotic in part 2. The MC
believes that something was taken from her. She is no longer able to
perceive her own motives for inflicting pain on herself as pure.
Therefore the ecstasy she experiences has lost its innocence. It has
been eroticised.

The strength of the desire and the experience of the rapture have not
changed. What has altered is the perception of the object of desire.
Appropriately enough in this Catholic setting, rg manages to associate
the erotic with the sinful. At the point that the desire is eroticised
it also becomes sinful - the MC literally acquires carnal knowledge.

Mike Kimera, [era-writers] eroticism, ecstasy, sin and rg's "splinter",
March 18, 2008

The number of crits that came in from subsequent part posts was so overwhelming that I almost decided I had to abandon the story.

One crit in particular caused me a lot of grief. I use different POVs in different scenes. And a very well-published writer on the list told me that it bothered her; that in a 20,000 word story, I should stick with one POV only, or turn the piece into a longer one - a novel. I'm convinced that the change of POVs is integral to the story because, going back to the blind men and the elephant, there is no one answer to what this pursuit of ecstasy is or how one gets there. I'm also pretty convinced that although another, better writer, could turn this into a book, I don't know that I can.

Having heard nothing from Carolyn, after sending her the first couple of pages of The Waiting Room, I'm thinking that it is perhaps not the best project to work on for my writing portfolio. So perhaps I will write this one deeper instead.

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Confronting The Blank Page

"A little learning is a dangerous thing."

Of course, Alexander Pope meant this to exhort people to deeper study of subjects. Like any wise piece of advice that has been abused into a cliche, I'm quoting this out of context.

I never had a moment of angst in confronting the blank page until I started this degree. That's the honest truth. A blank page was, until about a year and a half ago, the only truly irresistible proposition I'd ever met. It was the land of a thousand possibilities, the place with no limits, the coziest of beds and the widest of wide-open spaces.

Now, after eight units of this course, the blank page is possibly the most problematic part of my life.

How could knowing more about something have such a negative impact on me as a writer? Isn't the truth supposed to set me free? Isn't education supposed to broaden my horizons?

I don't regret taking this degree. I'm pretty sure this state of affairs isn't a permanent one. But right at the moment, I feel like the a piece of dialogue from 'The Fly' was written specifically for me. "Be afraid. Be very afraid."

The thing is, you can't really be afraid of something until you learn enough about it to know how dangerous it is. The more I've learned about writing, the more I see minefields in every part of the process. I'm interrogating myself in a ways I never even thought existed before.

Sometimes I feel like I need the processing power of a mainframe computer just to play out all the implications of each one of the writing choices I have. Tone, voice, POV, character, setting, plot, tense, subtext, where does the power reside, what are the feminist dynamics, how do the unseen and sticky tendrils of normative cultural values warp the story, and how do they tint the lenses of my readers, who have I under-represented, who have I over-represented, what are the class implications, what are the psychological underpinnings of the main character's motivations, etc. ad nauseum. Now, concatenate, repermutate and process again. Because each of these pieces affect every other piece on the board. Deep Blue where are you?

The weight of the responsibility to apply all the things I have learned to my writing has made the task seem unattemptable, insurmountable, absurd - actually - whatever I set out to write.

And, if all that didn't seem paralyzing enough - this tops the whole thing off with a cherry - I write erotica.

Erotica might seem, on the surface, to be one of the least rule-ridden genres, but it isn't. Like every other genre, it has its peculiar set of parameters that must be obeyed if you ever want your writing to see the light of day. Obvious though it may seem, I'll mention it. The First Commandment of writing erotica is: there must be sex.

I've often envied murder mystery writers. Agatha Christie got away with calling herself a mystery writer while killing off relatively few characters in any given story. Often she only had to kill of one.

In erotica, it isn't just that there must be sex, but that there must be quite a bit of it. And, if it is to be well-written erotica, the characters must seem like they drift into bouts of bonking under their own steam. You can't prod them into bed with your pen, at least not noticeably.

For the most part, erotica has escaped the scrutiny of literary critics (with the exception of de Sade, a few Victorian bits and pieces, and Anais Nin) because its has never been considered literature. Porn gets more critical attention because it is far more widely consumed. It makes no bones about what it is, and the genre conventions and values are widely understood.

In truth, most erotica is not 'literary'. It's often a sequence of sexual situations strung together with a very substandard plot line, as much character development as it takes to clarify what gender is on the table and a bit of setting, if it includes something you can use in foreplay.

It would be easy to wonder why I just don't change genres. Well, for a start, I've seldom written in any other. The times I have, sex is always there just floating beneath the surface and I have to stop myself from bringing it to the fore and incorporating it into the story. Secondly, good erotica IS literature. One of my favourite writers of modern erotica is Mike Kimera who writes exquisitely erotic and sharp, painful stories and, most of all, confronts his readers with the uncomfortable realities of their desires. Although he's won the RAUXA award, he'll probably never get a Booker Prize. His work is far, far too explicit and too uncomfortable at the same time.

We don't mind gritty reality, but it seems we aren't supposed to experience it while in a state of arousal.

Following Carolyn's go ahead, I've decided to complete my novel "The Waiting Room" about two travelers in Cambodia. It was initially written online under the glare of about 30 dedicated readers, and although the structure is in place and the characters are very solidified, the way it sits in the landscape of Cambodia, culturally and historically, needs a great deal of work.


Carolyn suggested I investigate the Chicago school. This is something completely new for me, so I'm excited.

"The Chicago Critics' investigation of major literary forms and effects was pursued by Wayne Booth in two important books: The Rhetoric of Fiction, a learned analysis of the novel form, and A Rhetoric of Irony, a provocative attempt to explain the ways in which authors communicate certain meanings by pretending to communicate others. E.D. Hirsch, Jr., continued and advanced the Chicago Critics' work on authorial intentions. His Validity in Interpretation and The Aims of Interpretation are the most distinguished books on the subject."

Foundations Study Guide: Literary Theory
Stephen Cox

I'm going to have to see what else I can find online about this.

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Blogging the good Blog

LPW701A Writing Folio Part A allows you to begin work on a larger piece of work to be completed in LPW701B Publication Folio Part B. In this subject you are expected to begin to develop your work and to keep a reflective journal that includes thoughts, insights and reflections on the writing process, your intentions and the experience of writing.

The journal should be around 2000 words and should include short samples of your final larger writing project. While you should include samples of your writing, the work that is being assessed is the reflective journal.

Like my other course LPW700, this one also requires me to keep a reflective journal. And just like the other journal, I plan on using a blog for this one, too.

In the "My Writerly Self" journal, I justified my choice to keep a blog rather than something more traditional, like a word document. Originally, blogs were, and still are for the most part, formatted like a journal. The platform is perfect for nurturing and growing ideas over time. They can also be visually stimulating and are easily capable of referencing outside documents, images, videos and sounds. Blogs with the commenting function enabled allow readers to interact with the blog, by leaving comments on specific posts.

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