Learn to Write by Writing

 

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

Writing is not for faint hearts, shallow minds, or the nihilist whose thoughts trail into oblivion. This work is not for the eternal pessimist whose disparagement of life brings ultimate deafness.

Writing thoughtfully is a prolonged endeavor that requires charting one's inner frontiers. To the north are my hopes of a better life and a bright aspiration to put away grievance and fear. I know that place by inner sight; the smells and moods. I have scouted the land, marked it and breathed in its freshness. An old oak, with a thick and twisted trunk, stands sentinel on the slope. Because I am acquainted with this place I am able to bring my readers here through carefully chosen words.

The best writing is thoughtful, reflective and focused on things that matter. At best, it also entertains. If we write only to entertain, we continue the cycle of shallow writing. Writers must write with the brain and spend more time in creative reflection.

In the end, writing is a craft that must be developed by writing. There is no way around it. You must write to develop your skill and your individual style.

C. S. Lewis wrote, "Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, and nothing else. (Notice this means that if you are interested only in writing you will never be a writer, because you will have nothing to write about . . .)”

Ray Bradbury has this to say: "You can’t learn to write in college. It’s a very bad place for writers because the teachers always think they know more than you do—and they don’t. They have prejudices. They may like Henry James, but what if you don’t want to write like Henry James? They may like John Irving, for instance, who’s the bore of all time. A lot of the people whose work they’ve taught in the schools for the last thirty years, I can’t understand why people read them and why they are taught. The library, on the other hand, has no biases. The information is all there for you to interpret. You don’t have someone telling you what to think. You discover it for yourself." -from a 2010 interview with Sam Weller, published in The Paris Review.

Write because you love it. Don't burden yourself with worries about being published. Kurt Vonnegut recalls an experience from his youth that taught him to embrace writing for the enjoyment rather than the achievement.

“When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”
And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: "I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them."

And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.”

Related reading: Write What You Know; Pen-Pecked Dreamers; Ray Bradbury's Greatest Writing Tips

Writers on Writing

Wendell Berry
"The first obligation of a writer is to tell the truth--or to come as near to telling it as is humanly possible. To do that, it is necessary to learn to write well. And to learn to write well, it is necessary to learn to read well." (From here.)


Victor Hugo
"A writer is a world trapped in a person."

Annie Dillard
“One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes." (From The Writing Life)


Fannie Hurst
“Writing is a chore. It cracks your bones and eats you, and yet it dominates you. You hate it while you love it.”


Saul Bellow
“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.”

C. S. Lewis
“Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, and nothing else. (Notice this means that if you are interested only in writing you will never be a writer, because you will have nothing to write about . . .)”

INDEX of Topics at this Blog; Annie Dillard Describes Her Writing Life; Reflections on the Writing Life: INDEX of Topics

Good writing requires reflection

Alice C. Linsley


Much commercial fiction is high on entertainment and low on substance. It is television fiction involving fast-paced action with a minimal drawing of characters and little concern for reflection on matters of importance. This candy tastes sweet, but it leaves you hungry. Many fiction writers make a good living cranking out pulp, but we do well to ask: "Does shallow writing create shallow readers?"

Ben Hecht, American screenwriter and playwright, once admitted, "I’m a Hollywood writer, so I put on a sports jacket and take off my brain." There is a difference between writing that entertains and writing that causes readers to ponder something meaningful.

The creative impulse is like diving into deep waters. A thought or an image calls us to plumb the depths and through exploring what is deep below the surface we find something to write that others want to read.

Often an author’s exploration carries the work beyond the boundaries of common interest and many readers simply won’t follow. The average reader opts for easy reading, so it takes something special to urge them up mountain paths pioneered by the author's imagination.

The fiction writer’s life involves exercising the gray matter not only in though, but also in retrieving memories, experiences and impressions. These are seasoned by a time of reflection just as a stew must simmer for the herbs and spices to blend.

This work hurts my brain, but there is always the chance that what I write may help the reader come upon a vast plain of hope and overcome fear.

