How to Reconceive Your Writing (Donald Intro) (02/06/2021)

A recap of the week's writing at Atticus Review. Introduction by Donald Quist.

View this email in your browser

In January, a writer friend invited me to speak to high school students in her Creative Writing classes. I said yes. I welcomed the opportunity, but it came at a time of acute anxiety about what I’m doing with my life and the value of my own work. I’d recently received two kind rejections from agents who felt they weren’t the best to represent my first novel. I was also struggling through suggestions for major edits from a publisher on a personal essay collection scheduled for release this fall. So, I tried to remember to stay positive during the Google Hangout with my friend and her students. I didn’t want to dampen any excitement the young writers had. I prepared myself to answer, as enthusiastically as I could, questions about inspiration, process, and obstacles. I’m not prescriptive and I understand that everyone is wired differently, but when a student asked for my best advice to aspiring writers, I didn’t have to think about it long. “The most helpful thing any writer can do is to read widely,” I said. I encouraged them to read across as many genres, forms, and styles as they could in order to seek out and cultivate their influences. I spoke about what could be gained from reading beyond what they know, especially stories  they think might confound them—the benefit in consuming work they don’t know how to easily interpret through lenses with which they’re most familiar. While I spoke my mind drifted to the rapper and super producer Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest (ATCQ).  I thought of a young Q-Tip in the early 90s. He’d look just a little older than the students listening to me on the Google Hangout. I imagined this young emcee waking up on an early Sunday morning in St. Albans, Queens, walking through the chill of the last few hours of dark before dawn. I saw him in my mind, meeting up with a friend to catch a ride into midtown Manhattan to The Roosevelt Hotel Record Convention. There he would find himself among many of his contemporaries—Kid Capri, Large Professor, Pete Rock—all of them digging through endless crates of vinyl to encounter disparate tracks that might push and reshape the possibilities of their own voice.  When I think of reading widely to broaden one’s influences, I think of Q-Tip’s sampling of Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers’ “A Chant for Bu,” in the break-beat bass of “Excursions,” featured on The Low End Theory by ATCQ. Or, how on his first solo album, Amplified, Kool and the Gang’s “N.T.” is chopped, looped and layered into Q-Tip’s “Breathe and Stop.” He finds in other’s work, as he puts it, the “confidence to be able to say, ‘Okay, now I could play even more.’” In a similar spirit, I read as much as I can, hunt through library and bookstore stacks like racks at a records sale, search for new influences to teach myself how to play better. I’m not waiting for inspiration but hunting for motivation, for other artists whose work provides me with tracks to raise and reconceive my writing. I neglected to share my thoughts on Q-Tip with the students. I did show them the pile of books on my desk I’ve been making my way through: novels, short stories, essays, comics, memoir, cultural criticisms and self-help.   When the online session ended, a student lingered as the others exited. She thanked me for my work and then shared one of her influences with me. She thought I might find the book worth sampling. I wrote the title down. I’m unsure what I will take from the text she recommended or the others I’m reading, but I’m hopeful they will help me revise my novel, remix my essay collection, and make something that encourages more readers to fill their own pages.Thanks for reading. We're glad you're here. Donald QuistColumns Editor 

ATTICUS REVIEW IS SEEKING A CNF READERAre you interested in being a volunteer CNF reader for Atticus Review?TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF 

THIS WEEK AT ATTICUS

FICTIONBIG EYESby Janelle Bassett"I wanted to pull her into me, too hard and too tight, and let her and her laser eyes take life in from the safety of my armpit."READ ON

POETRYSTAYING WITH MRS. WESTby Annie Deppe"Stooping through the little doorof her chicken coop, the onewith the gun nailed above the sill,we entered the gloomof cluck and murmur."READ ON

CREATIVE NONFICTIONSEASON OF SPADESby Em Kelly"On the day I jumped from the tree, the sky overhead was blue and beneath me a large tractor tire filled with sand cushioned my landing to earth. I glided effortlessly down, floating lean and leaf-like."READ ON

SUPPORT ATTICUS!

We are able to bring you content such as this through the generous support of writers and readers like yourself. Please consider becoming a regular

Patreon Subscriber

today. All subscription levels include free submissions.