Born of the Buffalo Wing

After completing a collection of poetry for my thesis and graduating with my MFA in Creative Writing, I hit a wall. I hated everything I’d ever written and could not force myself to write a new poem, or even revise an old one. I went to work as a full-time English Instructor at a local university which catered to the under-prepared student. Each night when I got home, I was so exhausted from trying to get intro English students to write some semblance of a coherent and interesting paper, that I had no energy left. I figured I just had to wait it out. Soon enough, I’d settle in and then start writing again. Fall semester passed, then Spring, then Summer, and I had nothing. I began to get nervous. Maybe I am not a real writer. Maybe I wasted these last few years and should have stayed in Buffalo with my secure job and my 401k instead of moving to the middle-of-nowhere Georgia and starting all over again.

So, I decided to force myself to write again. I taped all of my poetry to the wall in my spare bedroom so I’d be surrounded by works in progress. I’d learned this trick from a seasoned poet who was also a professor of mine. It had worked for my thesis, so I tried it again. The next day, I walked into the room, turning on the overhead fan, and the layered pages began to blow in the wind, trying to entice me to look at them, to pick up a pen and begin writing on the walls. And what did I feel? Panic.

I thought I was going to be sick. My stomach clenched like it did when I stood before my board of advisors to defend my thesis. This was not fun. This was not how writing was supposed to be--not after a long week of stress. And that is when my idea was born. Screw poetry. I was going to write a memoir. It would be about a Buffalo Girl surviving middle Georgia. But in order to really get to the heart of the culture shock I was experiencing, to really understand what it means to be a Buffalo Girl in Georgia, I must first figure out what it means to be a Buffalo Girl. So, Born of the Buffalo Wing was born.

This blog is basically my think spot. As I write, I will be posting segments of my memoir, and I will also be using this as a place to vent about life in Georgia, my kooky everyday experiences that may, or may not fit into my memoir plan, and about the writing process itself. Please give it a chance before you consider me to be a literary snob.

Happy reading!!

Buffalo Girl