The writer's life involves pounding keys, heads, hearts and bones. In Fanny Hurst's words, "It cracks your bones and eats you."

This work is not for the faint heart, the shallow mind, or the nihilist whose lines of thought trail into oblivion. This is not for the eternal pessimist whose disparagement of life brings ultimate deafness.

Writing thoughtfully is a prolonged endeavor that requires charting one's inner frontiers. To the north are my hopes of a better life and a bright aspiration to put away grievance and fear. I know that place by inner sight; the smells and moods. I have scouted the land, marked it and breathed in its freshness. An old oak, with a thick and twisted trunk, stands sentinel on the slope. Because I am acquainted with this place I am able to bring my readers here through carefully chosen words.

The best writing is thoughtful, reflective and focused on things that matter. At best, it also entertains. If we write only to entertain we continue the cycle of shallow writing and frivolous reading. American writers must write with the brain and spend more time in creative reflection.

END

Use Poetry to Teach Parts of Speech

Why not use poetry to teach parts of speech?  Many students learn best this way because verse engages them.

What follows is a creative writing teacher's model used to practice the differences between the adverb, adjective and noun clause.

God’s Rain

By Hope Ellen Rapson

When I gaze through windows on a rainy day

        which seems to fill my whole world with

                tears shed by God just for me,

                        I pray.

Where is the gray cloud of sin inside my soul

        which causes You, God, to singly send

                the pattering puddles I see?

                        I ask.

Because I question my self-centered heart

        Which often fogs or blurs heaven’s answer,

                “Only grace and mercy fall here,”

                        I trust.            

Commissioned Work Can be Rejected

Alice C. Linsley



Recently a former writing student of mine was asked to submit poems for a project at his university.  There was to be a small sum paid for the work, which he undertook with great enthusiasm.  His poems are edgy and enjoyed by the students, but the administration had concerns.  The work was not published in the end. However, he was allowed to keep the advance payment.

Appearances are so important for private institutions!  Keep this in mind when writing.  It is very difficult to find that balance which preserves the integrity of your poem and honors the concerns of those commissioning your work.  Even finding the balance doesn't guarantee that your poems will be used.  If you are lucky, your work will be published, and if you are not published, don't accept money to NOT publish. If they are willing to pay you to hide your work, you have written something that needs to come to light.

Poets become discouraged when our work is rejected.  It happens even to commissioned work.  Edwin Morgan was commissioned by the Scottish Arts Council to write a series of poems for the inauguration of Glasgow's refurbished Underground system. He provided this sample, which sent such alarm through the Strathclyde transport executive that they decided against using the poems.


The Subway Piranhas


Did anyone tell you

that in each subway train

there is one special seat

with a small hole in it

and underneath the seat

is a tank of piranha-fish

which have not been fed

for quite some time.

The fish become quite agitated

by the shoogling of the train

and jump up through the seat.

The resulting skeletons

of unlucky passengers

turn an honest penny

for the transport executive,

hanging far and wide

in medical schools.

-- Edwin Morgan
from Poems On The Underground
 
 
Even the London Underground didn't dare to use the poem. It is given in the anthology's notes.
 
 
To read other poems by Edwin Morgan, go here.

Paul Greenberg on Writers' Conferences

I went to the Arkansas Writers Conference the other day to talk about writing.

Talk about writing? Rather defeats the purpose, doesn't it? Like driving somewhere to walk. Or attending a conference to learn how to pray in solitude.

But I accepted the invitation anyway. I had a few things I wanted to say about the tendency to teach writing as a process. Much like churning out pre-cast concrete, no doubt. Or producing a political speech that, you can tell, has been written by asking all the politician's advisers for their, to use another unfortunate term: input. Because that's the accepted process. As in processed cheese.

There's a reason Mr. Lincoln wrote his Gettysburg Address, and the ineffable Second Inaugural, alone. Writing should concentrate thought, not diffuse it.

But we live in the age of writing coaches. You find them everywhere:

•At corporate headquarters.

