More than I can chew

This morning I kept expecting steam to rise from my mouth, I was talking so fast. Apparently, I tried to squeeze too much material into both of my classes this morning and then had to rush to get it all in. But these are both classes I teach every year and I thought I was using the same amount of material I've always used...so I don't know why, but I'm already racing to keep up with my syllabus.

Yesterday I was racing to keep up with my Creative Nonfiction students. Everyone writes on the first day of all my classes, and this group had to write a coherent essay explaining their understanding of the phrase "Creative Nonfiction." My students used metaphors from art and math and cooking (!) to explore the paradox of creative nonfiction, while I fiddled around with a metaphor that made me happy but then kept spawning new ideas:

Clay sits in the earth dull as dirt, not yet the raw materials for art but simply raw. What transforms clay into art? First the mind of the sculptor, then the hands of the sculptor, and then the response of the audience. But after going through all these transformations, can the clay still be recognized as clay? Or has it changed so much that we must find a new label?

This is the question we face when we approach creative nonfiction. Facts sit out there in the world like clay in the earth, inert and disconnected from other facts with which they might reasonably rub shoulders in a story. The story comes into being through the agency of the writer, whose mind first seizes on a fact as a potter seizes a clump of clay, selecting this bit rather than that bit, testing each clump's suitability, tossing aside those that are flawed or don't suit the purpose. The selection process alone changes the fact because it is no longer inert and disconnected but is now part of a larger scheme, even if that scheme exists only in the mind of the writer. The act of setting a fact aside for further use takes it outside its natural realm and begins the process of transformation.

Next, the writer bends and molds the facts, kneading and shaping as the sculptor kneads and shapes the clay to conform to the contours of the imagined piece. The sculptor knows the characteristics of the clay, and if he tries to stretch it beyond its natural capabilities, to support more force than it can bear, the sculpture will be flawed or perhaps collapse. The writer, too, must know how much shaping the facts can sustain; facts stretched beyond endurance may cause the finished product to collapse, despite the writer's attempts to prop it up artificially: "But that's how I remember it!" or "No one expects creative nonfiction to be entirely true!"

And that's as far as I got. In 30 minutes! Clearly, I bit off more than I could chew. Next time, I'll choose a more manageable metaphor or break it up into bite-sized pieces. Student complaining about too much work? Let 'em eat clay.