Excess

 by Lis Anna-Langston 

When I lived in Wisconsin, I used a Marilyn Manson CD as an ice scraper. My friends acted like it was a commentary on the music. I liked the CD a lot, had listened to it a lot, and then one day, stuck between ice and a hard place, I repurposed that MTV-award-winning beauty into a practical tool.

It’s what writers do.

Mechanical Animals turned out to be an excellent ice scraper. Durable. Easy to maneuver. Perfect at removing ice without scratching the windshield and came with a handy case sporting great artwork. It appealed to all my writerly senses. Mechanical Animals is an album full of excess. So is the process of writing.

Repurpose. Recycle. Reuse. These are terms we hear daily. In art and writing, they very much apply.

We’re always going to have excess. That section you cut from a short story, or chapter you really loved. Can it be expanded into a piece of flash? A series of vignettes you can create under a certain theme? That chapter you love in your current work in progress. Can you polish it and submit it as its own stand-alone piece? Fragments of writing exercises? What images, symbols, visuals do these conjure? Can they be memes? Key marketing materials? A new story built from another?

Later, after I moved to North Carolina, I had a roommate/close friend from Cuba. He repurposed EVERYTHING. I’d be standing in the front yard holding a cup of coffee with my nose scrunched, asking, “Why don’t you just buy a new one?”

In the late winter light, he’d turn to make eye contact with me like I’d just sprouted six wings and four heads. I came to learn that, because of the embargos, Cubans definitely didn’t live in a shopping mall culture. If something broke, you fixed it. If you were tired of something, you transformed it into a new item. I knew something about this, growing up in one of the poorest places in Mississippi. Poor wasn’t a term we used. That was for outsiders. For insiders, we knew how to do a lot with a little.

So, what about that line you absolutely loved that had to be cut? Can you start a new writing exercise with the line? Create a catchy piece of digital art? Take all the edits you loved and group them together to create a new project?

Part of repurposing is discernment. The ability to recognize that something isn’t a piece of the story puzzle you’re working on and quietly put it away or transform it into a new piece entirely. I once took the cuts from a novel and created a new novel. It went on to win ten book awards. All because I saw the process of elimination as an opportunity.

Writing is a process of discovery. At least, it is for me. Keeping notebooks and showing up to the page every day means you’ll likely end up with more material than you need for one project. So, every now and then, when you’re not feeling the fit of the raw drift, polished draft, fully realized draft, take up the challenge and shift into seeing those old pieces with fresh perspective. There is opportunity in excess.

Method Writing

By Lis Anna-Langston

I studied Dramatic Arts at a Creative and Performing Arts School from age eleven until graduation. There wasn’t a creative writing program, but I was able to write my own material. 

Acting has never been my favorite. There isn’t much I like about it. But being in the program day in and day out created a complicated relationship. People like Stella Adler became my heroes. 

It’s impossible to study acting and not love Stanislavski. Brando said, “If you want something from an audience, you give blood to their fantasies. It’s the ultimate hustle.” Oh, Brando. Sigh. There is so much to love about Method Acting that even typing this thrills me to the core. And yet, I’d do anything to avoid acting.

In North Carolina I continued to study Method Acting. It actually led me to the staggering 9 ½ year mark of study. Wondering why on earth I’d ever spent that much time studying something I’d never use, a fellow writer commented that I’d sorta carved out a new niche: Method Writing. I’d never seen it from that angle, but it was true. An intense inhabiting of my characters, like a skin suit, and wearing it to see what it felt like until it felt real. Motivation, magic, subtext, observation, and the body as an instrument are just some of the tools in acting. 

Another common tool is to tap into “emotional memory”. A quick summary of EM: you bring your own memories, and the feelings associated with your memories, and use them during a performance.

Feel.

Feel is at the heart of Method Acting. Feel is at the heart of my Method Writing.

How does the world feel? From climate to culture, what is the feeling? Method Writing feels so real to me because I start by going in search of a single truth and building up.

I had a woman follow me into the breakroom during a workshop and blurt out, “I am so sorry about your childhood.”

I hadn’t been writing about my childhood, so I was curious what she was referring to.

“The stories you just read aloud. They’re about you, right?”

“No,” I said, “I did not grow up in a trailer in South Carolina with a mother who is an exotic dancer.”

“Oh,” she said, cheeks flushed. “Your stories feel so real.”

“They’re supposed to. That’s the job,” I said, pouring a cup of coffee.

