Lacey Louwagie's Blog, page 27

Implicit Bias and Being vs. Doing

My latest post is up at Young Adult Catholics, which examines the difference between love as an action and love as a feeling. For context, you might want to read Justin’s wonderful post, The Language Gap, or Jamie Manson’s column in National Catholic Reporter.

NaPoWriMo: Day 8

So far, I’ve been successful in writing one poem a day for the first week of April (although not all have been successful poems). Here are a few of my first drafts.

Poem #5: Dinosaur Teeth

That summer we were twelve

I didn’t know

that only bubble-gum string

held your family together.

We crossed that hot parking lot

you told me

how you cried, curled up

in a theater seat.

So for twenty years

I feared your dinosaurs

sure that their teeth

had gnashed and

torn you apart.

- April 5, 2013

I wrote the pantoum below after taking the Project Implicit test on skin tone, which revealed that I have a “slight bias” toward people with light skin. I examined that in conjunction with my work in a downtown library, which has a large Native American, immigrant, and transient population. Despite this, there is no one one staff who is not white, which seems alienating to our patrons. Also, I’m troubled by this “slight bias” in light of the fact that my best friend is of Indian descent. All of this soul searching has been undertaken on behalf of my Know Thyself course, and particularly Dr. Timothy Wilson’s work positing that we have an “adaptive unconscious” (a vast reservoir of unknowable mental processes), which is often where unacknowledged prejudice resides.

Poem #7: Implicit

From which pool of primordial sludge does this come?

Only white faces this side of the desk

I love the smell of curry in her hair

but I guess I love white skin slightly more.

Only white faces this side of the desk

with our computers and records and judgments

but I guess I love white skin slightly more

as I picture the face of my best friend.

With our computers and records and judgments,

we glance at prison release cards with impassive faces.

As I picture the face of my best friend

I wonder how any test could be more true than her.

We glance at prison release cards with impassive faces

“I don’t judge you,” “I don’t judge you,” runs through my mind.

I wonder how any test could be more true than her

and all those nights of her voice through my wall.

“I don’t judge you,” “I don’t judge you,” runs through my mind.

I love the smell of curry in her hair

and all those nights of her voice through my wall.

From which pool of primordial sludge does this come?

- April 7, 2013

Something a little cozier:

Poem #8: Storage

“Fog is gone,” you say,

and, “I should have went.”

Your bike waits in the garage,

her bag all packed,

your disregarded lover.

Forecast is for snow,

a week of soup and

hiding in bed,

winter sweaters begging

to be used

one more time

before summer storage.

I do not regret

the six a.m. caution

that allowed us

to sneak back into storage

tucked away in spring sheets

your skin

warmer than any sweater.

Fairy Tale Book Review: The Girl in Red by Aaron Frisch & Robert Innocenti

The Girl in Red by Aaron Frisch

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a strange little book, recasting the story of Little Red Riding Hood in something of an urban wasteland. It’s unclear exactly who this book is supposed to appeal to — it’s a bit too dark to read to children as a picture book (School Library Journal recommends it for ages 12+, but the Sioux Falls library has it shelved in children’s), but not quite meaty or edgy enough to appeal to teens. Also, the fact that it looks so much like a traditional picture book, and not, say, a graphic novel, seems like it would alienate potential older readers before they delved inside. On the other hand, parents reading it to their children might be unpleasantly surprised by its dark tone.

Overall, Ivan and I came to the conclusion that it may be best suited to parents wanting the Red Riding Hood story to retain the same impact as a cautionary tale as it may have originally, for children who may not understand the symbolism of the woods and the wolf in the original. It seems its best use would be as a “readaloud” only AFTER a parent had reviewed it independently and decided s/he wanted to use it with their children, making sure to give it proper context.

View all my reviews

Today’s Catholic Reading is Brought to You by Tuscany Press, and … Me!

My latest post, a reflection on rules vs. Jesus, is up on Young Adult Catholics. If that’s not enough Catholic readin’ for you, today and tomorrow, you can also download the collection of short stories that won the Tuscany Press prize for Catholic short fiction for free. I’m headin’ over to get my copy right now!

It’s Official!

And Rapunzel is better because of it (although far, far from finished). NaNoEdMo gave me a great head start. I can depend on my writer’s group to do the rest.

NaNoEdMo not quite there … NaPoWriMo has Arrived!

