October 2020 – OBSCURA

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Shock the Monkey

October 30, 2020 / 0 Comments

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Erika Lewis

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Chapter 23: A Good Ol’ Fashioned Switcheroo

October 28, 2020 / 0 Comments

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Erika Lewis

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Double Life Brown Girl: Chapter 1 – Life Into The New World

October 27, 2020 / 0 Comments

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February 22, 2021
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Shut Up Unless You’re Important

October 23, 2020 / 0 Comments

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Erika Lewis

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February 24, 2021
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Chapter 22: Ascension

October 22, 2020 / 0 Comments

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Erika Lewis

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Mental Health Mondays: The negative effects of toxic masculinity on mental health

October 20, 2020 / 0 Comments

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Erika Lewis

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The Jibarito Sandwich!
March 19, 2021
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I Did Not Write This. I Am Not Here

October 16, 2020 / 0 Comments

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Erika Lewis

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Arroz con Gandules
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Chapter 21: Second Thoughts

October 15, 2020 / 0 Comments

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Erika Lewis

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March 14, 2021

Confessions of a Character Freak
February 21, 2021
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Mental Health Mondays: How food affects your mental health

October 12, 2020 / 0 Comments

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April 22, 2021

CONFESSIONS OF A CHARACTER FREAK
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April 20, 2021
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The Voices in My Head

October 9, 2020 / 0 Comments

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Thomas Benke: Looking Around

In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott, in the Chapter “Looking Around,” says this:

Now, if you ask me, what’s going on is that we’re all up to here in it, and probably the most important thing is that we not yell at one another. Otherwise we’d all just be barking away like Pekingese: “Ah! Stuck in the shit! And it’s your fault, you did this …” Writing involves seeing people suffer and, as Robert Stone once put it, finding some meaning therein. But you can’t do that if you’re not respectful. If you look at people and just see sloppy clothes or rich clothes, you’re going to get them wrong.

She goes on to speak about empathy for other people and also, as an extension empathy for yourself. So, in a sense as you try to write believable, relatable characters, you will come to forgive people their trespasses—because no one believes they are the villain of their story, so you have to write “bad,” or “evil” characters from a point of view where they rationalize what they are doing in such a way that it is the right or only way they see is possible. By extrapolation, then, if you begin to forgive and withhold judgment from your less-than-desirable, or annoying characters, perhaps you can extend the same courtesy to yourself and forgive your own trespasses and sins. This, for me, starts to enter the realm of “writing as therapy,” and though I am a firm believer in that—I practice it to this very day—I think I would caution anyone who thinks that simply writing through things is going to lead you to a place of light and love. I am not saying it can’t by any means. What I am saying is I have wrote through my thoughts and my problems and my desperation and depression for decades and I still had enough baggage on my shoulders to supply an army platoon with rations for a year.

In any case, when thinking about craft, it is very important to step into the shoes of all of your characters, especially those characters that you see as antagonists and villians. I believe there are very few universal maxims in writing but one thing is virtually certain: every character you write is your version of that human being. Confucius said “everywhere I go, there I am,” and that is never more true than when you are writing. So if you are writing a character that is distasteful to you, it might be effective for you to ask yourself why that is the case. I wrote a blog for Obscura last semester titled, “The Puppy Had It Coming.” The gist of the article was to pose a puzzle to writers. How can you write a scene where an adult human kicks a puppy across the room and the reader at least understands why. I am not saying there is any way to justify the action or for the readers to be on the human’s side unless they are sociopaths. I am saying you need let the reader know how dark the place is in the character’s mind that he is capable of doing that.

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