“But how did you do that?”

Method Writing. That’s how.

To the best of our ability, our job as creators is to walk the paths of our characters. Stand in the dark city. Put on the corset. Move surreptitiously through a crowd. Send the secret message. Then, link this to how a character feels and what it means to them.

Method Writing is a lifelong pursuit. At its core, it is the simple act of choosing something real from my life, environment, experience, dreams that drives a real feeling. Find something great and build up, creating a multi-dimensional character, flawed and vibrant, with a feeling that anchors to a moment in your life. The choices are endless.

REAL MAGIC

By Lis Anna-Langston

Before I could write full-time, I worked at a greeting card company. Christmas started in May when catalogs and holiday material went to design. The novelty of snowflakes in summer was fun. Just when I thought holiday demand would disappear with the heat, it ramped up again. By October, my holiday cheer thinned out.

My family never celebrated holidays together, so a week before Christmas, I got in my Honda and drove. Asheville to Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas. My dog and I stopped at roadside motels and drive thru coffee places. I jotted poems and stories on paper bags with stray fries hanging out in the bottom.

I was exhausted.

I remember sitting in a diner in Shreveport, eating French fries and realizing I didn’t know what day it was.

I kept going.

I plowed on across Texas, convinced somewhere in the world, meaning and miracles intersected. Charmed by the desert, that massive, waterless expanse of shrub and sand lit up my imagination. The further I drove, the more I started to form an idea for a story. Like, a real holiday story. A story about a little boy who finds something in the forest. It was right there. Pieces of a story, floating around inside the car. I swept through El Paso, passed the border and drove out to Deming, White Sands, to where Billy the Kid was jailed. I ate way too many avocados. I drove to old Indian sites and hiked up cliffs and down into caverns. I blazed my way through barrels of fresh salsa, red and green. I started to get the feeling that I was closer to Christmas than I’d ever been.

I bought a telescope and took it out into the desert. It wasn’t sophisticated, but it was portable. From a dirt road in the middle of New Mexico, I could see the moons of Jupiter. Seeing those moons locked in the pull of a planet so far away created a shift in me. A shift that pushed me closer to a magic I’d never been able to define. Not hocus-pocus magic. Real magic. The kind that exists when flowers turn to face the sun. Beyond science and stars and moons, out into the subatomic world of sheer possibility. I could feel it; like it was just around the corner, watching me.

I put my dog in the car and headed out towards Tucson. It was beautiful but not my destination. I headed north, towards Flagstaff.

The first time I saw the Grand Canyon was at 3AM, under the light of a full moon. It had just snowed. The streets were clear, but a white blanket covered the ground. Enormous elk stood under the moonlight, so huge their bellies came up to the top of my car. Coyotes roamed the wide-open spaces. The world was aglow and alive in that strange canyon. Cold and clear and perfect. I drove to a hotel and prayed they had a vacancy. While my dog sat in a chair staring out at that new world, I sat awake in bed and wrote down the beginning of this story, shaped by my winter in the desert. A story inspired by moons of Jupiter, life in other star systems, strange findings in the forest.

BEYOND REVISION

By Lis Anna-Langston

Sharon May wrote a great piece about revision last month. Revision is more than changing a word here and there was her point, and I agree. Great writing is rewriting. It also made me think about the rewriting after the rewriting. What about the piece that’s been hanging in limbo for months or, worse, the piece that’s been continually declined? Does it warrant a full rewrite? What if it’s even more nuanced? A lot of rewriting is intuition, craft, objectivity.

I had this piece of flash fiction titled: “afternoons. with kerouac.” For six months I sent the piece out. Nothing. Every editor passed. After half a year I pulled it from the submission queue. Taking an objective look, I analyzed every facet. Plot, pacing, tone, characterization. Is there desire, momentum, goal? Yes. Can I tighten the story? Um, no. At 405 words it was the most well-crafted flash fiction I’d ever written. A love letter to Jack, conceived and honed to perfection after a long cold winter listening to On the Road. Something was wrong, and I couldn’t figure out what. That bugged me. Unable to figure out the missing piece, I kept it out of rotation. Days later, I returned to the story. I sat down at my desk and reread it.

“What is this piece really about? What is really going on in this scene?” I asked myself aloud.

