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Courage

I’ve seen some courage lately.
 
A few months ago, a longtime Gotham teacher, Jon Gingerich, informed us that he wouldn’t be teaching for the foreseeable future as he adapts to something new: he was going blind.
 
Here’s a wonderful essay he wrote about the experience. In this passage, he uses a cane for the first time:
 
The sun’s hard glare met the pavement as I walked down 40th Street. The cane felt good in my hand. Blindness is a lonely world, but in that moment the future was an uninhabited planet coming into view. I felt relief that no one batted an eye. Why would they, anyway? The cane stuck in a crack on the sidewalk. This adaptation, this new skin, would take some getting used to. I reminded myself that change is rarely handled gracefully. Then the walk sign on Madison flashed and I continued west.
 
The World War II General George S. Patton Jr. said: Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.
 
Jon was devastated by going blind, but one day he got that cane and began walking with it.
 
(A distinction is often made between courage and bravery, the latter being an innate state, the former something you muster within yourself.)
 
And recently an old friend of mine, Carole Healey, passed away after a long bout with cancer. When she announced on social media there was nothing left her doctors could do, people sent messages and gifts. She faced her new reality with great grace, as seen in this post about a gift:
 
It arrived just as I was recovering from one of the worst bouts of sickness I have ever experienced. Like the rainbow after the flood, these beautiful blossoms give me hope and made me feel so loved.
 
This kind of courage—fear holding on a minute longer—makes for good storytelling. See how you can use it in the things you’re writing.
 
It doesn’t always have to be courage against illness or death. Even the minor things in life require courage. Meeting a stranger for a date. Making that long-delayed trip to the dentist. Eating toast in the morning, steeling yourself for a day you don’t want to face.
 
Show your characters (or yourself) wavering as they face the fear, perhaps even failing to summon the necessary courage. The more challenging it is, the more we will be moved by it.
 
You know about courage. Did school ever present hell to you? Did you shop in a grocery store in the early days of the pandemic? You probably need to rustle up some courage for something going on this week.
 
I’m rooting for you. Maybe you’ll do the same for me.

Alex Steele, Gotham President
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Nutrition Facts for Hermit Crab Stories

Nutrition Facts
for Hermit Crab Stories 
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Serving Size: One writer, one at a time
Number of Servings per container: Infinite
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Ingredients:
One subject the author feels moved to write about;
One desire to experiment or play;
One familiar form of writing† that the author can
borrow for their story;
One imagination.
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Calories (spent while writing) — 350 to 500*
Calories (consumed while writing) — 350 to 500**
_________________________________
Percentage (%) daily values
Subject                                                          15%
(These are flash stories, so keep your focus narrow.)
Borrowed Form                                            75%
(You want your reader to recognize the form immediately, but you should also feel free to play around, take literary license.) 
Narrative Arc                                               100%
(This is still a story with a central character and a clear beginning, middle, and end.)
Voice                                                              50%
(You’ll want your hermit crab to sound like the form you’re borrowing, but don’t abandon your own voice, either. This is still your story.)
Creative Exploration                                    50%
(Your borrowed shell is firm and imposes some limits; but wearing it enables you to wander further afield, play more, and find a fresh take on something familiar.)
Subject to Shell Matching Ratio                 ??%
(You might generate a nice frisson of resonance when subject and form share some symmetry. But it’s not necessary. Authors have written about romantic break-ups as auction item catalogue listings and WebMD entries, and I’m borrowing an FDA-regulated label for packaged food for a work on creative writing, so who knows, really?)
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Key Sources of Inspiration
Flash fiction as obituary                                   100% ***
Flash essay as resume                                      100%
Flash fiction as Facebook group rules      100 %
Further reading                                                   100%              

† “A hermit crab essay borrows another form of writing as its structure the way a hermit crab borrows another’s shell. Its subject might be something soft or vulnerable, (like the crab) that seeks the form of something harder or more rigid to encase it. The form must be written but … something less literary and more utilitarian such as a list, recipe, field guide, instruction manual, address book, multiple-choice test, horoscope, Web MD entry…” — Randon Billings Noble

* Will vary based on how angsty a writer you are, and how many times during the writing process you stand up, pace, walk the dog, go for a bike ride, and clean your kitchen.
** See above.

*** If you recognize Deesha Philyaw’s story “Mayretta Kelly Brunson Williams Bryant Jones (1932-2012)” from last June’s Writing Advice, you get a gold star! If you don’t, because you didn’t read it then, consider this your second chance and take the hint.

Kelly Caldwell,

Dean of Faculty