Challenge:Amy Tan describes what it felt like the first time she wrote out of her own experience as a Chinese American and as a young girl. Before that she had tried to write in other people's voices. Why would she do that? What did she gain by embracing her experience as a Chinese American? How did it help her find her own voice through experience, knowledge, and feelings?
How would you describe the cultural heritage, personal experiences, and strong feelings from which you could draw as a writer? What elements would make up your personal landscape from which your original writing voice could come?
Outcome: Write a short personal profile that describes the unique things about your life that could become sources of your originality. Consider things like ethnic and/or racial heritage, family history, family structure, health, unique attributes or talents, and particular life changes you have experienced. Extend your profile by comparing your profile with one of the writers featured in the program.
"I tried to write fiction by making up things that were completely alien in my life that - about a girl whose parents were educated or professors at MIT. You, there was no Joy Luck Club. It was the country club. It was, you know, this life and I tried to copy somebody's style that I thought was very clever because I thought I was clever enough, you know to write as well as these people and I didn't realize that there is something called originality and your own voice. So one day after being told one these stories didn't work, I thoughy, "Well I'm just going to stop showing my work to people and I'm just going to write a story, make it fictional but they'll be Chinese-American." What amazed me was I wrote about a girl who didn't play chess so I figured that counted for fiction but I made her Chinese American -- and by the end of the story I was practically crying because I realized that although it was fiction and one of that had ever happened to me in that story, it was the closest thing of describing my life of the feelings that I had."
Amy Tan
