Editing for The Big Picture
tags:
editing, publishing, writing
Pencil in hand, I am reading the first draft of the manuscript sent to me by my new author, Tamarian Graffham. This is my absolute favorite part of being a publisher and is the number one reason I do this work. It’s also the reason…
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leave a comment Ayn Rand’s early unpublished fiction
tags:
Ayn Rand, books, fiction, literature, Peikoff, reading, writing
I picked up an old, yellowed copy of The Early Rand (Signet, ed. Leonard Peikoff, 1984) and have thoroughly enjoyed reading from her early unpublished fiction. Peikoff and Rand were friends. In fact, she was influential in his move from studying medicine to philosophy. He…
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1 commentMemoir Lies: Why do writers make up stories and call them true?
tags:
memoir, publishing, writing
I’ve read several articles about recent bestselling memoirs turning out to be fiction and the subsequent outcry against the authors. Kathy O’Beirne’s 2005 memoir, Kathy’s Story: A Childhood Hell Inside the Magdalene Laundries, about growing up in a Catholic home for fallen women. Love and…
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New Writing Prompt Project: Write with a Purpose!
tags:
activism, poetry, writing, writing prompts
I am the editor of Babel Fruit Online Journal (www.babelfruit.org) and we have a new project called Protest Poems . org (www.protestpoems.org). So many writers take part in weekly writing prompt circles. We would like to give those exercises extra depth. Each month or so…
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Something Writers and Non-writers will LOL!
I read this over on Sara Horn’s Blog and laughed my head off. Writers know exactly what this is like, but for you non-writers, these will make you roll laughing. * * * Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections…
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The College Papers: Orange Juice and Basil (Short Story)
tags:
literature, short stories, the college papers, writing
The following is the first installment of The College Papers. This is a collection of all the short stories/poems I wrote during college. Most of these I wrote outside of class; actually, I only completed 2 short stories my entire college career, and I did…
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A Fully Developed Sense of Humour
tags:
writing
End of the year - and everyone is counting up the best of the year. Best Book, Best Film, Best Concert, Best Album, Best Absentee Underwear… Best Who Cares? Dead Beat is Stuck in Stuckism. Tracy Emin, Damien Hirst, Billy Childish - Ow, they all…
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The Best of New Writing on the Web
tags:
publishing, writing
So, I said that we had become quite excited about a possible new publishing project, and now that we’ve had a little time to sort out the details, I’d like to tell you about it. I’ve been blogging long enough now to know that not…
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The Tales of Beedle the Bard and Other Great Fatalities
tags:
death, literature, writing
It’s got to annoy you: “LONDON (AFP) - A hand-written book of stories by J.K. Rowling—the British author’s first since the blockbuster Harry Potter series—sold for 1.95 million pounds (2.71 million euros, 3.97 million dollars) at auction Thursday. ADVERTISEMENT Auctioneers Sotheby’s had thought “The Tales…
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The Well-Suitedness of the Book
tags:
books, literature, writing
Dead Beat, as you know, has that old streak of engineering in him, and so has for years wondered how e-books or e-magazines or e-papers should work. About eight years ago he decided that it would require a flexible screen. Imagine the cover of a…
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The Tangled Calculus of Love
tags:
journals, Steven Pinker, writing
Sunday, October 7, 2007 The Tangled Calculus of Love I began keeping a journal when I was eighteen. I had dreams of writing novels--of “being a writer,” but there was always something else I had to do. Something I had to experience, to learn, to…
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What’s Your Favorite?
What’s your favorite synecdoche? Synecdoche, in case you’ve forgotten, is a figure of speech wherein a part stands for the whole, or vice versa, the whole for the part. Such as when you refer to a car as “wheels.” Or call a cop “the law,”…
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Character Free Will
You always hear writers say that often stories write themselves, or that characters do what they want. It is funny how true this is. I’m working on a scene now where I was planning for my character to redeem himself, at least in some small…
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Newspapers To Sell Books
tags:
creative, instructor, mentor, writing
Music retailers have lashed out at musician Prince who is giving away his latest CD in a British newspaper, weeks before its official release on July 24. “It is an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career,” said Paul…
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The Three-Quarters Done Complex
A funny thing happened when I got about three-quarters of the way through this first draft of my “project.” I had to (sort of) map out where I was going near the end so that I know the critical scenes and could time things, but…
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Editing: Warping the Past
Editing. Sometimes I love it, sometimes it’s just hard. It’s going back in time to a moment when something came into life on the page and then standing back and looking at it. The benefit of time, of distance, of the wider picture allows you…
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On Books as Sweaters
tags:
book reviewing, books, literary criticism, NBCC, Oprah, writing
When did books become totally irrelevant to the life of the majority of the population in the US? The one purpose they could be counted on to serve, that of entertainment, has been gradually replaced by the movies, the television, the Internet, the MP3 player. The other function of the novel, for instance, to instruct, has been usurped by reality television. The reading masses who in Victorian England made Dickens and Trollope and Collins bestsellers and kept Mudies lending library in business today are now learning how not to behave from the derelicts on “The Real Housewives of the OC.”