Last night, I came home from the Easter festivities bearing a headache from too much sugar but still determined to log my last two hours to achieve victory in NaNoEdMo … even though editing was really the last thing in the world I wanted to do.

Still, I was mostly dismayed (but, admittedly, also relieved), when a glitch in the NaNoEdMo site closed the deadline early — meaning that when I tried to log time at 9 pm CDT, I got a message that said, “NaNoEdMo is closed for 2013. Join us next year!”

There I was, 48 hours in, time set aside to finish … with no chance to get my external validation for those last two hours. My recourse? To complain to my husband, report it on the NaNoEdMo “bug” forums, whine on Twitter (brand new account! Follow me @laceylouwagie), and … not put in my final two hours of editing.

I’m not proud of it, but my reasoning went something like this:

48 hours in 31 days is STILL good progress, and my main reason for pushing those final two hours was a) curiosity to see what “winners” got; and b) the external validation and official bragging rights.
Without items a & b, I was just as happy to say, “Yay me, I got 48 hours in 31 days, it’s NaNoEdMo’s Fault and Not Mine That I Didn’t Officially Win.”
And, Now I can catch up on all the email I didn’t read in March!

Except, the NaNoEdMo folks have been very responsive, and hour logging is now open until 6 pm today to make up for the error. Which means, I still have two hours of editing to squeeze in at some point today. I was ready to simply pronounce my defeat to the world here on my blog this morning, but it looks like that would be premature. I’ll be doing two more hours of editing today after all. Yay?

Luckily, I’ve already written today’s poem, so that’s out of the way. Because right on the heels of NaNoEdMo is the next writing challenge of the year — NaPoWriMo! I consistently fail NaPoWriMo, I think because I don’t take myself seriously as a poet. I don’t read much poetry, and frankly, I don’t think anyone has much of a right to write in a genre they don’t read. But I continue to attempt NaPoWriMo anyway because I believe poetry is good for the soul, good for capturing the state of a life at a moment in time, and good for giving as gifts in people’s birthday cards. Usually I have intentions of posting my poetry from NaPoWriMo here, but then it always ends up being too personal. This morning’s poem was no different — but I did feel especially blessed to have a particularly evocative dream last night that I could plagiarize for poetry.

My car is equipped with poetry inspiration for the month, which includes Modern Scholar’s Understanding Poetry lectures and the She Walks in Beauty audiobook. It’s the first day of the month, I’ve written one poem, poetry drafts take less time than editing, and I’m not getting married this year — so, I’m feeling optimistic.

Now, back to untangle my way toward victory at NaNoEdMo.

Week 4: As NaNoEdMo Kicks My Butt

As I feared might happen, NaNoEdMo is kicking my butt. Although I’m only slightly behind schedule, finding a “catch-up” time in the near future seems bleak. I was right when I predicted that the requirement of actually putting in the time would make this harder for me than NaNoWriMo, where my ability to write quickly works in my favor. Based on how much I’ve been able to edit in about 1 1/2 hrs every day (minus Thursdays, which is why I’m behind), I’m beginning to suspect I’m a slow editor. It’s never been quite so obvious to me that rewriting takes significantly longer than drafting.

I’ve gotten a little stuck rewriting Rapunzel (the prince is in the midst of a psychological makeover), so I returned to Rumpled, which has been resting since the beginning of the month. Working through draft 5, I’m beginning to notice a few things about my process:

Editing is REALLY, REALLY important. It was so nice to be able to breeze through pages of Rumpled without hitting snags, as compared to all the untangling (pun intended) I’m still working on with Rapunzel. If ever I doubted the value of editing (ha, and put myself out of a job?), this experience has confirmed it once more.
I notice a troubling trend in my writing — and that’s that the reading experience gets less smooth the deeper into the story I get. I think this is because the opening sections have been reworked MANY times, as I start from the beginning with edits every time I’ve taken significant time away from the project. Still, it was disheartening to find myself making so many markups in the second half of Rumpled, including some that required yet more deeper-level content editing.
Becoming a proficient writer is definitely a lifelong process. I’m convinced that I’ll never arrive at a point in a story where I truly feel done — as close as I thought I was with Rumpled, my latest read has raised some doubts. This is alternately inspiring and depressing, depending on my mood.

I think I might have to accept just finishing below 50 editing hours this month. I’m telling myself that putting in 40 hours (or however much I end up with) in one month is STILL significant progress. But my Inner Competitor grumbles.