I made some quick notes. A girl and Jack and Neil in a small apartment. The narrator liked Jack, but she didn’t love him. I reduced the entire story to three lines, then to two lines, from two to one. Then I distilled the entire piece to a single phrase. Except I was back to zero. The piece really was about afternoons with Kerouac. I must have sat there for half an hour deconstructing every word. Finally, I did what every writer does: I went to get a cup of coffee. Driving down the winding road, the answer came. I drove back to my office and distilled it to one word. Sex. The narrator was having sex with Kerouac, even though it is never mentioned. I changed the title, sex. with kerouac, saved, and submitted the piece to literary journals with open calls. It was accepted for publication nine days later. So, what’s the takeaway? Well, clearly sex sells.

But that’s just snark. Even after all the line edits, plot changes, grammar, and punctuation, revision may extend beyond the rewrite. A simple revision can complete an entire piece and bring the story full circle. Elevating the mechanics of a complete rewrite to a single meaningful change can very often be the difference between a good piece and a great piece. You can make a change, but what you really need at that point is an elegant change. Sometimes that comes long after the original rewrite. Sometimes changing one word changes the entire substance of the piece. One meaningful change can shorten the distance from where you are to where you want to be.

THE LATEST ADDITION

Meet a New Columbia II Writer

LIS ANNA-LANGSTON 

Lis Anna-Langston was raised along the winding current of the Mississippi River on a steady diet of dog-eared books. She attended a Creative and Performing Arts School from middle school until graduation and went on to study Literature at Webster University. Her two novels, Gobbledy and Tupelo Honey have won the Parents’ Choice Gold, Moonbeam Book Award, Independent Press Award, Benjamin Franklin Book Award and NYC Big Book Awards. Twice nominated for the Pushcart award and Finalist in the Brighthorse Book Prize, William Faulkner Fiction Contest and Thomas Wolfe Fiction Award, her work has been published in The Literary Review, Emerson Review, The Merrimack Review, Emrys Journal, The MacGuffin, Sand Hill Review, and dozens of other literary journals.

 She draws badly, sings loudly, loves ketchup, starry skies, and stories with happy aliens.

You can find her in the wilds of South Carolina plucking stories out of thin air.  

 www.lisannalangston.com

Lis's first post follows.

TRUST THE PROCESS

By Lis Anna-Langston

My third year at a Creative and Performing Arts School, I came to a crossroads. Home was chaotic and I took up study at a Buddhist Temple. It wasn’t a decision of faith but a simple response to my environment. With a fine combination of new athletic shoes, city buses, and catching rides, I set out to learn a lesson in commitment. It was a lot of work for anyone, especially a Sophomore in high school to get up at 4:30AM to catch a bus but I took up the reigns of my new choice with profound enthusiasm.

At the library I devoured ancient texts. I meditated on the meaning of nothingness, because, unlike the existential nothingness at home, I found something unique. I studied on buses and weekends, keeping up my pace. Making choices cleared my mind, gave me focus. In time I noticed my studies overlapped into my artistic work. What I learned from ancient texts applied to writing and being on stage. The same process I used to align myself with the universe was the same one I used in writing to go deeper into the material. The same path I took to a poem led to divine truths. These paths became interchangeable. Unique by design but more similar than I imagined. A magical place where art and philosophy intersected. An invisible border where commitment merged into trust.

There are few things more exciting than watching inspiration at work in your life. Seeing all that come alive made me even more excited about processes that required a lot of work on my part. There weren't a lot of things I could trust in my life, but I started to see through the cracks. I had to learn to trust. Trust myself to know what I wanted. Trust the art of allowing. Trust myself to get the idea onto the page. Trust myself to dive into the raw draft. Trust myself to show up to the work every day. Trust that the final draft would be completely different than the first. Trust that every way is the right way. Trust I’m serving the work in ways I couldn’t have defined yesterday or the day before. It’s a hard concept for people to grasp.

People want absolutes. They want to know. But art isn’t about knowing. Trust opens doors to beginnings and endings. It is the rope binding each part of the artistic process to the next. It’s the edge of the cliff, the beginning of an idea, the thing that lights our way, the thing that reflects back what we’re thinking and doing, the thing that catches us in midair. A paradox of paradoxes. Letting go of results shifts us into a position to trust. From inspiration to drafts to rewrites, trust becomes the key to open those doors. Write your truth is an empty phrase until you first learn to trust. I see now that commitment to writing practice shapes and hones art. Trust is a powerful tool for writers. The gateway from which all great ideas enter.