It’s better-randomized, though, and more “cloud”-like. Sometimes its output takes a little finessing, but I’m a little bit fascinated with the way it seems to condense stories into important flashes of impression. Given First and Last and Always, for example, it almost seems to take a life of its own.

What do you think? For those writers out in the audience, does Wordle make anything interesting for you?

I’m sleeping. I know it. She is the girl in my dreams, for a long time the only one and even now the only one who stayed. Not a muse, she is my friend and I suppose my sometime lover, a private blessing born somewhere deep in my subconscious mind. It’s been nearly eight years since I last heard her voice aloud. Really it belongs to Evette, to the girl I loved in high-school, to the girl who taught me to love myself, but my girl-dream kept it for me and made it her own.

I turn my head a little in her lap, kissing at the palm of her hand before I open my eyes again. The summer has tanned her since I saw her last, but only just a shade, and the light brings out the dark, ruby fire in her auburn hair. “Tybalt doesn’t want to play today,” I murmur.

“I think you’re just happy right here,” she laughs, slipping her hands away, and her warm, black jeans press against my cheek. I don’t deny it, don’t even try, just make happy meowling noises up at her. Writing something means waking up, at least, leaving her behind again. She comes and goes as it pleases her; it might be months before I see her again. Part of me always worries that, one day, she might not come back.

She knows what I’m thinking, though, and she lifts my head, bending over me to press a kiss against my lips. “How long’ve you known me?”

“Seven years.”

“And I’m always here for you.”

“Not always.”

She looks hurt by the thought, and I regret it right away. “When you need me, I’m here.”

Sitting up, I turn and hold her back. ” . . . yes.” My fingers trace the soft channel of her spine, over and over, in silent apology, until she melts and forgives me, squeezing me tight.

“Kiss me, stupid. It’s been a long time.” she whispers, giggling, and I do, first her cheek, then her lips, then lower, letting her guide me down the long, fine tendons in her neck, to the ridge of her collar and the smeared, ink-black memories of something I wrote on her before. “Write something, okay?” She eases away, two fingers pressed at the edges of my teeth. “For me. I’ll wait right here.”

I nip at her fingertips and make her glare. “Promise?”

The crack of her smile tells me all I need to know.

Real Artists Ship.

Writing is like riding a bicycle. You never completely forget how to do it, but if you stop pedalling, and coast, sooner or later you fall off.

Telling yourself these things is easy; really knowing them is hard. Living them is nearly painful. It’s always been one of the most frustrating parts of my life as a writer: I write in little bursts and pieces, mostly when I’ve just barely woken up and my dreams are still dying in the morning light. Some of my friends can write a few thousand words in a session; I count myself lucky if I clear a few thousand words in a month. Even keeping that in mind, though, having dry spells that long makes me uncomfortable. It’s bad discipline.

I’ve been gone for a month now, and I don’t really have much of an excuse. I let my water get cold. I stopped pedalling for a while, and I fell off.

I’m back, though, or at least I think I am. I have a few projects burning, most importantly the next Tybalt story; I promised someone I would have it finished by YaoiCon.

Sit tight; I’ll try to share something soon.

There’s something endearing about him, though. Rio feels infectiously, wonderfully right, and every time he stops by to visit, I never have the heart to turn him away. He is a strange and beautiful person, and I adore him for it. Even though all I really have are snapshots of him, I’m going to share him anyways, in hopes that you’ll enjoy his company, too.

While I think that Teach For America’s mission is tremendously important, parts of the program do concern me. As one friend put it, a lot of the program’s teachers just want their requisite nonprofit time before moving on to Senate appointments, and it really does show. I’ve always been a bit more of a craftsman than a politician, personally, and I worry sometimes about whether students suffer as people for the sake of good-looking news stories. They talk about “dynamic teachers who had not only a command of the curriculum but also the ability to connect with children,” but one US News story they shared described an academy founded by former TFA teachers:

Running or yelling is forbidden; students walk in straight, quiet lines. Though classes average more than 30 students, they are so silent you could hear an eraser drop. If a child speaks without being called on, the teacher stops in midsentence. If a child’s attention strays, the teacher warns: “I’m missing one person’s eyes.”

