It’s true—I’m a Twi-hard. I’m not stalking Robert Pattinson or anything, but I read all four books of the series, in about a month, and I’ve watched both movies more than once. Now I’m a 33-year-old woman, well-educated and well-read, yet I’m susceptible to a teenage vampire romance. As a writer, it behooves me to try to figure out why.
So for those of you who have yet to succumb to Twilight’s charm, it’s the story of 17-year-old Bella Swan, klutzy and plain, who falls in love with Edward Cullen, 104-year-old vampire in the body of a gorgeous 17-year-old boy. Rob Pattinson comes close to perfection, I admit, but the descriptions of Edward in the book paint a portrait of the most exquisite male specimen humanity has ever seen. And somehow, the amazing supernatural Edward Cullen falls in love with plain old ordinary Bella.
Throughout the first book, which I devoured, I held on to some skepticism about their “love.” It seemed too obsessive, too consuming, too teenager. No one falls in love so completely at 17 and stays that way forever. No one finds their soul mate that young. (Oh, except my parents.) But not nowadays, that doesn’t happen. (Oh, except for my friends James and Stephanie.) Fine, so maybe it happens.
But the talk about completing each other, needing each other, was a bit much for seventeen I thought. I enjoyed the fantasy, escaping into the world of supernatural beings who are so good that they fight their nature, live a moral life in spite of great temptation, and are fabulously wealthy, athletic, beautiful, and funny. Who wouldn’t want to spend time in that world?
But in the second book of the series, New Moon, when Edward breaks up with Bella and leaves, I began to believe that Edward really was her soul mate, that she may live without him, but it was no kind of life. Seeing Bella’s devastation, and feeling it, made me believe in the relationship between the characters. That’s when Stephanie Meyer (the author) got me.
Maybe because I’ve lived through horrible breakups. Maybe because I have a soul mate, and can’t imagine having a complete life without him. Maybe just because Meyer so effectively conveyed the horror of being devastated by love. Bella can live without Edward, she does, but it’s not the same. She will never be the same.
And this all appeals to me why? I like to believe that two people can love each other so completely. Even if it’s hard to believe that can happen when you’re seventeen and last your whole life, sometimes it does. Don’t we all want someone who loves us so much that they would sacrifice their happiness, even their life for us? Bella and Edward’s love is idealized, I’m not sure that humans really love each other like that, but it’s nice to watch and to imagine. Maybe it’s something to strive for—putting your partner’s happiness first, sacrificing for them, protecting them, standing by them, forgiving them when they make a horrible mistake.
Isn’t it nice to think that kind of love is possible?
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
How Writing Helps Me
Somebody recently asked me to describe what writing meant to me. That question feels a bit unmanageable, but I think I can describe some of the ways in which writing helps me. Here is a non-exhaustive list.
Morning Pages
Every morning for the past few years, when I wake up, before getting out of bed, I write Morning Pages, an exercise from The Artist’s Way. This means filling three pages of a notebook with stream of consciousness writing—in other words, a brain dump, writing without editing, preferably without really thinking—just letting your hand move across the page.
This practice helps me realize what’s lurking in my mind—things I don’t want to think about, things bothering me or nagging at me. It allows me to vent frustrations, give voice to negative feelings and fears, and by not repressing them, I lessen them, become aware of them and sometimes even find steps to take or solutions. Ideas for the novel sometimes surprise me in the Morning Pages, and the practice of writing without editing myself makes writing first drafts of anything much easier.
Fiction
In writing fiction, I can let my imagination roam, I can create. I love to let my fingers fly over the keys see what comes out. Through fiction I explore questions, I watch characters work through difficulties, and in the process, I gain inspiration and ideas I apply to challenges of my own. Plus, it's just great fun.
Nonfiction
Nonfiction is scarier than fiction for me because I have to hew to the facts, like it or not. And if I’m writing about myself, I have to be brave. But this also helps me. I often don’t know what I feel or think about something until I write about it. If I put words on a page, play with them, arrange and rearrange them, at the end of the process, I’ve figured something out, I’ve realized something, and I’ve created something, which is its own satisfaction.
Poems
I don’t write a lot of poems. For me, they are a last resort, when plain old prose cannot capture the moment or emotion I want to describe. Sometimes writing a poem is the only thing that makes me feel better, because even when a situation is awful, there is comfort in creating something beautiful from it.
In all its forms, writing helps me figure out what I feel and what I think. After writing something I’m a little savvier, a little more self-aware. But maybe my favorite way that writing helps me is the satisfaction I feel when someone tells me that my writing has helped them in some way.
Does writing help you?
Morning Pages
Every morning for the past few years, when I wake up, before getting out of bed, I write Morning Pages, an exercise from The Artist’s Way. This means filling three pages of a notebook with stream of consciousness writing—in other words, a brain dump, writing without editing, preferably without really thinking—just letting your hand move across the page.
This practice helps me realize what’s lurking in my mind—things I don’t want to think about, things bothering me or nagging at me. It allows me to vent frustrations, give voice to negative feelings and fears, and by not repressing them, I lessen them, become aware of them and sometimes even find steps to take or solutions. Ideas for the novel sometimes surprise me in the Morning Pages, and the practice of writing without editing myself makes writing first drafts of anything much easier.
Fiction
In writing fiction, I can let my imagination roam, I can create. I love to let my fingers fly over the keys see what comes out. Through fiction I explore questions, I watch characters work through difficulties, and in the process, I gain inspiration and ideas I apply to challenges of my own. Plus, it's just great fun.
Nonfiction
Nonfiction is scarier than fiction for me because I have to hew to the facts, like it or not. And if I’m writing about myself, I have to be brave. But this also helps me. I often don’t know what I feel or think about something until I write about it. If I put words on a page, play with them, arrange and rearrange them, at the end of the process, I’ve figured something out, I’ve realized something, and I’ve created something, which is its own satisfaction.
Poems
I don’t write a lot of poems. For me, they are a last resort, when plain old prose cannot capture the moment or emotion I want to describe. Sometimes writing a poem is the only thing that makes me feel better, because even when a situation is awful, there is comfort in creating something beautiful from it.
In all its forms, writing helps me figure out what I feel and what I think. After writing something I’m a little savvier, a little more self-aware. But maybe my favorite way that writing helps me is the satisfaction I feel when someone tells me that my writing has helped them in some way.
Does writing help you?
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