Bad Romance? Bad Medicine? Bad Poetry?

I know you've heard this saying:

Laugh, and the world laughs with you.

Weep, and you weep alone.

Did you know that these words are the beginning of a poem called "Solitude" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox? The poem was published in 1883. Here is the complete first stanza of that poem:

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;

Weep, and you weep alone.

For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,

But has trouble enough of its own.

The reason I bring this up is because I just finished reading a novel based on the life of Ella Wheeler Wilcox: Ella Moon by Ed Ifkovic (Waubesa Press, the quality fiction imprint of Badger Books Inc.)

I found this book while I was on my way home from a vacation recently. It was shelved with others at a Country Inn and Suites motel, where they often have collections of books that guests can borrow -- with the idea that we will return them (or some other book of our choice) to the next Country Inn and Suites motel we visit. I was almost done with the book I was reading at the time, and thought I might need another book to get me home.

The book jacket blurb drew me in:

She was one of the Victorian world's most popular poets. Her life was a tapistry [sic] of color and melodrama, an epic of rags to riches. This fictionalized account chronicles both the glittering heights of Ella Wheeler Wilcox's life and the nagging fears that accompanied her vast and cherished success.

Ifkovic notes that Ella Moon "is not literary biography: it is how I imagine her. . . In the process I wanted to find a different EWW, the one who existed outside her verse -- the one I carry in my mind."

Much of what is included in the novel comes from Mrs. Wilcox's autobiography: The Worlds and I (1919). Here is a link to a pdf file of that autobiography (available from Google books): http://scotti.cohn.tripod.com/The_worlds_and_I.pdf

I found the story of this woman's life and career utterly fascinating. Born in poverty on a farm in Wisconsin, she became a published poet at age 14 -- primarily because she simply refused to stop sending her work to publishers. To say that she was persistent would be an understatement. She was driven. By the age of 16 or 17, she was basically supporting her family on earnings from her poetry. The nickname "Ella Moon" was given to her by her father, who thought that he saw her pointing at the moon when she was a child. Ella corrected him, saying she was pointing toward Milwaukee, where she hoped to find fame and recognition, a beautiful life far removed from the farm.

I was captivated by the complex nature of Ella's relationship with her parents and siblings, her views of life, and her evolution from a Wisconsin farm girl to a famous poet known all over the world. I was mesmerized by her efforts to communicate with her deceased husband -- successful by her account -- and her journey to France during World War I, which she undertook because he told her to do it in messages delivered by her ouija board.

As for her poetry, it is quite overwrought in most cases (by modern standards, and even by the standards of her day). Yet there is value in exploring her choice of words, the structure of her verses, and the subject matter she covers. When I read her poetry, I feel transported back to my teenage years, when I used poetry as a way to express the depths of heart and soul. Melodramatic? Yes. Predictable rhythm and rhyme? Yes. But I have to ask, if Ella Wheeler Wilcox's poetry is so "bad" -- why does so much of it resonate, touch, delight, and inspire?

The summer is just in its grandest prime,

The earth is green and the skies are blue;

But where is the lilt of the olden time,

When life was a melody set to rhyme,

And dreams were so real they all seemed true?

~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Rebirth of the Blog!

Okay, okay, I'm supposed to be a writer (I've written 10 published books after all), and that means I'm supposed to do this blog thing. But I honestly don't know what to blog about. For a time, I tried to do this as a "Writing Tips, Tricks, and Tactics" blog because I was told that would generate followers. Except there is one problem: I don't have any tips, tricks, or tactics for you. Lots of other writers have those -- all over the internet. Everywhere. Just Google it. Enjoy.

This blog is going to have to be something other than that.

If I were a famous writer, people would follow this blog just to see what I'm doing, how I'm doing it, why I'm doing it, and so forth. As you may have noticed, I am not famous.

So I may post samples of my writing here -- old or new -- and I may share links to other sites that I think are worthwhile for writers to see. This blog, as noted above, will be "mostly about writing because I have other blogs for other things."

Follow this blog.
If you dare. 

#amwriting

Why Do You Write?

As writers, we get up close and personal with a lot of rules, a lot of DON'Ts, words to avoid, parts of speech to avoid, and so forth. We are told that our work is more likely to be rejected by editors and agents if we violate the "rules."

I just finished reading about 75 entries in a competition called Letters About Literature. For this competition, students in grades 4 through 12 are given the following instructions:

"Select a fiction or nonfiction book, a short story, poem, essay or speech (sorry, no song lyrics) you have read and about which you have strong feelings. Explore those feelings and why you reacted the way you did during or after reading the author’s work. . . Write a personal letter to an author, explaining how his or her work affected you."

In this blog entry I am going to share a little bit from various letters to various authors. My purpose is to show my fellow writers what matters most to the young people reading their work. Not one letter thanked an author for using active voice instead of passive. Nobody said he was inspired by the minimal use of adverbs. Not a single student wrote "Thank you for showing, not telling."

Here is what some of the letters said:

This book... made me feel more comfortable about myself, that maybe there really isn't anything wrong with me. It also showed me that a world where I can be accepted does exist.

Your book taught me that some people will forever be a part of us.

This book made me want to help the young teenagers that get bullied many times throughout their life.

Your poem has pushed me to become the best person I can be, not becoming someone else.

I was searching in those books for a real explanation of my emotions and fears. I at least wanted someone who understood how I felt, so confused.

I will shoot for the stars and beyond because you've taught me no matter how rough things get you can achieve anything.

Reading your book has changed my viewpoint of the world. It's as if someone has lifted a great storm cloud away from my eyes, and now I can see.

I now know that I need to cherish my childhood. I realize that having intuitiveness and a great imagination is very important in life, and that I don't have to let myself be judged.

Your book has given me an immense appreciation for human emotions, teaching me how we need to accept all of it in order to be truly happy, instead of selecting what we choose to feel.

One could argue that these books would not have had such an impact on readers if the author had written largely in passive voice, used a lot of adverbs, and relied primarily on "telling" rather than "showing." That may be the case. I don't recommend rejecting "the rules" out of hand. But it seems obvious to me from reading these Letters About Literature that young people bond with characters who reach out and touch them and stories that stay with them long after they close the book.

Mechanics and techniques have their place, but only when we write from the heart does our work have the potential to change lives for the better.