The next sector up of the reading public is reading whatever Oprah tells them to. And still more sophisticated readers ignore Oprah and listen to the New York Times, which is not much more reliable. Not that theres anything wrong with Oprahs picks, or the NYT anointed. Theyre usually fine. But very rarely is the writing anything great.
You know what is great? Their marketing team. The amount of negotiating it took for those books to get under the nose of the right person at the right time. Sure, they all have a basic level of excellence. But they are reduced to commodities instead of texts. In this schema, it is irrelevant to establish why Special Topics in Calamity Physics is inferior to On Beauty. People will buy and read both because the New York Times told them to, and who cares about the difference?
I care about the difference.
Its like that scene in The Devil Wears Prada when Meryl Streep coolly explains the trickle-down theory of fashion: that what Andie thinks is an anti-choice (throwing on the first sweater she sees in her closet in the morning) is actually a choice that has been made for her by the people she thinks are irrelevant to her life: those at the very apex of the fashion industry (who are responsible for the sweaters existence). And youre right to assume that in this schema, books are sweaters. (Its just that On Beauty is Chanel whereas Special Topics is J. Crew). The people who buy Oprahs books are making a non-choice. Theyre just bringing in pizza because theyre too lazy to cook. Nothing wrong with pizza. But whats wrong with cooking? And besideswho are you going to trust to recommend something to eat, Oprah or a food critic? Both, probably, but I would hope more credence would be given to the trained professional.
There are only five freestanding book review sections left in the country and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution fired their book editor two weeks ago. This is bad, and over six thousand writers and book lovers have signed a National Book Critics’ Circle petition asking the AJC to reinstate her. But does anyone actually care if book reviews have their own section in a newspaper or if theyre just thrown in with all the other arts coverage. For that matter, why should books get their own section?
I cant really give you a convincing enough reason. I can only shake my head and say wistfully that books ought to be much more important than they are. Books do everything the other arts do and they do it more articulately. Books teach us to be functioning, expressive individuals. Movies and television give you empty lines to repeat while you get drunk with your friends. Books make you think for yourself.
La littrature peut beaucoup, writes Tzvetan Todorov in his recent essay La littreature en pril. Elle peut nous tendre la main quand nous sommes profondment dprims, nous conduire vers les autres tres humains autour de nous, nous faire mieux comprendre le monde et nous aider vivre. Ce nest pas quelle soit, avant tout, une technique de soins de lme ; toutefois, rvlation du monde, elle peut aussi, chemin faisant, transformer chacun de nous de lintrieur. (p. 72)
Literature can do many things. It can lend a hand when we are profoundly depressed, open us up to the other human beings surrounding us, help us better to live and to understand the world. This is not to say that it is above all a means of healing the soul; nevertheless it can be revelatory, and transforming. (p. 72)
Literature has a vital role to play, Todorov argues, but in order for it to do so it must return to the status it enjoyed up until the end of the 19th century. This is where literary critics come in. So you want to read something other than what Oprah tells you to? Great! But without book reviews in newspapersat the very leastwhere are you going to find out whats worth reading?
Ah yes, thats right. I forgot. Youre already there. Youre here. The internet.
We’ll talk about that more, next class. I promise I won’t leave you hanging. But this is long enough for now.
