Dusty to Polished: Triniti Wade
What sparks your urge to write, is it always the same?
It’s never really the same urge, at least not when it comes to fiction writing. But I also feel like I’ve just been writing more poetry because I think poetry tends to come faster. And it’s usually just inspired by my real life experiences. I think a lot of the time, this is probably so cliche, but I feel like music inspires me. I’ll be listening to a certain album or artist a lot and that will just put me in a very specific headspace to where I can get a very specific idea of who I want to write about or maybe the perspectives I want to write from.
And I would say for fiction… I used to study film for a year in undergrad and sometimes it’s just the medium I want to write in. Sometimes I’m not gonna dedicate myself to a 90 page screenplay but I can write a fifteen page short story about this character and it’s usually just ideas that I already have in my head. It could be like the most miniscule thing. For instance, I’m from Florida and I saw a sign on this big flea market near the neighborhood where I grew up and it just said “Florida Baby”. It was so cool. I literally took a picture and it sat on my phone for years and then I was going through my camera roll a few months ago and I was like, wow that’s such a cool picture, and I feel like that’d be such a good title for something. So now I have to write something, really. I have to write something and be able to use that as a title.
Do you follow a specific process or set of steps when editing?
No. I probably should, actually. I would definitely like to. I will say, at least for me, when I do fiction workshops, it’s easier to revise. Because you get this big stack of just 300 pages or whatever of feedback from everyone and so it’s a bit easier to just start at the top and then see the general notes that people have. Especially if it’s just grammar things that can easily be revised. For poetry, sometimes I like to let poems sit for weeks or months before I go back and look at it. Or even if I do a poetry workshop, I do the easier line edits, the smaller things, like move this word down a line or cross out this or cross out an extra “the”. Those are usually the easiest revision processes steps. I wish I had more of a concrete revision process. I think I kind of let it work a little bit more intuitively and kind of just come to me based on how I feel about the piece at the moment or what I’m using it for. Like, do I want to submit this somewhere? So I feel like it depends. I wish I had a more strict process.
I think earlier I said fiction was easier. No, I meant the other way around. Poetry is easier. I don’t know why I said that. Poetry is easier to revise. And I kind of picked up this habit this past semester when I do get the stack of feedback back from a workshop, usually that same night I try to go back home and edit so all the feedback I heard in person is fresh in my mind. I’ll just pull it up on my laptop or my computer. Something that I also started doing is that I wouldn’t bring my laptop to class with me. I would write out what everyone was saying. I would have my poem that was being workshopped in front of me and I would write out all the feedback, good or bad, that I was getting and I would also write the smaller line edits on the poem. I would write that in as we were going around in class. Then I would have that main piece of feedback. I would also get a copy of my poem from everyone with their feedback written in or underlined or scribbled. Then I would kind of use mine as the main one just because I was writing in all the different things that everyone said and kind of condensed it onto one paper. I would have that and go home, get on my laptop, pull up the poem, and then just right there go and do a quick kind of revision based on the feedback I heard from class. It also helps to just write things down instead of typing them up. Because sometimes I do get more distracted when im typing versus when I’m writing it down. I feel like I’m listening more. So I started doing that last semester and I think I’m gonna keep it up for my workshops.
How do you know when a piece is truly “done” and ready for publication?
This is probably not good to say but I feel like a piece is never done. I don’t know. At least, when I as a writer feel like okay there is nothing more I can do at this point and time, then it’s done. But who is to say in 2 months or 3 months or 5 years I would go back to and feel like I can actually change all of this. So I feel like nothing is ever truly done. And by me having that thought process, I never have to really lose a piece of writing, or I never really have to feel like anything is unusable, because if I don’t like it today then I might like it 6 months from now or year from now. I might be able to go back and just based on what I’ve lived so far, be able to go back and work on it some more. Or fix what needs to be fixed about it or what I don’t like about it. I feel like nothing is ever truly finished. I’m sure if I was able to workshop the piece, people would be able to point out certain things that don’t work or could be improved. I could catch the smallest spelling error that I didn’t catch the first go around.
I am a big procrastinator when it comes to assignments for creative writing. Haha. You know? I can’t come up with something. It used to happen to me a lot in undergrad in workshops. Because we would have different assignments like every week. Sometimes it would work because I would just chug a celsius and just stay up till 4am working on it. I would just end up working on good ideas. If there is a deadline, I feel like I need to come up with something and it needs to be good. That’s probably not the best answer but I’m a really big procrastinator. Hahaha. If I know there is a deadline and I’m not feeling ideas flowing through, then that is something that I think about more. Like okay, I need to figure out what I’m gonna write about. I need to come up with something that I actually want to write about. Or I’ll look at things that I’ve started and see what I can really work with and flesh out.
How would you describe your writing process with an image?
You know the meme of the guy with his hands up and there’s chains? Hahaha. And then there’s another one where he’s free? I think for me, it’s a little spiral of that. It’s an altar. It’s a back and forth. Back and forth.
In terms of revision, sometimes I feel like this is as much as I can do right now. And then you revisit the piece like a month later and it’s like ugh actually, I hate this whole scene that I set up in this story or this poem is not working for me at all. And then I’m kind of back to square one where I feel like I need to make this work. Or make it feel more cohesive. That plays into the meme of being chained and unchained.
What do you think makes the writing community at The New School unique?
I had a professor my first semester at The New School who taught at another MFA program in New York. He said that the other students during workshops he taught, they didn’t read, they didn’t want to engage with their classmates writing. Even for workshops, it was more so just, “I only care about the feedback I’m getting and I don’t really care to give feedback.” I feel like a big thing about studying writing is that you want to engage with what is being taught and what is being shared in class. I studied creative writing for undergrad and there were a lot of times when we’d have workshops and you could tell half the class didn’t even read the other stories or the poems or whatever that was supposed to be workshopped. Or they barely wrote a note, you know, people barely cared to engage. And it was a continuous thing. Not like a one or two off. It was a regular thing where people just didn’t care to engage. That is something that The New School really does well so far that I’ve seen and also pushed through the workshops. People want to not only hear feedback but give it to others as well. So I feel like that’s very unique. People are more engaged. That is the biggest difference that I’ve seen. I think a lot of people that end up studying writing, especially in MFA programs, they are very solo and I get it because you usually think of writing as more of a solo thing. But then you see that it really is a collaborative community. The New School really pushes that and they’re doing a good job preparing us for that once we graduate and publish things and go into that actual field.
Bio: Triniti Wade (b. 1999) is a writer from Miami, Florida. Her writing explores fragments of Black girlhood, longing, and religion. Her work has been featured in anthologies and exhibitions hosted by the YoungArts Foundation, Scholastic, and O, Miami. She has been recognized by both the Cave Canem Foundation and Miami Writers Institute through literary workshops. She’s currently pursuing her Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at The New School in NYC.
This interview series is produced by Hijab Ahmed