January 22: "Creative Writing," Grant, John Green

Billy Collins teaches . . . 

Creative Writing

by:  Billy Collins

When I told a student

not to use single quotation marks

around lines of dialogue,

he told me that all our words

are already inside the quotation marks

that God placed around Creation.

I don't often get to teach creative writing at the university.  The administration saves "fun" classes like that for tenured faculty and grad students.  (Yes, you read that right:  grad students.)  So, I don't get to have interesting conversations like this one.  (By the way, the student in the poem is sort of correct, because, in Genesis, God speaks everything into being:  "Let there be . . . "  So, if you're a literalist, we're all just living words straight out of God's mouth.)

Today, for me, God said, "Let there be an NEA grant."  And, because I always follow God's commandments, that's what I did--worked on a grant.  All . . . day . . . long . . .

My mind and body are a little exhausted tonight.  I made a lot of headway on the grant, though, but it's not done yet.  As I worked on it, I kept thinking to myself, This is a waste of time.  You're not going to get this grant.  

When I first started working for the library, I naively agreed to write a $20,000 NEA Big Read grant.  It was so much work, and, when I finally submitted it, I thought that I had wasted 60 days of my life.  Four months later, I received an email from Arts Midwest with the following word in its memo line:  "Congratulations."  

A year later, I submitted another NEA Big Read grant.  This time, however, I actually believed I was a shoe-in for a two-peat.  Four months later, I received an email with the words "Case Number:  00031617" in its memo line.  Translation:  "Sorry, Charlie."

So, I'm batting 500 when it comes to grant writing, and the whole process has become an exercise in self torture.  By around 4 p.m. today, I was feeling more than a little defeated.  So, I went for a walk around the library to clear my head.  And that's when it happened.

As I was standing in the Circulation Department, my friend, Melissa, introduced me to a friend of hers, and I lost my mind.  It was John Green.  THE John Green.  John Green of Turtles All the Way Down and Paper Towns and Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines.  Oh, also the John Green of The Fault In Our Stars.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I went a little fanboy all over him.  It was a pretty amazing moment.  For people who think that working in a library is not exciting, let me list a few other people whom I've met as part of my job:  Les Standiford, Natasha Trethewey, Joy Harjo, Diane Seuss, and Alex Gino.  That's two U. S. Poets Laureate, the author of The Man Who Invented Christmas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, and a bestselling YA writer.  

And now John Green.

I've been riding that wave since this afternoon, and I'll probably be riding it for the rest of the week.  Long enough to get me through the submission of the NEA grant.

Saint Marty has had a pretty good day after a pretty crappy weekend.