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Sand Storm: My Regrets for 500 Posts
tags:
Admiration, Indignation, Rejection, Sand Storm, Writing
In the flurry of these last two weeks, which for me have included a blizzard of blinding migraines (always some excuse, right?), I skimmed Sand Storm’s farewell. Seeing it there, I trolled past, thinking, “Oh, 500 posts! When I find the time to write a…
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Getting published: Live your own writing life
tags:
getting published, writing
Yesterday I received an e-mail from a woman who expressed her frustration over the fact that she has been writing for twenty years and her work has yet to receive an interested nibble from a publisher. She said she keeps asking, ”Why, God?” She mentioned…
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Vonnegut’s guide to writing pretty good
In the continuing volley of accolades, self-flagellation, and weeping that has followed the death of Kurt Vonnegut, I present, via Boing Boing, Vonnegut’s guide to writing (from his collection Bagombo Snuff Box): 1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that…
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Turn Off Your TV Day
I propose a Turn-Off-Your-TV-Day in honor of Kurt Vonnegut, and all writers living dead and aspiring. Here is a quote, “The first story I sold to the Saturday Evening Post, I came home from work, and I had an upright piano inside the front door,…
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Russians
tags:
russians, sontag, writing
There’s a wonderful just-published essay by Susan Sontag in The Guardian this past weekend, I recommend it to one and all. And I have an admittedly pedantic question. Were you to take heed of Sontag’s injunction to “be born at a time when it was…
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The Spirit of Kepler and Other Celestial Matters
tags:
process, science, writing
So Dead Beat isn’t letting you away too easily. I know you wish he’d shut up about analogy and the creative process and just allow you all to get on with your writing, and for a while I thought I would, but just then who…
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Great Writing - A Product of the Mind
tags:
Literature, Writing, writing process
Mapping and analogy. Go back and re-read if you have forgotten. This is important stuff, Dead Beat does not lie.
Remember Hofstadter is concerned with developing computer models of how human thinking works. You see this is the core of it. We can talk about form in writing. We can ‘instruct’ in the craft - characters, setting, line, imagery, rhythm and so on, but how do we utilize it? What is happening in the minds of writers?
Why do two people with the same understanding of form produce different ‘qualities’ of work?
What makes a great poet great? We know what is happening on the page - we can see formally what has occurred? But what happened in the mind to allow this to occur? What processes were at work? And if we could model them, could we then ‘teach’ them?
Could we become better writers?
Dead Beat says, you bet!
Keep in mind that ‘the great poet’ probably does not really know what is occurring in his or her mind.
So analogy. Here is what Hofstadter says: One should not think of analogy-making as a special variety of reasoning (as in the dull and uninspiring phrase analogical reasoning and problem-solving, a long-standing clich in the cognitive-science world), for that is to do analogy a terrible disservice. After all, reasoning and problem-solving have (at least I dearly hope!) been at long last recognized as lying far indeed from the core of human thought. If analogy were merely a special variety of something that in itself lies way out on the peripheries, then it would be but an itty-bitty blip in the broad blue sky of cognition. To me, however, analogy is anything but a bitty blip rather, its the very blue that fills the whole sky of cognition analogy is everything, or very nearly so, in my view.”
So what is analogy and how can we utilize it to improve our writing abilities:?
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Breather
tags:
experimentation, fiction, writing
I am taking a breather this weekend (in case anyone notices the pause.)
Writing James Walsh’s story not only exhilarated me, it pushed me to a new limit. No exaggerationin all the years Ive been writing fiction (25, and so consistently its staggering to contemplate), I have never experienced a story taking over my daily life and consciousness the way this one did.
Many nights I could not sleep after writing all day, and when I did, my dreams arrived as relentless, hyper-realistic outtakes. The characters would not fade. For six weeks, they never shut up. The whole endeavor was overwhelming. Sadly, I know too well that does not mean it will ever captivate anyone else.
Knowing this did not protect me from believing, while it was happening to me, that some of the story would surely captivate anyone who read it. Its energy was too great to go unnoticed. When that fantasy ends, the crash involves real psychic injury. So this weekend I am licking my wounds.
Creative writing is a habit though. Ive admitted before Im addicted to the adrenaline. Monday or maybe Tuesday, Ill be back at it. My plan is to write little vignettes for a while. But you never know. The James Walsh bender started out as an imaginary snippet of dialogue matched with a vague image.
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Hell on Frisco Bay and Girish: Two Great Film Blogs
tags:
Cinema, film blogs, journalism, reviews, writing
Two of my favorite film blogs are blurbed in this SF360 article. Congratulations Brian and Girish!
