“Tell all the truth but tell it slant…”
-Emily Dickinson
Steve Guy looked like he rode a Harley to class and gave off real "I started some shit at Altamont" vibes as he unpacked his satchel of class materials at his desk. He was going to teach us how to write? This guy? Alligator wrestling, maybe, or motorcycle maintenance without the Zen. Then he spoke with a warm, measured voice that flowed easily from his impressive silver and black beard. Within the first few minutes of class, his passion for writing became clear. He also taught this same writing class at the local correctional facility, so we'd take part in a "prisoner swap" of sorts, during which his Ball State University students critiqued essays written by the inmates and vice versa.
In addition to the words of the incarcerated, he introduced us to Joan Didion, Hunter S. Thompson, Barry Lopez, and Susan Sontag, and most importantly, William Zinsser's On Writing Well—a book I would revisit repeatedly over the years. Steve also asked that we all bring pens with green ink to edit our work and the work of others; red ink, he explained, was too negative, and he practiced as he preached. Most importantly, he taught us that writing about our lives should never be a selfish act but rather an exercise in serving two masters, finding bigger truths in our personal stories, no matter how insignificant they may seem at first. I’m not sure if I achieved these lofty goals at the time, but Steve's encouraging guidance and positive, green-inked editing stayed with me long after.
I turned 50 in 2022 and bought a new hardback copy of On Writing Well, which I read cover to cover for the first time since college. My writing became lazy with the rise of social media and even lazier while flogging my music online, promoting my shows, and writing press releases. "Short and quippy" was the goal on Myspace, Twitter, and Facebook, condensing multitudes into 140 characters or less. I could stretch my legs with the press releases, using color and creative hyperbole, doing whatever was necessary to leave an impression on those who cared to read it. But that was a decade long gone. Writing anything was difficult until William Zinsser's words came back into my life.
I revisited my short story "The Drowning Lake," which never felt finished. It reads like fiction, despite being based on an actual incident from my childhood. Were there other stories I could create from real life? I needed guidance, and Zinsser offered it graciously in his memoir, Writing Places, as well as a how-to companion called Writing About Your Life. Still, my writing style isn't as warm and effortless as his—he and I come from two vastly different generations—but he conveyed the value of our personal stories as art, cynicism be damned.
After reading Mary Karr's The Art of Memoir, things came to a boil, opening my mind to what she refers to as the "carnal details." Our memories encompass more than just sights and sounds, so don't overlook the taste, scent, and feel of experiences. She also introduced me to a wealth of recommendations beyond examples from her seminal memoir, The Liar's Club. The clouds parted. I felt comfortable writing again, even if reliving memories from my childhood was sometimes uncomfortable. Then came a web seminar that transformed my perspective on the modern memoir, though not in the way the instructor had intended.
She completed her presentation and opened the floor to the online audience. I already felt something between despair and rage. If her approach was to be believed, writers simply took a significant incident from life, found an innocent beginning, faced an obstacle-laden middle, and wrapped up with a triumphant ending. That, my friends, is how you craft a best-selling memoir, which sounds so...Fucking. Boring. As the questions rolled in, the participants seemed to embrace a sleepwalker's guide to self-discovery. Then someone asked, "What if we write our memoir in the third person?"
It seemed like a compelling question to me. The instructor looked a bit wild-eyed, laughing nervously as if someone asked to stick a lollipop in their ass and meow like a kitty cat. "Well, I suppose—heh—that would certainly be a—heh, heh—more experimental way to write your story." She evaded further comment and moved on to the next question. I was ready to log off. Why is there always only one way to do anything? Buying into this "tried and true formula" is likely to flood the world with boilerplate filler.
I immediately searched for essays that play with "acceptable" form and the universe the internet did provide. I discovered the term "hermit crab essay" along with Brenda Miller's "We Regret To Inform You", which presented a blend of comedy and tragedy through a fictitious series of rejection letters. Miller and Suzanne Paola co-authored a book titled Tell It Slant, which explores a side of creative non-fiction that spoke to my contrary and anti-formulaic heart more than “A+B+C= Book Deal” ever could. I wrote in ways that felt right while focusing on the most important aspect: uncovering bigger truths in personal stories. And for Steve Guy, I keep it green.