Eco-Writing: How does our environment affect our writing?

Eco-Writing. It’s self-explanatory, isn’t it? Except, it is that and beyond what one might understand just by reading the term. When I was introduced to this style, I assumed it to be about ecology, biodiversity and everything that I studied in Environmental studies in my school. I expected us to talk about the problems in nature, about the beautiful landscapes, the rural parts of the world, mountains, forests and so on. I expected there to be debates and discussions on climates change, the end of the world or an apocalypse which we might want to predict.

In my first lesson the perspective on this matter was readjusted. Environment is not just the natural but everything that surrounds me. The key areas presented in the module are New Nature Writing, Queer Ecology, Eco-Horror, Environmental life writing, Writing from Midlands and Climate fiction.

Environment is a vast spectrum from rural to urban, land and water and so on. Eco-writing deals with commenting on these scapes.

Eco-writing also talks about living beings and their interaction with the environment.

Nature writing has existed in literature for centuries. Shakespeare for instance used metaphors and simile of nature for describing women. His plays have the rural setting, which acted as utopias within his narrative. However, New Nature Writing considers the reality of the natural environment, the slow movement in the wild, the dangers and the ugliness in nature as much as it looks at the beauty of it. New Nature writing constitutes the science within our environment, be it biological or artificial and its effects on our environment.

I wrote the following piece inspired by material noted in the New Nature Writing lesson:

Queer Ecology foregrounded the sexuality of nature. It looks at the homosexual, asexual and heterosexual aspects of natural environment and its beings. It again suggests looking at the dangers and rough edges of nature. The ugly marshes, the damp smell of rot and so on are augmented in writing within this narrative style. Queer Ecology questions binaries and experiments with it. Considering heterosexuality as natural is challenged in this form as plants are capable of self-pollination, bring the homosexual aspect to life, octopi are asexual and decide their gender according to the mating period and animals too don’t necessarily mate in the binaries created by man.

We looked at Triffids in our lesson and so I created the following as a sample piece. This is work in progress and will be polished for submission.

This is followed by a newspaper that I have created for the coursework. The newspaper will only be one page.

Eco-horror amplifies the issue of climate change. This too foregrounds the dark realities of nature today. We looked at apocalyptic stories, mysteries, horror and so on within this style. The effects of manmade waste, deforestation, pollution, diseases, extinction and ecological shifts are but a few things explored within this narrative. Transformation of nature, biotechnology, grafting and synthetic food are some areas I am interested in looking at. I decided to write a fake blog post inspired by the cosmetic surgeries happening around the globe. I have exaggerated the scenario in the following piece which will be polished for submission for the final coursework.

Sample page from my draft

In the following weeks we will look at authors from midlands and their description of the environment in their text which are unintentionally looking at environment showing the changes that have happened within Midlands over the years.

As we are allowed to experiment with style, I will be experimenting with synaesthesia to write a piece for New Nature Writing for the final submission which will be accompanied by the sounds I record for the piece.