This doesn’t feel like “connecting with children” to me; it feels like a show of force rather than compassion or outreach. The teacher isn’t saying Look at me, because this is important; he says Look at me, because I can humiliate you. The academy even spends the first week “KIPPnotizing” new students to behave that way. I almost expected the example student to snap to his feet, ramrod-straight, and shout “I am sorry, Mein Herr! It shall not happen again!” Discipline and academic rigor have their places, of course, and I’m an advocate of both, but too much of either can be a socially crippling thing.

We are more than our grades and test scores.

Saying this out loud was probably not the smartest thing I have ever done.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Teach For America decided that I was best not left alone around developing young minds. If they hadn’t done that, my assignment would be winding down now, nearing completion, and I think it’s interesting to look back and think about that alternate self, the one who does get paid to help the underachievers.

He doesn’t get to pick his students. I would hate to find myself forced to deal with a year of this. On the other hand, he gets to devote more time to a noble cause, and he gets to give the Opening Talk.

The Opening Talk was supposed to be my first-day speech, a highlight of my general expectations and the material I planned to cover in the class. It was supposed to run bell-to-bell, or very close to it, an indulgence to my sense of the cinematic. I never finished it, but I do have the ending, and I’m still very proud of it.

I can hear you asking, “Why do I need to learn this? What does it matter? They’re only words.”

I will tell you.

Words have power. People will fight and die for words, in ways they wouldn’t dream for any lesser thing. How much money does it take to pay a man to jump on a grenade? There isn’t enough the world, but he’ll do it for his country, because words will stir him, to believe in Mom and apple pie, to remember Pearl Harbor or the Alamo. The greatest battles that the world has ever seen have been fought over the supremacy of words, when the immortal poetry of We the People of the United States of America and the stoic grandeur of God, Queen, and Country were set against the grim and unyeilding fury of Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer.

Words will set the world on fire. Words will shape the minds of men.

Words are the most important tools that you will ever have.

Think about that.

Dismissed.

Sometimes I wonder if it would work the way I planned. Maybe I could have made a difference; maybe I’m better off out here.

I’m still not sure what I expected to hear when she wrote back. Whatever it was I’m pretty sure this wasn’t it:

to anser the last part im not happy with what i make anyway because when ever i finish i think i need to add more and make it better and then even when i do finish it isint my vision of perfect and somewhere along the rode after adding it to be how i want it to be i finally just say fuck it this is how it will be so to answer that question of if thats what i really want to tell u the truth its not that big of a change

I’m not sure why I decided to give her the benefit of one more doubt. Maybe I’m stubborn that way; maybe I have a hard time admitting that sometimes people are lost beyond help. Sometimes people know their shortcomings but can’t summon up the drive to begin correcting them, but I believe in bootstraps, and sometimes you have to try, one more time.

Let’s begin at the beginning, shall we? Find your mistakes in this letter and correct them.

You don’t have to make it perfect; you only have to make it right.
-Adrian

I like to believe that I really would have helped her, if she could do this little thing; I like to believe that making the difference would be worth it. Writing is a hobby to me, and missing a contributor’s copy of the YaoiCon anthology is no big loss. This website didn’t exist then, only my old one, and I already abandoned for months at a time.

She didn’t make it better, though. She gave me this:

To answer the last part, im not happy with what i make because whenever i finish i think i need to add more and make it better, then finish. When i do finish it isint my vision of perfect and somewhere along the rode after making revisions after revisions I finally just say ” eh fuck it this is how it will turn out.” So to answer the question of “is this what you truely want?” the truth is its not that big of a change.

---

Is this what you mean?

This time I didn’t write back. I’m not that patient. I’m not that good.

I think about her sometimes in hindsight, usually when she sends me some inane chain-letter or an invitation to IMVu. It’s not very pretty. Subliteracy isn’t much of an option anymore, not in the modern world. Even high-school graduates barely scratch middle-class; we’ve all but written dropouts out of the American dream. At her level, it isn’t about art, but competence. As I said, You don’t have to make it perfect; you only have to make it right. She couldn’t even do that.

She still has five years, maybe four by now. When (if) she graduates high school, the system will cut her loose. In that time someone might make her see how much she’s missing; someone might make her care; someone might make the most important difference of her life. That someone just won’t be me.

My door stayed open for months.

