Eighth Prompt - Hot Air & Reaching (25/09)
Final Reflective Essay - In Retrospect
This post was altered for the Final Reflective Essay. It was originally titled "[PROMPT 8] #36: Eighth Prompt - Hot Air and Reaching".
------------------------------
"Select ONE reading from the reading list, from either the Nonfiction Practice section OR the Nonfiction Craft section (one you haven't already read or written about), and closely read it. Then take some time (a pomodoro) to critically reflect, as a writer, on one idea related to writing and/or nonfiction that strikes you from the reading."
Whilst stalking the class blogs recently to search for a quote of mine used in the 6th Prompt by my peers (#noshamesurprisingly), I stumbled across Brayden's (thank you so much!!). He plucked out the following message:
"As you're writing, you don't know whether or not what you're writing is pure garbage or actually genius."
"As you're writing, you don't know whether or not what you're writing is pure garbage or actually genius."
Maybe best summarised as, "There's a fine line between writing genius and total bullshit." Sorry for my crassness, but I had to get it out there because boy. Did I find a piece like that today.
I admittedly came into Eliza Burke's 'A Measure of Distance' with a groan. The second the first account of the Covid-19 lockdown experience was published by a writer, it became a cliché. Now, I can't be hypocritical, because my own piece is about my Covid-19 lockdown experience too, but I had just read a few of the other set readings before Burke's with a similar premise so I was a little weary of the topic.
My partner, N, and I, were reading aloud the paragraphs. I usually rely on his responses to validate my own, usually any confusion regarding pieces we read. So there's his introduction in the post.
The piece started off well, but predictable. It talks about the Australian summer bush fires and how we've moved into a new crisis -- Covid-19. Burke goes on about her routine during lockdown: reading news updates and noting down interesting facts, her slight loneliness, discussing how "apocalyptic visions shadow the global metrics of the nightly news, splitting human populations into the living, the survivors and the dead" which is definitely NOT how this year has gone since we're not zombies, and that her vigilance "starts showing signs of wear" as she experiences lockdown burnout.
But then she says the following,
What was already a red flag for me was the fact that the Sydney Review of Books' style guide might not allow for in-text footnotes. She does cite this source in her endnotes but it wouldn't been nice to see at least a little number there.
Anyway. This section for me was a "What are you talking about?" It's the turnabout in the piece, the moment where something feels off and your attitude towards it changes. N told me he already felt like it was going to be BS from the start, but this point about the pandemic making a new code of human consciousness was a bit of a reach.
I try to qualm these feelings, give the piece the benefit of the doubt, but then it moves onto this paragraph:
This was the paragraph where I solidified my attitude, which is,
What the fuck are you even talking about?
When talking about the Australian Bachelorette (2019) series, Friendlyjordies points out what "What are you doing?" is the most damning Aussie insult. I mean it when I say it (well, a variation of it) here. N backed up my feelings with his own bemused expression, echoing my nitpicking of her piece, so I feel as though I have the confidence to talk about it here. Mob mentality, y'know? Though, I guess that phrase doesn't really apply when you've only got two people.
It could just be my perception and it's hard to explain what my "What the fuck?" factor is but I'll try to nitpick what I hate about this paragraph. In her "I scrutinise my body as a threat both real and imaginary" sentence, she invokes these weird but useless pictures of the writer looking at themselves that ultimately come off as just descriptive language just trying to fill in the space. Holding in your breath "as a form of self-containment, an attempt at fortitude"? Come on. Don't you have anything of value to say? She keeps listing things too, like she's a fucking shopping list; "against the greater orders of risk, futility, surveillance, control". Trying to portray the virus as a "criminal strategist involved in its own blockades, evasions and escapism"? I I get that writers have to exaggerate things to sound interesting but man was this such a bore to read.
Burke later starts bringing up community, which is fair, but then brings up this:
Groan.
Did she have to stretch for colonialism?
Look, at the end of her piece, she does talk about the virus colonising the body and that gets a pass from me. But really. Really?
I admittedly came into Eliza Burke's 'A Measure of Distance' with a groan. The second the first account of the Covid-19 lockdown experience was published by a writer, it became a cliché. Now, I can't be hypocritical, because my own piece is about my Covid-19 lockdown experience too, but I had just read a few of the other set readings before Burke's with a similar premise so I was a little weary of the topic.
My partner, N, and I, were reading aloud the paragraphs. I usually rely on his responses to validate my own, usually any confusion regarding pieces we read. So there's his introduction in the post.
The piece started off well, but predictable. It talks about the Australian summer bush fires and how we've moved into a new crisis -- Covid-19. Burke goes on about her routine during lockdown: reading news updates and noting down interesting facts, her slight loneliness, discussing how "apocalyptic visions shadow the global metrics of the nightly news, splitting human populations into the living, the survivors and the dead" which is definitely NOT how this year has gone since we're not zombies, and that her vigilance "starts showing signs of wear" as she experiences lockdown burnout.
But then she says the following,
"I read somewhere that human consciousness was the result of viral mutation and begin wondering whether reducing language to the same fields of meaning might eventually cause mutations in our DNA. I wonder whether the pandemic might create a new code of human consciousness, fulfilling Burroughs' vision of viral language as the limit of total control, the ultimate infection."
What was already a red flag for me was the fact that the Sydney Review of Books' style guide might not allow for in-text footnotes. She does cite this source in her endnotes but it wouldn't been nice to see at least a little number there.
Anyway. This section for me was a "What are you talking about?" It's the turnabout in the piece, the moment where something feels off and your attitude towards it changes. N told me he already felt like it was going to be BS from the start, but this point about the pandemic making a new code of human consciousness was a bit of a reach.
