"Say It Like You Eat It"

I have recently submitted my application to the Masters Program in English at Portland State University.  For the second time.  There were a few different reasons that I didn't get in to the program last year, but among them, I believe, was a not-so-strong statement of purpose.  Not that it was a terrible piece of writing, but I was absolutely terrified when I wrote it.  I remember looking at those how to write a good statement of purpose articles online.  First of all, they wanted me to come up with some great story about why I wanted to go to grad school; something to get the reviewers attention and make them pick me above all the other candidates.  Well I didn't have some big story about why I wanted to go to grad school, I just wanted to go learn.  I wanted to be an English teacher and a Masters in English is a step in that direction.  What else could I say?  Second of all, these how to articles suggested that two months and ten to twelve drafts is a normal way to write a statement.  Multiple drafts I'm okay with, but I wouldn't be a very good English student if it took my two months to write ten to twelve drafts of a two page essay.  I started it the night before it was due.  Probably not the smartest idea, but mainly because as a result I was determined that I had to get it right on the first draft.  I remember specifically thinking that I just didn't want to make myself look bad.  Just stick to the basics, don't try anything fancy, there isn't enough time to worry about saying something stupid.  I think I succeeded in this goal, but the result was probably the most boring statement of purpose ever written.

Photo credit: Lindsay Brown

This year I didn't do much better on the time issue.  I sat down to write the morning before it was due instead of the night before, giving myself only a few extra hours.  This time, however, I sat down to write overflowing with emotion.  The application process brought back all the feelings of rejection, the feeling that I was misunderstood, that I hadn't presented myself properly.  I had continued taking graduate classes after I wasn't accepted last year and while I have definitely grown over the course of the year, I felt like this just proved that they should have let me the first time I applied.  I wanted to find a way to convey in writing that I have grown, that I have shown that I deserve to be in this program, but still that I am the same person I was last year.  I wanted to be honest, to be myself, and to not concede that there was any reason why I shouldn't have been in the program right along. 

So I decided to just write it all down.  Instead of sitting down to write a statement of purpose, I just sat down to write about what happened, why I wanted to go to grad school, how I had changed and how I hadn't changed, how I felt about not getting in last year, whatever.  I figured I'd end up with at least five pages, which I would then work down to a more appropriate two, but it turned out that I hit on some inspiration pretty quickly.  I got going on a train of thought and just kept going.  It turned out better than I could have hoped.

I asked my sister to read my statement and she responded with something amazing.  She said that she liked the way I told my story.  I hadn't even realized it, but I had a story after all.  Maybe it wasn't a story about a life-changing event that made me want to go to grad school, but it is my story.  I think in any piece of writing you have to tell the story.  In a cover letter you have to tell the story of why you came to want the job and how you are qualified for it.  In an essay you have to tell the story of your subject.  Even in story writing, where this would seem obvious, maybe we have to remember that we're not just sitting down to write a novel, we have to tell the story.

I am currently about halfway through my first reading of Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love.  I say first reading not because I plan on reading this particular book multiple times but because yes, I really haven't read it until now.  In case you were wondering.  I bring this up because of a moment in Gilbert's story that I would like to channel.  She is in Italy and trying to explain some complicated emotions to an acquaintance:

...I'm still having trouble figuring out how to talk.  Giovanni smiles and says encouragingly, "Parla come magni."  He knows this is one of my favorite expressions in Roman dialect.  It means, "Speak the way you eat," or, in my personal translation:  "Say it like you eat it."  It's a reminder -- when you're making a big deal out of explaining something, when you're searching for the right words -- to keep your language as simple and direct as Roman food.  Don't make a big production out of it.  Just lay it on the table.

This is my process.  It's the only way that I can write really successfully.  I can't sit down to write a cover letter or an essay or a statement of purpose.  I have to sit down with the intention of telling the story; I just have to get it all out there, say it like it is without worrying about the purpose that I'm writing for.  Sometimes this requires lots of editing later, picking through pages and pages trying to find the good stuff.  But a lot of times it just seems to work itself out as I go.  Either way, like my good friend Lindsay says about writing and life: you have to trust the process, whatever that may be.  If you do, good things will come.