Category: writing

Linen Jackets Of Yore, Continued

Karen

Going back even further from Pinterest in 2007, I present a page from the J. Peterman catalog in 1996, selling us a linen jacket:

And my god, how they sell it:
A paragraph from the J Peterman catalog. Text reads: "This buttonless, pocketless, hooded linen jacket created chaos at our office. (The women talked about it and stole the samples; the men could only talk about it.) They said, "The real Audrey Hepburn, at home in her gardens." They said, "Emma Thompson before Hollywood." They said, "The French iieutenant's Woman' but contemporary. And happy." They said, "I don't care how stupid it sounds, there's something rather spiritual about it." (1 do care about how stupid it sounds. But she's not wrong.) They argued very modern, sort of soft Comme des Garçons versus completely classic, a shape we've been seeing for three hundred years. It looks like nothing on the hanger and really not much in the picture. It looks like everything on. It's certainly true that it's a great strolling-on-Block Island jacket. Also a great first-night-back-in-town jacket. Also a great champagne-in-a-rowboat jacket. Charming with your oldest, widest linen pants. Staggering over a slip of ivory charmeuse."

Imagine being 16–anxious (clinically), awkward, with bad skin and giant jeans–and reading, “a great champagne-in-a-rowboat jacket” and also “Staggering over a slip of ivory charmeuse.” A different world was possible just through clothes? People who wore those clothes referenced culture I’d never heard of and owned linen pants and drank champagne in rowboats? Sign me UP.

The illustration doesn’t do a great job showing what the jacket actually looks like but that is beside the point; the point is the story and the promise. Can we thank Peterman for me becoming a marketing writer? I think we can.

“Is writing what makes you feel alive? Are you sure?”

Karen

This piece in McSweeney’s is just perfection and I’m not even a “creative” writer: If You Love to Write Just Wait Until You Try Not Writing.

Let me ask you something: When’s the last time you wrote and thought, That felt good and also I am good at this? […] You know what would take away that doubt and all those sad feelings forever? Yup.

[…] If you’re concerned that Not Writing will make you feel bad, ask yourself, Do I feel good now? Writing might seem like the answer, but I assure you, it is almost always the question, and that question is why?

 

Magic Realism Bot

Karen

Most of the time I think Twitter should fall on its sword for its crimes against American politics, but then I see this: a robot programmed to tweet scenarios of magical realism. In other words, AI Mad Libs. I love them. Think of the story ideas:

Maybe someday, when I’m not working on HOA paperwork in all my spare time (yes that is still going on) I could use these for quick 100-word story prompts.

How About That Creative Writing Class?

Karen

I finished my creative writing class (from the university’s adult education program) two weeks ago. It did what it was intended to do; namely, give me a deadline so I’d actually write and end up with a short story. I learned a lot about plot structure and detail. I liked the class. But you guys, writing is hard.

When I would actually sit down and write and my story came out, I felt like the Queen of All the Words just waiting for a book deal. But when I read it again and had the class look at it, there were valid points to edit and places to expand and things to improve–in short, revisions. Which I  never did for school papers, don’t do for this blog, and really try to avoid for work (shh, don’t tell anyone).

I’ll  take the next level class next semester, so I have some time to make friends with revisions. Until then, Papa Hemingway feels my pain:

Since I had started to break down all my writing and get rid of all facility and try to make instead of describe, writing had been wonderful to do. But it was very difficult, and I did not know how I would ever write anything as long as a novel. It often took me a full morning of work to write a paragraph.

(from A Moveable Feast)