I try to qualm these feelings, give the piece the benefit of the doubt, but then it moves onto this paragraph:
"The idea of COVID-19 as a hit and stay virus begins to chart its own symbolic territory in my mind, becoming a criminal strategist involved in its own blockades, evasions and escapism, forcing its host to produce new cells for survival. I scrutinise my body as a threat both real and imaginary, picture its future immunity, weighing up the purpose of my actions against the greater orders of risk, futility, surveillance, control. News footage of military-sized oxygen tankers outside hospitals reminds me that the air I breathe is not my own and I practice holding my breath as a form of self-containment, an attempt at fortitude where the disease makes the body weak. Practicing these small resistances every day, I write and wait for the virus to make a bad move, falter in its reproduction, knowing any change in its mechanism could equally increase its threat and provoke new strains of infection and metaphor."
This was the paragraph where I solidified my attitude, which is,
What the fuck are you even talking about?
When talking about the Australian Bachelorette (2019) series, Friendlyjordies points out what "What are you doing?" is the most damning Aussie insult. I mean it when I say it (well, a variation of it) here. N backed up my feelings with his own bemused expression, echoing my nitpicking of her piece, so I feel as though I have the confidence to talk about it here. Mob mentality, y'know? Though, I guess that phrase doesn't really apply when you've only got two people.
It could just be my perception and it's hard to explain what my "What the fuck?" factor is but I'll try to nitpick what I hate about this paragraph. In her "I scrutinise my body as a threat both real and imaginary" sentence, she invokes these weird but useless pictures of the writer looking at themselves that ultimately come off as just descriptive language just trying to fill in the space. Holding in your breath "as a form of self-containment, an attempt at fortitude"? Come on. Don't you have anything of value to say? She keeps listing things too, like she's a fucking shopping list; "against the greater orders of risk, futility, surveillance, control". Trying to portray the virus as a "criminal strategist involved in its own blockades, evasions and escapism"? I I get that writers have to exaggerate things to sound interesting but man was this such a bore to read.
Burke later starts bringing up community, which is fair, but then brings up this:
"Never far from the spectre of colonialism, the Tasmanian news media plies the canon of militarised language for old myths of defence and protection. Headlines such as ‘We have a moat and we’re not afraid to use it’ and ‘Fortress Tasmania’ evoke ghosts of the colony, reminders that the island’s isolation is knitted to histories of disease migration and the use of contagion as a weapon against its First People."
Groan.
Did she have to stretch for colonialism?
Look, at the end of her piece, she does talk about the virus colonising the body and that gets a pass from me. But really. Really?
I am one reader in a pool of many, so my opinion doesn't count for the other viewers who read this, but seriously. Reading these kinds of works teaches me where I shouldn't try to reach to, just to sound smart. Maybe objectively, it is a good piece and I'm railing on it for nothing. But my own reaction to it has taught me a few things.
A lot of my other blog posts are me blabbing on about class and my opinions to things, but at least they have a bit of energy and enthusiasm to them. Sure they might carry that air of cockiness but it's a fun little element to them, it knows that sometimes I can be contradictory or a little reachy but it's all in good fun and stuff for me to talk about. But when a published article like this has hot air, that talks about things that are a bit of a stretch, trying to make the author seem smart, then it's a bit of a problem.
I am a little worried my piece is like that. I was very focused on the idea that it's an emotionally raw and sort of risqué piece amongst the anthology, sliding in alongside the more scientific pieces of Angus' and Neil's, but I do get a bit self conscious sometimes that it seems like a work that would fit into a Take 5 or That's Life! magazine used when sitting on the toilet. It's important to me that a piece imparts a message, has some kind of value to it. Streams of consciousness that simply explore an idea can be fine sometimes but they need to be careful that they're not a waste of time to the reader.
N testified a few times that this piece felt like a waste of time, and that the only reason he kept reading it with me was because I might (and said towards the end) write on it.
Ugh. Okay. To summarise the points in this Pomodoro:
1. Don't try to reach for things to seem smart.
2. Consult with other people to see if your piece is hot air or if you're actually saying something worthwhile.
Alright. Well, to end like Cr1TiKaL/penguinz0 succinctly ends his 5 minute video discussions/rants, thanks. See ya.
-Katie, the Plague Wanderer
A lot of my other blog posts are me blabbing on about class and my opinions to things, but at least they have a bit of energy and enthusiasm to them. Sure they might carry that air of cockiness but it's a fun little element to them, it knows that sometimes I can be contradictory or a little reachy but it's all in good fun and stuff for me to talk about. But when a published article like this has hot air, that talks about things that are a bit of a stretch, trying to make the author seem smart, then it's a bit of a problem.
I am a little worried my piece is like that. I was very focused on the idea that it's an emotionally raw and sort of risqué piece amongst the anthology, sliding in alongside the more scientific pieces of Angus' and Neil's, but I do get a bit self conscious sometimes that it seems like a work that would fit into a Take 5 or That's Life! magazine used when sitting on the toilet. It's important to me that a piece imparts a message, has some kind of value to it. Streams of consciousness that simply explore an idea can be fine sometimes but they need to be careful that they're not a waste of time to the reader.
N testified a few times that this piece felt like a waste of time, and that the only reason he kept reading it with me was because I might (and said towards the end) write on it.
Ugh. Okay. To summarise the points in this Pomodoro:
1. Don't try to reach for things to seem smart.
2. Consult with other people to see if your piece is hot air or if you're actually saying something worthwhile.
Alright. Well, to end like Cr1TiKaL/penguinz0 succinctly ends his 5 minute video discussions/rants, thanks. See ya.
-Katie, the Plague Wanderer
Haha, thank you for reading my blog post. I find your self-reflections very insightful and well-articulated. Keep it up.
ReplyDelete