“There’s a scene well into Stephen Sondheim’s Gypsy where the young Gypsy Rose Lee is offered timely advice from three seasoned strippers who cue her that she’ll be much more than a mimic if she has a gimmick. With the plethora of blogs now available out on the blogosphere—each somehow exposing if not shamelessly foisting the personality of their authors—the parade of opinion can become nearly numbing; a real bump and grind. Good writing hopefully being a given, it still takes something extra to make a blog attract traffic.”
Brian and Girish’s blogs are two from the list that Michael Guilln says have that extra something-something he calls a gimmick. I don’t think it’s anything like a gimmick that makes these two special; Personally, I find their content clear, well-written, trustworthy, entertaining, and informative. They’re also pretty well-designed, easy on the eyes. They meet the same standards any good alternative newspaper, zine, or daily rag should nail. Critics and allies of the blogosphere tend to forget that the same principles apply to good print or web content. It should be factual, up-to-date, neatly-presented, fun, broadly informed, and with it’s own unique style and focus. The only differences relative to paper periodicals are those of speed and scale. Blogging is sometimes delivered with more speed, and can be at fault for rapidly firing off too much, too soon. In that way, it suffers a typically masculine flaw, premature ejaculation. Luckily, Brian and Girish’s blogs don’t suffer in this way. They hold back just enough to satisfy.
“2. Hell on Frisco Bay
Racheting down just a notch to provide a working handle in the Bay Area, Brian Darr’s blog juggles the Bay Area’s many movie calendars, pampering the cinemaniac’s dream of attending choice screenings at favored venues. More like a ringmaster than a traffic control cop, Brian highlights the latest acts in town; it’s a timesaving service for the rest of us.
3. Girish
Girish Shambu’s eponymous site is a testament to his skills as an educator and social facilitator. Writing an entry usually once a week, he’s a teacher who’s cognizant that ending a lesson with a question provokes discussion and promotes interaction. He’s fair in his moderation of comments that frequently dip into the hundreds within the course of a week. His blog is the water cooler that hydrates on-line discourse. Everyone gathers at Girish’s place to talk about film.”
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Dead Beat’s Oscar Award
tags:
advice, creative writing, gerard beirne, irish, writing
So Hudson, Dead Beat’s canine Book Reviewer thinks he has won an Oscar. He give D.B. his speech: Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I’m sorry. This moment is so much bigger than me. This moment is for Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, Old Shep. It’s…
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Computer, typewriter or crayon?
tags:
computers, pens, physically writing, typewriters, Writing
In the spirit of our Bud (tho this is Bud Lite), to stimulate debate (apologies if this has come up before): When starting a writing session, do you prefer using a computer, typewriter or pen/pencil/crayon/nonsharp implement? That is, not just writing on the fly, getting…
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On Novel Outlining
tags:
outline, process, writing
Its funny how MFA programs dont put much focus on novel writing. Sure, some time is spent on analyzing novels, but there is no real guidance on how to build or shape a novel. So, we walk out with a portfolio of short stories, some critical writing, and no lick of experience of doing what it is almost all of us are looking to do.
Last week I realized that I was nearing the half-way point in my project. Id gone past the point of establishing characters, exploring their dilemmas, and now it was time to put them on the path to the eventual resolution. And Id really been winging up to this point. I knew the characters, but I want them to sort things out on their own without having some unwieldy outline to which I was supposed to adhere. Yet, suddenly I was there, beginning a new chapter, and I realized I didnt really know what I wanted to have happen, what needed to happen.
Novel outlining seems to be somewhat of a contentious issue. Authors seem to have all sorts of responses to the question of whether or not they outline. I think many want us to think that its all organic and that any sort of planning is not artistic and goes against the process. Sure, maybe people writing those plot-driven things need to outline, but I dont. I dont think I believe this.
I have several characters who all need to come together in the resolution, and if I dont have an idea of what I need to have happen when Im screwed. Ill end up writing one of those novels where it seems the author didnt quite know what he/she needed to have happen and the whole thing veers off in a new direction (see: Look At Me, Empire Falls-which I still liked).
Resources on outlining are a bit limited. I went out a-wandering on the internet in hopes of finding some direction, suggestion, guidance. If youre writing sci-fi or romance there is some support out there, but no one really wants to talk about outlining a literary novel. Not one link worth passing on.