•At conventions of writers, which is an interesting concept in itself, considering what a solitary business writing is, or ought to be.

•Or, you can consult a writing coach on your own. ("Have a seat, Count Tolstoy, and let a real pro show you how it's done. First off, you'll want to foreshadow Anna Karenina's character rather than just throwing her into some messy Russian household, don't you think? And this Vronsky character, he's still a bit of a blank. Your reader's got to wonder what Anna ever saw in him. If you could just bring him out, give him some strong convictions, maybe make him a political activist seeking social justice. ... But on the whole your plot has great potential. There are real possibilities here. You work this thing just right, and you could have a ... screenplay!")

As with any other craft - such as restoring furniture or auto body work or shoe repair - there ought to be a way to teach writing. I used to think so - before I tried to do it once a week at the Little Rock branch of the University of Arkansas. I soon found out there's no teaching it, no way to turn out a writer who wasn't essentially one before he fell into my clutches.

No talent, no writer. Yes, given enough time and inexhaustible patience, we might be able to produce a wordsmith that way - but not a writer.

Some of the well-trained even might be able to pass for writers among the undiscerning. Often enough, I feel as if I'm passing for one. A fellow could dine out on that kind of adulation. I know.

I've found that those impressed by the wannabe writer, the writer manque, aren't worth impressing. Unless maybe they have a nice big grant to hand out.

The surest sign of a writer worth reading is that he's not much interested in talking about writing at conferences or workshops. Or anyplace else.

Talking is one thing, writing quite another.

Now and then, somebody will want to talk to me about this great idea he has for an article or a book, usually only vaguely. I make it a rule to do him a great favor. I tell him to just write it up instead. Write, don't talk about writing. Show, don't tell. That way, there'll be something on paper, or at least on the computer screen, to work with: actual, written words.

For a year to the day, I attended an hourlong editorial conference every weekday morning at the old Chicago Daily News, and watched good ideas talked away daily.

The Daily News was a great newspaper when it still had a fine corps of foreign correspondents and a local columnist named Mike Royko. He was so local, so Chicago, he was a national treasure. That's what having a sense of place will do for a columnist. Or for a real writer, a Faulkner, a Barry Hannah, a Walker Percy, an Ellen Gilchrist.

But how do you teach anybody a sense of place?

Short answer: You don't. You just stand aside and get out of the way when a Buddy Portis comes roaring by, or rather comes trotting by in the perfect 19th-century prose of his soul-daughter Mattie Ross out of Yell County, she of, and with, "True Grit."

Teach somebody to write like that? At a conference? In a classroom? At a writers' workshop?

Please.

Kingsley Amis, who should never go unmentioned when writers are discussed, once said that everything wrong about his post-war era could be summed up in one word: Workshop.

Maybe that's because so much talking is done in workshops, while writing - good writing, at least - is done alone.

Writers, like other dangerous criminals, should come to know solitary confinement. It does 'em a world of good. No wonder prisons have incubated the best political writing, certainly in Russia, whether under tsar or commissar. (No matter how much Russia changes, it remains Russia.)

There are certain words that let you know at once that the kind of writing they describe will be certifiably, professionally bad. Words that sound as if they came out of an industrial manual.

For excruciating example:

Process.
Input.
Product.

Raymond Carver said that once a writer starts talking about technique, you know he's out of ideas.

Writing is simple enough. All you need do is walk into a room, sit down - alone - and look at that blank page staring you in the face like a cobra.

Then it is time to face the most terrifying of audiences, the one that can see through your every trick: yourself.

This column is based on a talk to the Arkansas Writers Conference by Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Poet to Poet: Reflections on Screaming Fire

The following poem is a reflection on Screaming Fire, a Fourth of July poem written by Chandler Hamby.


