Joint Writing Project II

Matt, my joint writing project buddy, and I have moved our joint writing pieces to Shoestring Serenade. We've both been enjoying this experiment and plan on keeping it up for the foreseeable future. This week's piece was inspired by the following prompt: Something to do with a letter.

I took the opportunity to write from a perspective wholly divorced from my real-life self. Strangely enough, the easiest voice I found to impersonate was a slightly creepy coffee shop manager. I'd rather not dwell too much on what that reveals about my own psyche, but I'll do the next-best thing and dwell on the experience of writing in a voice with which I do not sympathize and with which I would not wish to be associated.

In the mess of writing advice that has somehow gotten into my head, although I couldn't tell you where it came from, the old adage about writing what you know pops up incessantly. Coffee shops certainly fall into my what-you-know category, so a character defined by his position in a coffee shop is actually a pretty safe choice.

As concerns his vaguely slimy personality, I have a different explanation. I've decided to make Shoestring Serenade my personal challenge, my chance to explore the ideas I have about how literature works. Don't fear; I have no delusions about writing literature. I just wonder, with all the literature that I read, about the author's relationship to the text. It was this very line of wondering that got me excited about reading de Man on autobiography this past semester.

I read that essay in Dr. Becker-Leckrone's course in literary theory and criticism, which I think should receive full credit for my new-found interest in creative writing. Reading de Man, and Derrida, and Lacan inspired me to find a voice, one uniquely my own, for my critical writing. What better way to do so than to write in a wide range of voices, try them all on for size? And what better way to try them on than to write fiction?

So without further ado, I present again: Shoestring Serenade. I hope you enjoy.