I will shed no tears.

im willing to lern im only thirteen but i want to be a great author more than anything

I spent a lot of time wondering if I should write back. My day job cuts into my writing time enough as is, and I’m not really sure I believe that she wants to improve. Particularly in fan communities, many writers will praise each other and enjoy being praised, even if their work simply doesn’t measure up. Writing is less an end and more a means for growing closer. They write for community, because humans are storytellers by nature, because they enjoy sitting around the virtual campfire.

Basically it’s a circle-jerk of the ego.

It’s too bad that I’ve never really been friendly enough for that sort of thing.

I thought about it until she wrote to me again.

i went to ur website cuz i was interested in more of ur stuff cuz that first link you gave me was pretty cool im wondering if u care if i use ur stuff in some of my storys not published or anything like that im not that stupid ive seen ur copyright but as inspiration do you mind?

My answer that time was reflexive: I do care, and it bothers me quite a bit. While I admit to reading the Wulf Archives in my early teens, I can’t really endorse handing out shameless pornography to a thirteen-year-old, particularly one who can’t even write a coherent sentence. More than that, though, is the idea that someone could just “use ur stuff”; writing simply doesn’t work that way. It’s not like drawing, where you can develop muscle-memory in the process. Inspiration is one thing, but copying is quite another. Published or not, it doesn’t teach anything; it has no instructional value.

I closed out my reply with this thought: If you really want to improve, you could look at what you enjoy about my writing, and practice to achieve the same effect. It’s much more effort, but the work and the credit be yours, not mine, if you make something really worthwhile.

For a while that was enough, but later that night I sat down and wrote her a more complete explanation. She deserved that much, I thought, and ultimately it cost me nothing to sit down for an hour of downtime and try, one more time, to reach her. I’m actually rather proud of it.

> i want to be a great author more than anything

I’ve been trying to decide how to respond to this for a while now.

I can’t teach you to be a great author.

I can’t even teach you to be a great writer.

There is a subtle and important difference, and I hope you understand it. The way I’m going to use it here, an author, I think, is as much a matter of community as it is a matter of craft. An author is recognized by what he has accomplished; he has an audience and performs upon the stage of their expectations, both on and off the page. An author has a presence. By that measure, I am barely an author at all, let alone a great one.

So what am I, if I am not an author? I am a writer. I write. That is all. I claim no allegiance to any community, no responsibility to any fans. My loyalty is to the craft, to the endless pursuit of an aesthetic. To this end I am only an egg, unhatched. For the most part I have learned by doing, fumbling in the dark, and there is very little I know that isn’t taught in school.

Even if I were a great writer, I’m not sure that I could teach you, or that such a thing can even be taught. Almost by definition great writing transcends teaching. There are no magic pills, or even magic lessons; there is no list of things to learn that add up to greatness, at least not in any meaningful sense. “Bring your images to life.” “Omit needless words.” What do these things mean, really? What makes an image live? Which words are needless? I barely even know, and only then by the faint and painful whispers in the shadows of my dreams. Great writing has a certain sublime quality, a certain alchemical purity that I find hard to even quantify, let alone bottle up and teach.

I don’t think I can even teach you to write in my own style. It would be an empty lesson, a farce if not an insult. A style is so… so personal. I can step into Hemmingway’s style, for a few sentences, and it’s like stepping into his head, like seeing the stark cold lines of reality drawn and highlighted by his eyes, like feeling the hard, proud machismo pounding in his chest, and the weight of his existence upon his shoulders. It’s a profound experience, but it is also a profound wrongness; a style is like a man’s skin, like a suit cut for him and him alone. Wearing someone else’s bends you in places where you have no joints, or you wear out the fabric where a seam should have buttressed it. A style is like armor; if it is not yours, you will break it – and it will break you.

So what do I have to teach? I could, I think, teach you to write the same way I do, with the same process, but I ask you… is this really what you want? I don’t think you understand what that means. It is very simple. There are only two lessons:

1 – You must have the courage to see your mistakes, and the determination to find them all. What is a mistake? Everything that is not perfect is a mistake.

2 – You may never forgive yourself for any of them, ever again.

It’s that simple.