Fire Screaming in the Sky

There are times when one observes what is around one,
and one sees much more than eyes have seen,
when in the midst of seeming joyous celebration,
one’s heart begins to flag, one’s joy to fade,
when the beauty of exploding fiery patterns,
the music fit for bravely marching armies,
and the words of proud and patriotic exultation
fail to fill the blackness of the darkness of the soul,
and only serve as highlights in the looming blackness.
In times like that a poet may be moved to write,
may attempt description of the beauty of the show,
may want to speak of the brightness then attempted,
but one’s heart is drawn to pierce beyond that veil,
to see the blackness and the bleakness of the shadow,
to sense the falseness of the wild display,
to cringe without full knowledge in its presence,
and to speak what one does not know that one is speaking.
In times like these the poet’s muse is active,
speaking through the cracks between one’s words,
and truth, even when one has not quite heard it,
flows from undetected depths within one’s person,
speaking with a still small voice within another heart,
and I have heard those quiet words that have been spoken,
and as the colors fade away to darkness,
those words are resonating in my soul.


--ed pacht

Writing: Craft or Art?

Students wonder how they can become good writers. I tell them that writing is a developed skill, like speaking a foreign language. Writing well requires practice, practice, practice!

I have about 15 years experience teaching foreign language and every year one or two students excell beyond my expectations. They are the ones who want to speak the language. They are motivated to apprehend the idiom at a level that surpasses most students. Often they exhibit intuition about the language. For example, I have a student whose intuitive sense of how the Spanish language works made it possible for him recently to apply the subjunctive mood to a situation he has never learned. He speaks well - that is his developed craft, but he also handles the language in a beautiful way - that is the art.

So how does one write well? Practice! Write! Re-write! All good writers write everyday. That is how we develop our craft. The art of writing involves skill first and second, an intuitive sense of words, mood, cadence. I'm not sure that this can be taught.

Writer's Block? No Problem!

Even if they manage their time and follow writing guidelines, many writers will still experience a time when the words just won't come together, when they are simply "stuck" and can't think of anything to write. This is writer's block. Fortunately, a few helpful techniques make it possible to overcome the challenge of writer's block.

Experiment -- Try to write in different places, at different times, and with different writing instruments.

Freewrite - Choose one sentence in a paragraph and write a paragraph about it. Then choose one sentence from that paragraph and do it again.

Cluster - Choose key words and ideas; then write associated ideas and words in clusters around them. This process often forms new ideas.

Be flexible -- Be willing to throw out sections of text that are causing problems or just don't work.

Follow a routine -- Follow a routine to get into the writing mood. Try activities like wearing comfortable clothing, using a certain pen, or listening to a particular CD or type of music.

Move -- Physically move around, stretch, or walk.

Take a break -- Get a snack or drink, talk to someone, or just relax for five minutes before starting to write again.

Concentrate -- Focus on a different section or aspect of your paper. This sometimes leads to new insights in problem areas, while allowing you to get work done on another section.

Re-read -- Read a print draft of the paper and jot down ideas while reading.

Relax! -- The more you worry, the harder it gets to think clearly.

From here.

John Scalzi Speaks to Young Writers

I’m going to talk to you about writing as straight as I can; there’s a possibility that some of what I say to you might come off as abrupt and condescending. I apologize in advance for that, but you should know that I sometimes come off as abrupt and condescending toward everyone, i.e., it’s not just you. Also, I hope you don’t mind if I don’t go out of my way to use current slang and such; there’s very little more pathetic than a 36-year-old man dropping slang to prove he’s hip to the kids. I own a minivan and the complete works of Journey; honestly, from the point of view of being cool, I might as well be dead. You might find what I have to say useful anyway. Here we go.

1. The Bad News: Right Now, Your Writing Sucks.
It’s nothing personal. When I was a teenager, my writing sucked, too. If you don’t believe me, check these out: A short story I wrote in high school, and (God help us all) the lyrics to a prog-rock concept album I wrote in my first year of college. Yeah, they suck pretty bad. But at the time, I thought they were pretty good. More to the point, at the time they were also the best I could do. No doubt you are also pounding out stories and songs to the best of your ability… and chances are pretty good that your best, objectively speaking, isn’t all that good.
There are reasons for this.

a) You’re really young. Being young is good for many things, like being flexible, staying up for days with no ill effects, not having saggy bits, and having hair. For writing deathless, original prose, not so much. Most teenagers lack the experiential vocabulary and grammar for writing well; you lack a certain amount of perspective and wisdom, which is gained through time. In short: You haven’t yet developed your true writing voice.

