I remember high school. I spent my lunch hour holed up in the library, bent over whatever book I was reading at the time. It was easier for me than making awkward conversation with other students, in whose eyes I was most likely “that weird, quiet girl.” I worked almost exclusively alone on the school’s “Literary Magazine,” a paltry excuse for a publication. The advisor and I had to bribe people with prizes to get submissions in. Prizes like movie tickets or a slice-and-soda combo at the pizzeria down the block. Even these gems weren’t enough to get much quality work into the magazine.

And so college, in my mind, was always some sort of scholarly Promised Land. I had wet dreams about sitting around in a coffee shop with my peers, discussing how the concept of existentialism is represented in some book of poetry we were reading in class. I knew a world of new ideas would open up to me, that I would be infinitely transformed through my college experience. And it was true. I’m not sitting around coffee shops waxing poetic, but I have been changed. And so has my writing.

There were footfalls, of course. I dragged myself to my Early Lit requirements, cursing Shakespeare all the way. I began to hate the Modern Language Association of America for making me record every page of every damn quote I cited. I learned a good deal about how to bullshit, a skill I’m not sure how to feel about now that I have mastered it.

But I have learned. And what I have learned about writing, most importantly, is to write what you know. When I came to the first meeting of Generation Literary, I was scared shitless about the requirement. I had to hand in three short stories? I had only written poetry! The concept seemed so daunting, so unfamiliar. I almost didn’t sign up.

But I did. And I began reading short stories, and falling in love with them. In my eyes, anything besides poetry was too big to fathom; too large for me to know how to begin or how to end. But what I found was that the more I wrote, the more I understood not how a story is supposed to be, but how I want it to be. There are limitless ways to write. Between the most complicated selections of Kafka and the most surreal stream-of-conscious prose of Kerouac there is one common thing: a basic underlying idea that anyone alive can relate to.

Writing can be easy. It is not some grandiose endeavor. A woman in a madhouse could write something more interesting than any Jane Austen novel. If what you know is how it feels to pet your cat, write about petting your cat. If you wash floors for a living, write about washing floors for a living. Find masterpieces in the mundane.

I once watched an interview with Charles Bukowski. He sat, old, looking defeated in some beautiful way. He said, “Nothing should ever be done that should be done. It has to come out like a good hot beer shit. A good hot beer shit is glorious, man. You get up, you turn around, you look at it, you’re proud. The fumes, the stink of the turd. You look at the…you say, ‘God! I did it. I’m good.’ Then you flush it away and there’s the sense of sadness when just the water is there. It’s like writing a good poem, you just do it. It’s a beer shit.”

It certainly is.

I remember high school. I spent my lunch hour holed up in the library, bent over whatever book I was reading at the time. It was easier for me than making awkward conversation with other students, in whose eyes I was most likely “that weird, quiet girl.” I worked almost exclusively alone on the school’s “Literary Magazine,” a paltry excuse for a publication. The advisor and I had to bribe people with prizes to get submissions in. Prizes like movie tickets or a slice-and-soda combo at the pizzeria down the block. Even these gems weren’t enough to get much quality work into the magazine.

And so college, in my mind, was always some sort of scholarly Promised Land. I had wet dreams about sitting around in a coffee shop with my peers, discussing how the concept of existentialism is represented in some book of poetry we were reading in class. I knew a world of new ideas would open up to me, that I would be infinitely transformed through my college experience. And it was true. I’m not sitting around coffee shops waxing poetic, but I have been changed. And so has my writing.

There were footfalls, of course. I dragged myself to my Early Lit requirements, cursing Shakespeare all the way. I began to hate the Modern Language Association of America for making me record every page of every damn quote I cited. I learned a good deal about how to bullshit, a skill I’m not sure how to feel about now that I have mastered it.

But I have learned. And what I have learned about writing, most importantly, is to write what you know. When I came to the first meeting of Generation Literary, I was scared shitless about the requirement. I had to hand in three short stories? I had only written poetry! The concept seemed so daunting, so unfamiliar. I almost didn’t sign up.

But I did. And I began reading short stories, and falling in love with them. In my eyes, anything besides poetry was too big to fathom; too large for me to know how to begin or how to end. But what I found was that the more I wrote, the more I understood not how a story is supposed to be, but how I want it to be. There are limitless ways to write. Between the most complicated selections of Kafka and the most surreal stream-of-conscious prose of Kerouac there is one common thing: a basic underlying idea that anyone alive can relate to.

Writing can be easy. It is not some grandiose endeavor. A woman in a madhouse could write something more interesting than any Jane Austen novel. If what you know is how it feels to pet your cat, write about petting your cat. If you wash floors for a living, write about washing floors for a living. Find masterpieces in the mundane.

I once watched an interview with Charles Bukowski. He sat, old, looking defeated in some beautiful way. He said, “Nothing should ever be done that should be done. It has to come out like a good hot beer shit. A good hot beer shit is glorious, man. You get up, you turn around, you look at it, you’re proud. The fumes, the stink of the turd. You look at the…you say, ‘God! I did it. I’m good.’ Then you flush it away and there’s the sense of sadness when just the water is there. It’s like writing a good poem, you just do it. It’s a beer shit.”

It certainly is.

Mary Sarsfield
Assistant Literary?Editor