So often I give my students the advice I need to hear myself. This week I assigned them to write someone a letter about the piece they wanted to compose for their final project. Something about picturing someone real, a human, receiving this missive helps you actually figure out what you’re trying to say. That you’re writing the letter in the first place indicates the person either doesn’t already know about your idea or doesn’t yet understand it, which forces you to write clearly.
We’re starting our epistolary segment in my experimental writing class at Fordham next week and using Marcela Sulak and Jacqueline Kolosov’s terrific Family Resemblance: An Anthology and Exploration of Hybrid Genres. In the book Kolosov writes, “the epistle, by definition, invokes an individual who is both listener and reader.”
And so such a large part of this epistolary equation has to do with intimacy and reception. All authors secretly fear their writing to be a letter to no one, so writing as if there’s already a somebody who’s listening, perhaps even waiting for more, seems to allow it to pore forth.
I’ve been having a lot of trouble structuring a book proposal. This morning, I figured I should take my own advice, and do what I tell my students to do. So I wrote myself a letter, seeking to clarify what on earth this book is supposed to be about. It really helped me figure out what this project is, and now I also have a new pen pal.