Now, if you’re really good, you can fake perspective and wisdom, and with it a voice, which is almost as good as having the real thing. But usually, sooner or later, it’ll catch up to you and your lack of experience will show in your writing. This will particularly be the case when you have a compelling, emotional story, which would require the sort of control and delivery of your writing that you only get through time. You may simply not have the wherewithal to express your very important story well. Yes, having a great story you’re not equipped to tell pretty much bites. Normally, this is when teens look for help from the writers they admire, which brings us to the next reason your writing sucks:

Read it all here.

Elizabeth Gilbert: Advice for Writers

By Elizabeth Gilbert

Sometimes people ask me for help or suggestions about how to write, or how to get published. Keeping in mind that this is all very ephemeral and personal, I will try to explain here everything that I believe about writing. I hope it is useful. It's all I know.

I believe that – if you are serious about a life of writing, or indeed about any creative form of expression – that you should take on this work like a holy calling. I became a writer the way other people become monks or nuns. I made a vow to writing, very young. I became Bride-of-Writing. I was writing’s most devotional handmaiden. I built my entire life around writing. I didn’t know how else to do this. I didn’t know anyone who had ever become a writer. I had no, as they say, connections. I had no clues. I just began.

I took a few writing classes when I was at NYU, but, aside from an excellent workshop taught by Helen Schulman, I found that I didn’t really want to be practicing this work in a classroom. I wasn’t convinced that a workshop full of 13 other young writers trying to find their voices was the best place for me to find my voice. So I wrote on my own, as well. I showed my work to friends and family whose opinions I trusted. I was always writing, always showing. After I graduated from NYU, I decided not to pursue an MFA in creative writing. Instead, I created my own post-graduate writing program, which entailed several years spent traveling around the country and world, taking jobs at bars and restaurants and ranches, listening to how people spoke, collecting experiences and writing constantly. My life probably looked disordered to observers (not that anyone was observing it that closely) but my travels were a very deliberate effort to learn as much as I could about life, expressly so that I could write about it.

Back around the age of 19, I had started sending my short stories out for publication. My goal was to publish something (anything, anywhere) before I died. I collected only massive piles of rejection notes for years. I cannot explain exactly why I had the confidence to be sending off my short stories at the age of 19 to, say, The New Yorker, or why it did not destroy me when I was inevitably rejected. I sort of figured I’d be rejected. But I also thought: “Hey – somebody has to write all those stories: why not me?” I didn’t love being rejected, but my expectations were low and my patience was high. (Again – the goal was to get published before death. And I was young and healthy.) It has never been easy for me to understand why people work so hard to create something beautiful, but then refuse to share it with anyone, for fear of criticism. Wasn’t that the point of the creation – to communicate something to the world? So PUT IT OUT THERE. Send your work off to editors and agents as much as possible, show it to your neighbors, plaster it on the walls of the bus stops – just don’t sit on your work and suffocate it. At least try. And when the powers-that-be send you back your manuscript (and they will), take a deep breath and try again. I often hear people say, “I’m not good enough yet to be published.” That’s quite possible. Probable, even. All I’m saying is: Let someone else decide that. Magazines, editors, agents – they all employ young people making $22,000 a year whose job it is to read through piles of manuscripts and send you back letters telling you that you aren’t good enough yet: LET THEM DO IT. Don’t pre-reject yourself. That’s their job, not yours. Your job is only to write your heart out, and let destiny take care of the rest.

