Mediocre or Just Ordinary

Posted byjimmcgarrahPosted inLiterary

(the reason why all our stories are important)

I’ve heard many people use the words mediocre and ordinary as synonyms. I don’t believe that’s reasonable in most instances for writers of stories, especially memoir. Mediocre implies that whatever circumstance you find yourself in, you will deal with it in a less than a creative way. Ordinary, on the other hand, indicates that your life experiences are comparable to many other people who may fit some way in your demographic, not necessarily how you deal with those experiences. For a writer of memoir, or really any nonfiction, this is an important distinction.

It has been remarked by some great critics of memoir writing that most of us shouldn’t bother because we’ve done nothing special with our lives. We’re not celebrities or professional athletes or rock stars, and therefore have nothing of value to say regarding our personal lives. I respond to that criticism in this way—that’s exactly why we should share our stories. For example, I was wounded while on patrol in Vietnam. More than a quarter of a million Americans were wounded in that war. More than fifty-eight thousand died. Many thousands suffered in wars before that and many more after. War is a fairly common and tragic experience and has been described in a myriad of ways by some of the best and brightest authors on this planet. Why would my description be a worthwhile one read?

If I have developed my craft well enough, and if I have been visited in this one instance by that nebulous and undefinable quality called by some inspiration, then the way I describe that event in my life will connect with people on a conscious level, but more importantly, on an emotional one as well. For those who have participated on some level in the horror of war, it will help generate an exorcism of sorts and for those who have not, it will create an empathetic understanding relatable to some trauma in their own lives. In this way, a universal connection is made, and connection should be the goal of any writer because through a series of joined images, fresh images get forged. Synthesis often creates possibilities greater than the sum of their parts and the feeling that you are not alone in your struggle to be human helps heal the injuries accumulated by being human.

Okay. So, you say to me that isn’t a fair comparison. War isn’t really an ordinary experience. Here’s an autobiographical poem about dusting furniture. Who hasn’t wiped dust away from something?

Dusting

Each morning I wrote my name

On the dusty cabinet, then crossed

The dining table in script, scrawled

In capitals on the backs of chairs,

Practicing signatures like scales

While mother followed, squirting

Linseed from a burping can

Into a crumpled-up flannel.

She erased my fingerprints

From the bookshelf and rocker,

Polished mirrors on the desk

Scribbled with my alphabets.

My name was swallowed in the towel

With which she jeweled the table tops.

The grain surfaced in the oak                                                      

And the pine grew luminous.

But I refused with every mark

To be like her, anonymous.

By Julia Alvarez

But it’s about much more than polishing furniture, isn’t it? The common experience becomes unique through the poet adding her own reflective thoughts. It is both personal and universal. The experience is worth writing about because it allows the writer and the reader to realize a truth that connects us all. We must all forge our own identities and for most of us it will happen in rather innocuous ways through ordinary living. But what occurs is certainly not mediocre. The writer becomes a self, or realizes her need for her own identity, and this is an extraordinary, maybe even magical part of being human. The poem opens a pathway for introspective thought with everyone who reads it and for the person who wrote it. Good writing can change our lives. It isn’t just because what we write our stories about are sensational events or that we have become famous. It’s how we tell our stories about the ordinary that makes reading them worthwhile. I am much more interested in reading about how a fast-food worker endured and maybe even found some joy at life while flipping burgers than I am reading about how Kim Kardashian got a good deal on her latest Maserati. Aren’t you?

Published by jimmcgarrah

Every single person on this planet is unique in many ways and yet, most people consider themselves normal (i.e. conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected). This dichotomy is how good writing works. It contains uniqueness in the characters or narrator and a normal progression of ideas in themes. Thus, a story will be appealing if it has unique specificity in a normalized world of some kind and that creates a universal connection between writer and reader. This symbiotic connection as an oxymoron, normal uniqueness, has always fascinated me, not only on the page but more importantly, in life. Over the past twenty years I have written a dozen books. None have made me famous or rich, but I am proud of the work. It has been published by respectable literary and university presses. My editors have been talented and conscientious and brought the best of what I do to the page. But publishing is not all of my writing life. I have long wanted a private space where I could more fully express this exploration between individuality and society normalcy without regard to the business of writing, the correction of images, the political implication of phrases, and while considering there might be an audience to some of what is written, not worrying about whether it would sell. Therefore, I give you my very first and likely last, public blog. It will explore whatever I feel like exploring at a given time in whatever form I choose—maybe a poem, maybe an essay, maybe a story, or possibly a simple “fuck you” to the world. Read at your own peril and comment whenever you want. I encourage dialogue as a learning tool for writer and reader alike. I do not expect agreement with all my ideas. That would eliminate the entire uniqueness side of my inquiry. This is a free space for us all.

3 thoughts on “Mediocre or Just Ordinary”

  2. All experiences are strictly private; but some experiences are less private than others. They are less private in the sense that, under similar conditions, most normal people will have similar experiences and, having had them, can be relied upon to interpret the spoken or written reports of such experiences in much the same way.

    Aldous Huxley, from “Literature and Science”

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment