What if…

What if I changed my topic and plan for my thesis? It’s only my first quarter as a grad student; it surely isn’t too late to change my mind.

What if I take another tack on the idea of identity creation, and use a diary to recreate scenes from a woman’s life? Looking through the lens of her own words to “see” her life—a sort of fictionalized biography. Giving a larger life to a woman who, in her own time, was voiceless except for her writings that may never have left home during her lifetime.

I’ve been rethinking my thesis idea. Although it still appeals to me—both the topic and the format—I’ve been considering what it is I really want to do after I get my degree. Maybe I don’t need to write a thesis. I mean really, what are the odds that I’ll get a PhD. or teach writing at either a community college OR a university? And if I could, is it really what I want to do? I don’t know the answer to that question…

But the one thing I do know is that I want to write. I love research. I love the sense of discovery that comes when I learn something new, or find some new idea that I want to learn more about. I’ve always been this way and nothing will change that.

What has become new for me is the craving to commit ideas to paper. To discern the story in the everyday. To write.

To write a book? Hmmm, the thought appeals to me… a lot. I've had this niggling little thought, that I had a book in me, buzzing through my brain since I was about 25.

Even at this moment, as fingers fly across keys (ok, they don’t really fly. I’m not a great typist), I can feel thoughts form through my fingertips—and I am entranced. I could honestly do this all day! But this new thought is something I’ve always said I could never do—to “make up” a story—and I want to find out if that’s really true. Is writing fiction really any different than writing anything else? Isn’t it really just having an idea and following it? Fleshing out an incomplete story that allows your imagination a little freer rein?

Do fiction writers truly come up with their stories completely out of thin air, or do they just take the everyday and fill in the blanks a bit? I’ve seen enough movies and read enough books to know that there is no such thing as a truly original idea. Someone else has already done it (and usually better when it comes to movies). I read once that the world is made up of a limited number of story forms, but a good storyteller can take one and re-write it dozens of different ways. I want to understand the structure behind the story—but I want to learn it by doing it!

I’m thinking about taking a fiction writing class next quarter, to explore this idea a little further. Talk about stretching myself…

(Meanwhile I’m on the hunt for a good 19^th century woman’s diary. Any suggestions?)

I've spent most of my waking moments this weekend writing papers that discuss things like my "theoretical paradigm," and reading articles about "mommyblogging,"  19th century women diarists, and the creation of identity through language--all so I can write a paper (due Wednesday) that explains why my chosen topic is worth studying. (Isn't it enough to say that I'm fascinated?)

So, I did a little freewrite this morning--just to find out what I think--and I'm including it here:

Why is it important to examine these personal writings of women who are just beginning to understand themselves as mothers? There is probably no relationship on earth more intense than that of mother and child. One literally gives birth to the other, and in that process two identities are born. A child awakes to life, and a mother is born. Before that moment, a woman lives and breathes and has an identity as daughter, wife, friend, maybe sister—and whatever else identifies the person she is. But in the moment when her child takes his or her first breath, she is also born anew. She is born as a mother.

I can’t speak of the experience of adopted mothers, but I imagine that it is not much different. Although love may happen at first glance, it is in that first moment of shared breath that motherhood really begins. And along with this new identity is also born—for many—the desire to experience it in a community that shares that identity.

My goal with this project is to examine the writings of women in two centuries—and across two seemingly disparate mediums—to discover the language that attests to constructions of an identity as “mother.” As we read accounts of women sharing with other women the stories of their own motherhood, we see not only the creation of a brand-new self, but the desire for a new community in which to experience it. We find shared stories of common concern creating support systems and allowing  women to fashion their new identity within this “writing community” they have created.

Clearly, 21^st century mommbloggers seem to be sharing their stories with a larger community, but didn't women in the 19^th century really do the same with their so-called “private writings?” I maintain that they did. Cynthia Huff , in an article regarding Victorian-era women and their diaries of childbirth and motherhood, claims that those diaries were shared among family and friends as a way to share concerns and create support communities. Is this any different than what the Internet allows us to do today—just on a larger scale? Most of the mommyblogs categorized  by Aimee Morrison as “personal” have readerships of only a few to a few dozen, and in them women are creating not only a sense of their own identity as mothers, but a support system for themselves with others who share that same sense of identity. Morrison calls these shared “spaces” of support “intimate publics," and they become for both groups a place of creation—not unlike the moment of shared breath that first gave birth to mother and child.

Any mommybloggers out there? If you'd care to share your experiences, I await with bated breath...

Mirrors and Veils

I came across a quote this week, from Viviane Serfaty, an Associate Professor at Université Paris-Est Marne la Vallée (France), who has done a great deal of research into digital culture. In her estimation, blogs are “simultaneously mirrors and veils.” Bloggers use the platform they have generated for themselves to both create a reflection that allows other to “see” them, but also veils those aspects that they’d rather no one knew about. In other words, bloggers pick and choose what they want others to know; they create an image of themselves with the words on the page. To a large extent, whether you are a blogger or not, you do this every day.

I had lunch yesterday with two friends (Hi, Amy and Kylie!), and although we hadn’t been together in the same place for over a month, I didn’t spend the time filling them in on every little thing that happened since we’d seen each other last. And, in spite of the fact that Kylie had just come back from a four-week study abroad trip to Vietnam—neither did she. We judiciously chose:

• What we had time to talk about in brief one-hour lunch (between bites of French onion soup)
• What we felt was important about the last four weeks

and, whether we realized it or not…

•      What fit in with the identity we each attempt to cultivate in relation to the others.

If all that sounds calculating, I suppose on some level it is. Ask yourself, why are there things one person knows about us that others do not? Sometimes people might know something just because they happened to have been there when it happened (I have  friends who lived across the street from me when I was a child who know more about my childhood than anyone else, except maybe my sister), but more often than not, people know only what we tell them.

My dear husband, when he heard about this blog I've begun, decided that he wanted to create one, too. So we spent a few minutes getting him set up and ready to roll, before I left him alone to consider a name and create his first post. About an hour later, he sent me this link: http://rowlinalong.blogspot.com/ Curious to see what on earth he'd come up with, I followed the link, and discovered that he had created not only a fictional persona, but an entire storyline--supported by actual, unretouched photographs--of a scenario that never really happened (although the bit about the "crab attack" was more or less true, but happened to our grandson). Now, if you know him at all, you are not surprised by this (the biggest surprise to me was that he wanted to start his own blog!).  His blog is one example of those "veils and mirrors": He has created an unabashedly fictionalized version of himself--on purpose. Many other bloggers--believe it or not--do the same.

But every blogger--or writer--does it. Some do it in the name of fiction, and others do it unwittingly. But all of us do it every time we sit down to write, simply through the choices we make. I did it in the writing of this blogpost!

So, as you read your favorite blogs this week, think about those mirrors and veils, and ask yourself which you are seeing—and if there is any way to tell the difference.

I know I will be!