As for discipline – it’s important, but sort of over-rated. The more important virtue for a writer, I believe, is self-forgiveness. Because your writing will always disappoint you. Your laziness will always disappoint you. You will make vows: “I’m going to write for an hour every day,” and then you won’t do it. You will think: “I suck, I’m such a failure. I’m washed-up.” Continuing to write after that heartache of disappointment doesn’t take only discipline, but also self-forgiveness (which comes from a place of kind and encouraging and motherly love). The other thing to realize is that all writers think they suck. When I was writing “Eat, Pray, Love”, I had just as a strong a mantra of THIS SUCKS ringing through my head as anyone does when they write anything. But I had a clarion moment of truth during the process of that book. One day, when I was agonizing over how utterly bad my writing felt, I realized: “That’s actually not my problem.” The point I realized was this – I never promised the universe that I would write brilliantly; I only promised the universe that I would write. So I put my head down and sweated through it, as per my vows.

I have a friend who’s an Italian filmmaker of great artistic sensibility. After years of struggling to get his films made, he sent an anguished letter to his hero, the brilliant (and perhaps half-insane) German filmmaker Werner Herzog. My friend complained about how difficult it is these days to be an independent filmmaker, how hard it is to find government arts grants, how the audiences have all been ruined by Hollywood and how the world has lost its taste…etc, etc. Herzog wrote back a personal letter to my friend that essentially ran along these lines: “Quit your complaining. It’s not the world’s fault that you wanted to be an artist. It’s not the world’s job to enjoy the films you make, and it’s certainly not the world’s obligation to pay for your dreams. Nobody wants to hear it. Steal a camera if you have to, but stop whining and get back to work.” I repeat those words back to myself whenever I start to feel resentful, entitled, competitive or unappreciated with regard to my writing: “It’s not the world’s fault that you want to be an artist…now get back to work.” Always, at the end of the day, the important thing is only and always that: Get back to work. This is a path for the courageous and the faithful. You must find another reason to work, other than the desire for success or recognition. It must come from another place.

Here’s another thing to consider. If you always wanted to write, and now you are A Certain Age, and you never got around to it, and you think it’s too late…do please think again. I watched Julia Glass win the National Book Award for her first novel, “The Three Junes”, which she began writing in her late 30’s. I listened to her give her moving acceptance speech, in which she told how she used to lie awake at night, tormented as she worked on her book, asking herself, “Who do you think you are, trying to write a first novel at your age?” But she wrote it. And as she held up her National Book Award, she said, “This is for all the late-bloomers in the world.” Writing is not like dancing or modeling; it’s not something where – if you missed it by age 19 – you’re finished. It’s never too late. Your writing will only get better as you get older and wiser. If you write something beautiful and important, and the right person somehow discovers it, they will clear room for you on the bookshelves of the world – at any age. At least try.

There are heaps of books out there on How To Get Published. Often people find the information in these books contradictory. My feeling is -- of COURSE the information is contradictory. Because, frankly, nobody knows anything. Nobody can tell you how to succeed at writing (even if they write a book called “How To Succeed At Writing”) because there is no WAY; there are, instead, many ways. Everyone I know who managed to become a writer did it differently – sometimes radically differently. Try all the ways, I guess. Becoming a published writer is sort of like trying to find a cheap apartment in New York City: it’s impossible. And yet…every single day, somebody manages to find a cheap apartment in New York City. I can’t tell you how to do it. I’m still not even entirely sure how I did it. I can only tell you – through my own example – that it can be done. I once found a cheap apartment in Manhattan. And I also became a writer. In the end, I love this work. I have always loved this work. My suggestion is that you start with the love and then work very hard and try to let go of the results. Cast out your will, and then cut the line. Please try, also, not to go totally freaking insane in the process. Insanity is a very tempting path for artists, but we don’t need any more of that in the world at the moment, so please resist your call to insanity. We need more creation, not more destruction. We need our artists more than ever, and we need them to be stable, steadfast, honorable and brave – they are our soldiers, our hope. If you decide to write, then you must do it, as Balzac said, “like a miner buried under a fallen roof.” Become a knight, a force of diligence and faith. I don’t know how else to do it except that way. As the great poet Jack Gilbert said once to young writer, when she asked him for advice about her own poems: “Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say YES.”


Hat Tip to Michele Cline, the mother of 2 young published writers!