Saturday, January 5, 2013

Madison Avenue Is Not A Number; It's A Lesson

Today, Raw Fiction began it's journey to whatever it will be. Four out five participants got off the train not knowing where Madison Avenue is. Thus my witty comment: Madison Avenue is not a number; it's a lesson.

Raw Fiction is five young women from the Bronx, Queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn. For now, that's all they know. They do not know each other and, perhaps, they do not yet fully know themselves.

I know pretty much why I started Raw Fiction and why it's important to me. What became evident in my structuring of the idea is that I could not be the one who decided how to define the project. It has to be them. But the big question is: What is important to them? 

The Editor-in-Chief posed a great question after everyone left today - she did that after the Orientation too. She asked if there was space for chit-chat (my words) during the meetings. I wanted to know what she was getting at and dead-panned something about time management and that the field trips are better venues for team building. She was curious about what the others enjoy reading. It's a pertinent question that I told her I would negotiate into the next meeting.

However, on the platform at 34th Street I started thinking about books and writing and voices. What is important to these young writers? What makes them angry, ruffles their feathers, makes them spit and cry and scream? Or am I too late? Generation A for apathy? - But that's impossible with this group of self-starters. What kind of teenager jumps on board a boat with an unknown destination, a vague promise that they'll learn how to navigate the vessel along the way, and a novice interest in boating in general - A Raw Fiction teenager, that's who.

I know they've got original ideas inside. They just need to figure out what's really important to them. The Editor-in-Chief needs to declare what is meaningful.

Is making a voice public important? Of course. But isn't it much more important to make heard a voice that has meaning. And then we must define what is meaningful. However, if I try to interject too much then they might revolt and do something frivolous. Would that action of disregard for authority be enough? For me?

This week we started slow. Saw a bunch of glitches and worked around them. First question: what is the publication going to be? We need to know this before anything else happens. And we need to know this soon because, as the Project Manager just realized, planning takes time. A venue needs to be booked months in advance, not a month before. Speaking of which, I'm going to pause and go the SIBL page to reserve the room for next week.

We only took half an hour on Toni Morrison's "Moby Dick" essay and Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron" because ConEd decided to shut the library down early thus evicting us a half hour before we should have been ready. Therefore, I prioritized project planning over literary discussion.

Vonnegut's story just screams government control to me. However, our new Communications Director pointed out the aspect of people being silly. She's better than me, that's not fair. My goodness Vonnegut, you hate a whiner don't you. And as a society how do we cope with an imbalance of talent - we try to change the laws of nature. And Man shall always play God.

I didn't get them talking enough about Morrison's essay but I'm glad they read it, even if none of them enjoyed it. I'm excited to follow up satire with Manto and essay writing with ... hmm, who will it be? Blanchot? Lorde? Calvino? But that will be down the line.

Next stop is Sandra Cisneros.

I want to introduce them to as many ideas as possible without overwhelming them and force them to think about who they are and where they come from and then see where they stand in a couple of weeks.

I feel like this has been a terse but necessary entry. 

A la prochaine. We're about to get regular again.