What I had to do was to outline the course of each character. On a separate piece of paper I noted the scenes and development for each character and then a few words on what I needed to have happen to them in the future, the different scenes I knew that I would need. Then I had to lie each of these together, looking at what was missing, and outline the course of action. So, now I have a rough list of scenes in the order I need to have them happen in order to get us to the conclusion. But is truly rough. A few words each. I still dont want to tie the characters down and force them into anything, so I think Ive left them a little room to move around on their own.
I now feel open to write away, knowing where the landmarks are, where each checkpoint is, what I vaguely want to accomplish in each chapter. I finally feel like I can move forward.
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Night Soldiers and Code to Zero
tags:
historical fiction, historical thrillers, writing
I recently read two historical thrillers and learned from them some lessons I want to apply in my own writing. The first was Code to Zero, by Ken Follett. The year is 1958. A man named Luke wakes up disheveled, disoriented, and seemingly homeless. He’s…
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Age of a Reader
tags:
censorship, writing
There’s a bit of a discussion going on at my online writing group about underage readers and content—specifically, teens reading about unusual sexual behaviors (that they haven’t themselves come up with). Opinions are flying like knives. Although I haven’t so far written much (if anything)…
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Write every day? Yeah, right.
Do you ever get sick of hearing that? I do. Maybe it’s just because I don’t write everyday. Or maybe I’m sick of hearing it from people who have the time available to them. In this month’s Poets & Writers Walter Mosley delivers the usual lecture. He begins,
The first and most important thing that you have to know about writing is that it is something you must do everyday. Every morning or every night, whatever time it is that you have.
Well, I dont want to hear it, but its hard to argue with. But then he goes on,
Getting your words down on the page takes time. How much? I write three hours every morning. Its the first thing I do, Monday through Sunday, fifty-two weeks a year.
Well, congratu-freakin-lations. Must be hard to do with that full-time job, a toddler and a pregnant wife. Oh, wait, thats me, not Walter Mosley. Does he have a full-time job?
He does go on to make some great points, and I dont want to dismiss the thesis that writing is hard work.
Elsewhere in the magazine, an article by Caitlin ONeil called The Writers Triangle: Balancing Writing With Living lets us see the other side of the maxim. She writes, If a writer is earning enough money, she doesnt have enough time to write. If a writer has enough time to write, shes broke. If a writer is cut off from people and money-generating work in order to write, shes depressed and isolated. Now, I wont argue though I disagree with the last point, or at least I dont know that theres really anything wrong with being depressed and isolated (I could also criticize the pronoun choice, but I wont).
It is tricky finding that balance, being fair to all aspects of your life. In an interview I heard recently with Kate Braverman she said that if you are serious about the art of writing get a well-paying job. She doesn’t suggest sacrificing your well-being by hiding out in your office and not working until finally producing your masterpiece. Instead, find a job that provides you the security you need to not let money figure in to your work and one that leaves your mind open for creative activity. This is the tack I’m taking.
Years ago, I lived what I deemed was an “artist’s life.” That meant drinking too much, quitting jobs on a whim, and living a life of poverty and degradation. But, boy, did I produce a lot of work. Too bad most of it was crap. Since then I got my act together, got my undergraduate degree, then an MFA, got a real job, got married and began having children. So, I may not write as much now (and certainly not as much as I should) but what I write is better. And I’m not so desperate to make a buck with it that I let that override artistic concerns.
Okay, so I resolve to write more, nearly everyday, but I will still cherish my sleep, my time with my family, and I’m still going to work. Three hours a day, my ass.
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Interview with Award-Winning Editor Ellen Datlow (Partial. View the rest on The Writers’ Block)
tags:
books, editing, Ellen Datlow, interviews, writing
We have a special treat for all the readers of this blog. For those of you that may not know, Ellen Datlow is an award-winning editor of multiple anthologies, including The Years Best Fantasy and Horror (with Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant. The anthology is going into its 20th year) and Salon Fantastique (with Terri Windling). She has the distinction of winning seven World Fantasy Awards and several Bram Stoker awards, among many others. Ellen Datlow is probably best known for helping to develop the talents of science fiction and horror writers and has worked with and published some of those genres brightest stars, such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Stephen King.
