I'm a big believer in guided free-writing for students: Just when you think you have nothing to write about for your college essay (or generally!), BOOM, a subject appears from the back of your mind. It's like magic: awesome, repeatable and yours if you want it. Free-writing helps young writers produce freely I watched this magic happen again this weekend in Chicago, at JPMorgan Chase The Fellowship Initiative. We convened on the 56th floor of the company skyscraper, where I offered my intro to the college essay workshop (a sizzling title!) meant to fire up the Fellows' creative circuits. The offices sported a dizzying, commanding view of miniaturized downtown, Big Ole Lake Michigan, and a huge sky. The view itself said, "We own this!" Exactly how I hope the students come to feel about their college essays. Exactly where the productive power of free-writing can get you. Continue Reading …
Creativity
Be Bold in Your College Essay
A bold kid on a mission to write When I was in fourth grade, I was obsessed with opera. And I had a bold teacher, Mr. F, who was lanky and fierce in creativity and temper. He always smelled like coffee. Luckily, he also was obsessed with opera-- some of the same ones. And, like me, he liked to write. Mr. F, however, was a musician who had actually written and produced an opera. About the revolutionary war. For fourth graders to perform. In a public elementary school. I was 9. I told Mr. F I wanted to write an opera. And what did he say? Go for it; I'll help you. This encouragement is what each of us needs to be equally bold. Someone saying, Got dreams? Got something to say? Go for it; I'll help you. What did I know then about ambition? I wore paisley print stretch pants, velour shirts, and Velcro sneakers, to give you an idea. I was still eating pita-and-peanut-butter-and-honey for lunch every day, and throwing my invariably mealy apple in the over-sized cafeteria trash can (and why was it over-sized? Guess!). But even with no feel yet for literary structure, never having written lyrics, I still thought I could write an opera. And I started right away on my dad's long yellow legal pads. What I wrote strangely resembled my favorite opera in character, in plot and....I had no idea how one would compose song. Do you get it? I could do none of the things required to actually write an opera, but I still THOUGHT I COULD DO IT. As soon as I was supported, I got started. I was bold. Self-doubt was not even in my vocabulary. I think the opera is somewhere in my parent's basement now. I don't need to see it because I'm embarrassingly confident how bad it is. But I'm so proud of that kid. In your college essay, be like a ballsy fourth grader.. Here's the deal: your work is only as bold as you're willing to be. And sometimes we need a hand at our back, a voice in our ear saying, Go For It. Sometimes we need to switch our seat at the Continue Reading …
Stay Inspired
How do YOU stay inspired, Toni Morrison? I was already nursing a huge crush on Toni Morrison as she spoke about her fictional characters' natural limitations-- how, like you and I, they only know what they know. Her confiding tone, her flirtatious but never-bullshitty manner, made me (and every other "me" there to see her, I suspect) feel as if it were just us two on a porch together, at some place and time that compelled honesty to a fault. Ms. Morrison's interviewer, Professor Claudia Brodsky, drew an audience question from the stack of submitted index cards. She smiled at the author, a close friend and subject of her academic studies: "How do you stay inspired?" The Brooklyn temple, packed to the gills, hushed entirely to hear what Ms. Morrison would say, with her twinkling eyes and easy hands, with her direct simplicity and charm. Because, hell, this was like the elixir of creative life about to come from the Mouth of Literary Giant Morrison. This could fix all of our problems. She said WHAT? But Instead of haranguing the muse's poor attendance record, instead of telling us a recipe, a trick, her answer was both jubilant and matter-of-fact: "Because I can't not!" Right. She can't not stay inspired. Anyone else have that problem? "Because I have to be creative," she continued. "I have to be! It's me!" She said that the way a doctor might tell you your blood had to circulate. Let that sink in: queen of the novel, now well into her wisdom-years, in a wheelchair for unknown reasons, with her nest of braided hair resting in the curve of her neck like a crown worn backwards, continues to be creatively inspired not because she owes it to anyone, not because of any contract, not because of anything. Because that's who she is. She can't help you stay inspired-- but you can! All the desperate writers in the room, all the hungry writers, the people slightly disenchanted with their lot or lives or creative practice, all those Continue Reading …