Literary Illiterate
Words pop on the page, grammar scrambles for accuracy, and my meaning is a multiverse. My brain diverged into paths beyond the two of Frost’s foretelling, and I — I have always taken the path less traveled by. Blessed with metacognition. In my mind, brass cogs are circling a few inches away from each other — perhaps they are copper. The largest at the top, the smallest at the bottom. Some thoughts have written words as they spin around, others visual art. Synchronized milliseconds apart, asynchronous? A large oak library card catalog is in a space nearby. When I must recall something long learned, I see the hands of my imagination reach in and rifle through the cardstock. I can feel the crispness of the paper. I explained this to a therapist, who just sat there and looked at me with a blank expression. You see your thoughts on different levels? She asked. I do.
When I think hard, I project the image into the outer world. I see the real world, but my thought layers itself on top like a screen that can be viewed through. I am a visual and kinesthetic thinker when problem-solving, an auditory thinker when writing. Mirror touch synesthesia impacted my written work and lived experience as well, but not as much as the spinning visual cogs that interrupt the auditory narration of my next words intended for the page. A sound from outside the house disrupts my train of thought.
When overstimulated, things jumble. The cogs come to a screeching halt and then reverse. On some levels, the separation creates a clockwise — counterclockwise effect. Not conducive to the development of anything cogent. I have ADHD, it can be a benediction or a cutlass.
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Once, I am in flow and my fingers clack my keyboard with emphasis. Someone can talk to me at the same time about an unrelated topic, and I can do both, hear and create. Hyper-attentive. My ideas and the conversation will not collide. I compartmentalize. When pursuing my MBA drowning in Just-In-Time production models, Cost Analysis, and SWAT — podcasts about neuroscience, were my salve. I would listen to synaptic transmission and write highly redundant essays about corporate interests. Anything entertaining would divert attention.
Varied thoughts are Xanadu, given the right moment — or a dystopian present in the wrong one. Reading submission guidelines for various publications, I have seen the call for pure clean copy. This is where I choke. I will submit, only later, to find a missing period or other nefarious punctuation sources. Like an antique vase, my work will become crazed. Commas will obfuscate the flowers and bucolic pastorals with riddles in the stead of hairline cracks.
Eviscerated, I was zoomed by a classmate that said my work was simple, my flesh torn. Insipid, I heard. He, whose work was nonfiction — posed as fiction; his lived experience; replaced only his name; his bairn crowned fiction — but not really. When he said Deesha Philyaw wrote the same character over and over, he should have become as silent as the hum of electricity through the walls. Tat tvam asi bitty beau, misogyny, fits some well. It has been months since, and I still hear the buzz and feel the sting of his banality. He is Roupenian of the 20s. Pray the cat people do not lead him to the Twitter gallows. Truth — I had been contemplating if my sentence structure was too simple for the work.
Researching, for the sake of my historical novel, Edmund Wilson’s 1952 essay about F. Scott Fitzgerald, Googled its way to my eyeballs. He opens with the story of Edna St. Vincent Millay comparing Fitzgerald to a senseless low-class old woman who was endowed with a diamond and shows it off to everyone. All marvel that someone simple could own such a jewel and the old woman makes it harder to believe with her inept remarks. This was said of him, a projectile of the literary canon, aimed at young minds in American literature. Wilson disagreed. He thought Fitzgerald an exhilarating, clever young man and asserted Millay must have not known him well. My instructor said much the same, to the man who called my work simple.
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Interestingly, Wilson said that This Side of Paradise was “one of the most illiterate books of any merit ever published.” Hark! How can that be with editors demanding clean copy? How could something so rife with errors make it to bookshelves? Wilson blames the proofreaders, not the writer for the sins. There are more than a few misdeeds. He stated, “Not only is it ornamented with bogus ideas and faked literary references, but it’s full of literary words tossed about with the most reckless inaccuracy.” Does this mean my poor punctuation and questionable grammar may have a chance? Fitzgerald struggled in school and was an atrocious speller. I too resemble that. I long for the days of yore, where publishers would hire proofreaders and put the weight of correction on their heads.
Thrusting thoughts push through, particularly in the manifestation of imposter syndrome. The copper cogs spin clockwise — counterclockwise — come to a halt. I am smart, just not in the clean copy way. I stand here, literary and illiterate. There will always be extra comas, missing punctuation, but my cutlass formed my words — true and sharp. I refuse to be absorbed by the opining of my ADHD. I submit to the judgment, with a relatively grass-stained copy. Maybe this will be the one.