Writing is a slavery. I am a servant of my craft, an empty vessel for the words to fill. I suppose I am a good servant, or at least a competent one, but it is hard to tell; three or four years ago I would have been thrilled with what I’m writing today, but as you grow, so too does your understanding of perfection. You chase something that can never be caught, not in a thousand lifetimes of geniuses a thousand times better than you will ever be, but still you serve, because anything else would be unthinkable; you serve because anything else would tear away the piece of yourself that you’ve already poured into the craft. To write the way that I do is to sit trembling in the corner for hours, sifting your mind for the right word; to wake up gasping and desperate in the middle of the night, hunting for paper to catch the phrases before they fade; to beat your head on the shower wall, trying to make the words come; and to wish, at the same time, that you could stop, and that it would never end.

More than that, though, writing this way means that you will never again be happy with anything you ever make.

Is that what you really want?

Think about it.
-Adrian

I suspected that it would go over her head (to be perfectly truthful, I think basic sentence structure goes over her head), but maybe in five years she’ll open it again and understand what I’m trying to tell her. That’ll be worth it.

Realistically in five years I’ll be ‘that 1 meen guy who was 2 stuk up to help me’.

That’s a cross I’m willing to bear.

Forward to the Aftermath

do u think u can help me with my writing?

She made it sound so easy. I don’t think she understood what she asked.

I remember a story about a pianist, supposedly Vladimir Horowitz but probably apocryphal. After a concert, it’s said that a woman came up to speak with him, amazed by how well he played. “I’d give twenty years of my life to play like that!” she gushed.

Horowitz looked pleased. “Ma’am, that’s exactly what it takes!”

I wanted to tell her this story, because I think that was my biggest reservation. I don’t believe in “writing talent”. Writing is a matter of discipline and precious little else; writers who “naturally” do good work have internalized it, turned craft into instinct. It takes years – decades in most cases – to make a compelling writer from scratch. She told me later that she was thirteen. That puts her in eighth grade, maybe even high school, and still unable (or unwilling, perhaps) to spell out “you” or use any capital letters.

I’m not a miracle worker. I’m not extraordinary. I’m just a public-school brat with a good work ethic and a few good teachers; I started public school in kindergarten and stayed in public schools (minus a summer) until the day I walked off the stage with my bachelor’s degree. Teach For America turned down my application. In eight years or more, she couldn’t find the motivation to learn basic sentence structure; what made her think I could give it to her in my spare time?

Still, I wrote back, trying to nudge her in the right direction.

Do you really want the help I have to offer? I’m an infamously unforgiving tutor, as I believe that writing is an even more unforgiving master.
There are probably better ways to ask that question, if you really mean it.

-Adrian

A few hours later, my email alarm went off again.

my question is do u think in the futur u could help me with my own writing?

*headdesk*

Forward to part 3

This is a story about some email I got a few months ago, after I’d handed the link to Graveyard to a few people. The first one looked something like this (names excised to protect the dim):

Subject: i met u on gaia and love ur work
hi, i met u on gaia im g——— or on aim m————
after reading that link u sent me “graveyard” i really liked ur wrigting so i searched u on google and thats how i found ur site.
do u think u can help me with my writing?

Usually I’m thrilled when developing writers come to me and ask for some personal mentoring. I enjoy the opportunity to watch them develop and grow into themselves. I get to see myself make a difference, sometimes. One writer even told me that he hears me correcting him as he works. It’s quite a compliment, really, a vote of confidence, a reminder that someone out there thinks I know what I’m doing, and that I’m doing it well. I don’t get very many.

Sometimes I’m less enthusiastic. In general I like to believe that people with the benefits of computers and modern public education, for all the faults in both, ought to know the basic fundamentals of English usage. People who self-identify as writers, particularly, should have the discipline to avoid being outright idiots in that regard. I like to believe that writers coming to me for help are competent, or at least willing to meet me halfway and avoid wasting my time.

I tend to get a bit irritable when people work to undermine this basic faith.

On the other hand, I do try to give people the benefit of a doubt. As frustrating as they can be, the would-be writers who don’t grasp the fundamentals need help the most. A well-turned sentence can improve a good impression, but subliterate writing can make such a bad impression that nothing else will matter. My office regularly throws out résumés, unread, for laughable cover letters.

Part of me believes in salvation from ignorance and redemption from stupidity. Part of me believes that the effort is well-spent, that they really do want to improve. Part of me believes that, even if I don’t see any results, something I’ve said might click, a year or two later, and that I might make some small and important change.

Most of me knows that I’m a dreamer, but I still like to believe. It seems better than the alternative.

There’s plenty of time for mockery if things don’t work out.

Forward to Part 2