As a writer, editing is an important but often difficult task, and its nice to know that there are editors out there like Ellen. Seriously, folks, Ive had nightmares about editing my work. Giant semicolons and commas chasing me like something out of Alice in Wonderland
Without further ado:
Interview with Ellen Datlow -
NG: What is the first story you remember editing and do you know what that author does now?
Ellen: I dont remember the first author I edited at OMNI (my first job in genre publishing) but I edited Johnny Mnemonic by William Gibson and Eyes I Dare not Meet in Dreams by Dan Simmons and edited several others by each of them thereafter.
Both are bestselling authors. Bill has a new novel called Spook Country coming out this spring and Dans novel The Terror has just been published to excellent reviews.
NG: As an editor, what are your pet peeves about some of the stories you come across?
Ellen: Theyre not properly formatted (those that are single spaced just go into the trash). Stories that are completely inappropriate for what Im editing at the time despite the fact that the author should have seen the guidelines. Stories without self-addressed-stamped envelopes, stories that are emailed to me.
NG: Youve said before that most of your job as an editor is to prevent authors from falling. Can you elaborate on this?
Ellen: Once I make the decision to buy a story, my job is to help the author produce the best story she can. If there are problems with a plot point or the ending, or inconsistencies in character or a section that needs clarification, Ill try to guide the author by making suggestions and asking questions. For example, if I dont understand whats going on, Ill ask the author to explain to me what she thinks is going on. Further, Ill say that while not everything must be on paper, if she, the author, doesnt understand whats going on then neither will the readerand I think communication with the reader is crucial. This doesnt mean that everything needs to be spelled out. There can be ambiguity in a story, as long as its intentional.
NG: What do you do when a writer resists your suggestions?
Ellen: There are a few different situations wherein this might happen: If I know I want to buy the story because I love it and the fixes Ive suggested are minor, Ill let it go. And if the author can persuade me that he is right, Ill let it go [meaning Ill buy the story anyway].
If I like a story and think that the story would be stronger with certain problems addressed, I may make suggestions and ask the writer for a rewritewith no guarantees until I read the rewrite.
Or if its a story I think is interesting and might work with a rewrite I may ask to see the story again if its completely rewritten. No guarantees. If the writer resists, I wont buy the story. But as Ive said, even with a rewrite theres no guarantee that Ill buy the rewritten story.
NG: There are a number of new writers emerging in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres. Is there anything that stands out to you between those that succeed in those genres and those that do not?
Ellen: It depends on what you mean by succeed there are some terrible writers who are successful, in that their books or stories always sell and that they make a living off their fiction writing. Ill assume you mean succeed in my termsin other words, the writers whose work I regularly publish or would like to publish.
The voice of an author is very important and those who are coming at a story from an unusual direction. I personally prefer visual writing in which I can see what is happening.
There are plenty of mediocre writers who succeed in the short runthey have little to say but they say it in a readable style. They are writing for success, not out of passion. I dont think their work will last. Instead of trying to become the next big thing new writers should concentrate on discovering what they need to write, what theyre passionate about. They need to find their voice. Ive seen some newer writers who wrote a few good stories and then suddenly blossomone writer Im thinking of has been writing a series of stories in an odd futuristic world, moving from pretty good fantasy stories to unusually, thought-provoking sf stories.
***
View the rest of the interview & leave comments at The Writers’ Block
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prairie fly
I’m glad to see that Rick Bass’ fantastic essay, “Shy,” is still available over at Narrative. That piece captures, more than most on the subject, the experience of writing from a remote locale. And while I don’t share Bass’ struggle with intense shyness, I do…
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Writers Block & Logic
tags:
brain teaser, logic, writing
MFA Candidate: It has been established that over 80 percent of writers who use amphetamine salts have a history of experiencing writers block at the peak of their careers. Such evidence would seem to prove that using amphetamine salts leads to writers block.
Professor: The phrase Writers Block would serve our purposes better if it carried a meaning more akin to Butchers Block. A Wrtiers Block is such a slab upon which chopping and cutting of a text is performed. In other words, when a story, essay, or poem is on the Writers Block, it is going through the revision and editing stages of composition. Write on!
The Professor’s reply to the student’s argument relies on which one of the following argumentative strategies?
a) offering evidence suggesting that the statistics the student cites in support of his conclusion are inaccurate.
b) undermining the credibility of his conclusion by showing that it is a statement from which implausible consequences can be derived.
c) providing an example to show that not everything that induces writers block is counterproductive.
d) demonstrating that the student’s line of reasoning is flawed because of the student’s misguided use of the phrase Writer’s Block.
e) calling into question the possibility of ever establishing causal connections between the statistics about amphetamine salt users and writers block.