Something will have to give, and I just haven’t decided what it will be yet. Will I allow myself to make less money this week? Will I do the bare minimum for my Coursera class? (I really hope not — this week is Freud, and I love Freud!). Will I be antisocial and hole up with my computer or e-reader at the Easter festivities? (Easter, WHY couldn’t you hold off till April this year like you have so many times in the past?) By this time next week, I’ll know.

NaNoEdMo: A Little Like Being Locked in a Tower

Well, March is just a little over halfway over, and I’m barely a smidgen over the halfway mark for NaNoEdMo, clocking in this morning at 26.88 hours out of 50.

Despite putting in an hour and a half per day, the edits sometimes feel as if they are happening excruciatingly slowly. I guess that’s to be expected when one is revising not just any first draft, but one that was written during the “anything goes!” frenzy of NaNoWriMo. Still, it kind of boggles my mind to know that it took me less time to write this story than to edit it — by the midpoint in November, I had made it further writing than I’ve made this month editing, despite the fact that I’m actually putting in more time. That’s right, it takes more time to rearrange words than it takes to throw them all over the page.

I’m also noticing something interesting about working on Rapunzel for my NaNoEdMo project. It’s starting to feel claustrophobic. It’s sometimes excruciating to spend an hour and a half in that tower every day, with only Rapunzel, her cat, and the witch for company. That hour and a half often crawls by. When the timer goes off, I’m usually eager to leave. Free at last!!

But when you do a writing challenge like this, and must return to your project in a dedicated way day after day after day, regardless of what else you’re trying to accomplish as your life continues to go on around you, you’re not ever really free of it. And I think that’s why these challenges work so well for those who choose to accept them. And I’ve found that although I’m not a huge fan of competition, I’m incredibly competitive against myself, so I rarely let myself off the hook when I take on these projects even though there isn’t nay “real” consequence for failing to finish them (you know, the way there are “real” consequences for if I don’t make as much money as I should this month.)

Overall, this has been a very rich experience for me with this particular story because it drives home the isolation and claustrophobia of the tower in a way that working on it a little here, a little there, as time and life allows, never could. Even NaNoWriMo didn’t really impress it on me. Although I had to return to it every day, my output was frantic, stream-of-consciousness, and rushed. I could skim the surface, throw those words down, and get the hell out as soon as possible.

Rapunzel didn’t have that option. And I’m getting a taste of what that must have been like this month.

Catholic Women – Shut Out but Not Shut Up

You didn’t think I’d let the Papal Conclave pass by without bringing up women’s ordination, did you? Head over to Young Adult Catholics to read my post Fox News, Women Priests, Black Smoke, and the Whole Self.

Also, US Catholic gave a nice mention to Hungering and Thirsting for Justice here.

Tuscany Prize Winner – Free E-book!

Hey, folks! Do you remember many moons ago when I entered the Tuscany Press contest for Catholic fiction? Although my manuscript was retained (and later rejected) for their young adult fiction startup, I did not win any of the prizes. But now you can all check out who did! For tomorrow and Wednesday only (probably today and tomorrow by the time most of you read this, so let’s just say March 12 & 13 to make it less confusing), you can download the winning novella, The Book of Jotham, on Kindle for free. If you need to know more about the book then that it’s FREE, here’s a synopsis:

Jotham is a mentally challenged man-child who, like the other apostles, follows Jesus as Christ carries out his ministry and experiences death by crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. Yet the other apostles—the dedicated Mary, Peter, Thomas, and the rest—while they care for Jotham and look out for him, don’t understand why Jesus loves him so. Thomas even says, after Jesus offers a parable, “I don’t see why all the pots can’t be strong and beautiful.”

Jotham may be different, but through him, we come to see Jesus and Jotham not just with our eyes, but also with our hearts.

You can bet I’ll be gettin’ one!

On the editing front, I am loving NaNoEdMo and immersing myself in Rapunzel without the stress of having to write it for the first time. But as is wont to happen in the course of revision, there are times when I have to write something totally new. This has been fun for me when it constitutes adding new content or significantly changing content in scenes I’ve already written, but today I had to write my first scene totally from scratch, and man did I balk! It’s still not finished, but it’s hard to go back to that “first-time-out” stage again, without the abandon of NaNoWriMo. My inner editor is here, guys, and you want me to write something new?

I didn’t finish the scene, but I’ve got a whole hour and a half for it tomorrow.