(For those with superstitious dispositions, if you supply the correct answer in the comments, you are assured never to fall victim to the type of writers block the student discusses here; rather, you will always feel motivated to chop any unfinished piece of writing on The Writer’s Block.)
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On writing: Unleashing your inner dragon
tags:
writing
The New Yorker is published too often; many times a fresh issue slaps into my mailbox before I’ve even opened the last one. I’ve been known to throw the darn things away because I begin to feel anxious when my stack of periodicals-to-be-read towers much higher than six inches. But I perused the current issue over my tea and toast this morning, and I’m glad I didn’t miss Orhan Pamuk’s Nobel lecture, “My Father’s Suitcase.” Here’s one of the parts that speaks to writers:
A writer is someone who spends years patiently trying to discover the second being inside him, and the world that makes him who he is. When I speak of writing, the image that comes first to my mind is not a novel, a poem, or a literary tradition; it is the person who shuts himself up in a room, sits down at a table, and, alone, turns inward. Amid his shadows, he builds a new world with words. This manor this womanmay use a typewriter, or profit from the ease of a computer, or write with a pen on paper, as I do. As he writes, he may drink tea or coffee, or smoke cigarettes. From time to time, he may rise from his table to look out the window at the children playing in the street, or, if he is lucky, at trees and a view, or even at a black wall. He may write poems, or plays, or novels, as I do. But all these differences arise only after the crucial task is completeafter he has sat down at the table and patiently turned inward. To write is to transform that inward gaze into words, to study the worlds into which we pass when we retire into ourselves, and to do so with patience, obstinacy, and joy.
As I sit at my table, for days, months, years, slowly adding words to empty pages, I feel as if I were bringing into being that other person inside me, in the same way that one might build a bridge or a dome, stone by stone. As we hold words in our hands, like stones, sensing the ways in which each is connected to the others, looking at them sometimes from afar, sometimes from very close, caressing them with our fingers and the tips of our pens, weighing them, moving them around, year in and year out, patiently and hopefully, we create new worlds.
The writers secret is not inspirationfor it is never clear where that comes frombut stubbornness, endurance....
The writer’s secret isn’t talent, either. I believe that any fairly articulate and well-read individual with a bit of imagination can learn to write--but only if that person is maniacally determined to do so. Wanting to be published “really, really bad” isn’t going to get a writer anywhere if she lacks the courage necessary to sacrifice herself to the dragon--that fire-breathing, all-consuming passion to write and learn and keep writing, even after the cruelest rejections.
Perhaps some of you reading this post have already made New Year’s resolutions to “get serious” about your writing in 1997. If by “getting serious” you mean joining a critique group or taking a class or attending a conference or even producing a certain number of pages each week, I’m going to risk offending you by suggesting that those are things anyone could do. They require only a little time, perhaps a bit of money, and a certain amount of discipline, but no passion. And if you’re a writer without passion, I predict you’re never going to set the literary world or even your own little genre on fire.
Do you have the guts to dig deeper? To expose your raw self to public inspection? Let’s get back to Orhan Pamuk:
For me, to be a writer is to acknowledge the secret wounds that we carry inside us, wounds so secret that we ourselves are barely aware of them, and to patiently explore them, know them, illuminate them, own them, and make them a conscious part of our spirit and our writing.
Not all of the truths inside you will be ugly. Some of them will be beautiful. As an inspirational romance writer, I draw on both; my books’ happy endings are enhanced by the suffering that precedes them. One of my secret delights is knowing that while readers may guess, they’ll never know with any certainty which parts of my books are “me.” My aim is to provoke readers to examine their own secrets as they read. Yes, some of you may guess correctly some of the time and learn things about me that I’d rather you didn’t. But that’s the chance we take when we unleash our passions--what I like to call the inner dragon--and write.
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The Reading Party, or, If You Can’t Stand the Heat, Don’t Become a Writer
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writing
It never ceases to amaze me. Just when I think I should shutter the doors on this online journal, something comes along that I realize I haven’t written about, and the blog goes on for another few weeks. My wife and I hosted the reading…
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