Sometimes the sandwich that sounds the grossest is actually the most delicious.
Confucius
Notes on Creativity
On page 38 of Atonement, McEwan drops a master class in fiction-writing:
“As [Briony] stood in the nursery waiting for her cousins’ return she sensed she could write a scene like the one by the fountain and she could include a hidden observer like herself. She could imagine herself hurrying down now to her bedroom, to a clean block of lined paper and her marbled, Bakelite fountain pen. She could see the simple sentences, the accumulating telepathic symbols, unfurling at nib’s end. She could write the scene three times over, from three points of view; her excitement was in the prospect of freedom, of being delivered from the cumbrous struggle between good and bad, heroes and villains. None of these three was bad, nor were they particularly good. She need not judge. There did not have to be a moral. She need only show separate minds, as alive as her own, struggling with the idea that other minds were equally alive. It wasn’t only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you. And only in a story could you enter these different minds and show how they had an equal value. That was the only moral a story need have.”
Notes from a Publisher at the Close of a Contest
photo credit | Lindsey Turner, Flickr Creative Commons | Note: not actual submissions to contest. Or actual editor.
- 378. That’s how many book-length manuscripts were in the submission box at the deadline for the second annual Pressgang Prize.
- I’ve been dipping into the box since the contest began, and I can tell you there’s a lot of good work in there, a lot of good writers in there. Former winners of the Drue Heinz prize, the Flannery O’Conner prize, the Bakeless. Name a major grant, and someone in that box has won it. And there is no shortage of emerging writers in the box whose work is exciting, too. The manuscript that takes the prize is going to be incredible. I’m exhilarated.
- Also a little depressed. I’m going to be turning down a lot of worthy work, saying no to a long line of deserving writers.
- This is hard. It doesn’t stop being hard.
- Harder than I expected it to be when I started Pressgang a couple of years ago. By that point I’d been an editor of lit mags for several years. I wasn’t exactly callous about rejecting stories, but I accepted it as part of the business.
- It’s different with books.
- With a story, you’re talking about something that has taken the writer weeks or months. Not a small amount of time, but not her life’s work, either. Plus, the writer probably has more stories lying around. The writer has diversified. With a book, you’re talking about years. Decades, sometimes. One basket, so many eggs.
- I don’t send rejections lightly, is what I’m saying. I feel every one.
- The older I get, the tougher my skin and the softer my heart. Taking rejection for my own work doesn’t sting like it used to, but every year it’s harder to send them out.
- If I ever quit this business, it will be because I can’t send out one more rejection. Empathy is degenerative.
- I can hear the scornful internet people now. Oh, the poor executioner. So many heads to chop off. His arms must get tired! To be clear, I’m not looking for sympathy here. I just want to give you a glimpse behind one particular curtain. Publishing could use more transparency, I think.
- These notes should probably be more upbeat. After all, there is so much good stuff in that box, and the general tone of dispatches from publishers is expected to be celebratory (if sometimes a little strained or shrieky)—but I want to be honest. And an honest look at a submission box for any press or agent can be discouraging. It can seem like a miracle that anyone makes it through that strait successfully.
- But honesty is different from cynicism. If we’re interested in honesty, we’ll recognize that writing and publishing—making art together—can be good work, worthy work, even when it’s clobbering your heart. And that many writers do, somehow, survive the clobbering and publish fine books.
- Someone is going to win that prize. And that book will be amazing. And the world will be better for it, even if most people won’t know it. You will go on writing, and I will go on publishing, and we will honor each other’s struggle. That will be our integrity.
Toss-off Poem #17: Why it is Sometimes Hard to Live Here
To the guy behind me in line at the grocery store who gave America
five more years “at most”
and to the woman who responded with “I just wish
they would get rid of the one who did all of this,”
in a way that suggested that this was her response to every complaint;
and to the other guy who atomized the blame by declaring
all of them evil—"I mean literally evil"—I say this:
You people give cynicism a bad name.
Also, swing by the produce aisle on your next trip to the store.
There is not one plant in your cart.
Literally not one.
Literally literally.
If you keep eating that processed shit,
I give you five years
at most.
The Three Most Important Writing Lessons You Can Teach Your Students (?)
So, Shelly and I are working on a book about writing pedagogy, and this morning I wrote something that surprised me. I think I believe it, but I’m not sure. I’m just trying it out at this point. Anyway, here’s the excerpt:
Earlier we claimed that teaching your students to “read like writers” might be the single most important writing lesson. We said might be because at least two other lessons compete for that crown: figuring out your writing process, and embracing deep revision. The same key opens the doors to process and revision: reflection.
Reflection allows a writer to look back on her process and assess how well it worked, where it failed, and what she might do differently next time. Reflection is also the catalyst for revision. “No revision without reflection” is the old saying. You could try it, we suppose, but you’d just end up doing a little light line-editing and proofreading. Deeper reflection is necessary for deep revision: working at the tectonic level of ideas and structure, seeing big problems and big possibilities.
So what I’ve got here is a holy trinity of writing lessons:
1. Reading like a writer
2. Figuring out your process
3. Embracing deep revision
Here’s the surprising thing: these lessons are more about reading and reflecting than actually putting words down on the page. I suppose it shows how deeply intertwined the processes of thinking and reading and writing really are.
But again, I’m not sure about any of this. What do you think about these three lessons? And what do you think is the most important lesson you can teach your students about writing?
“Good Country People” and “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” are both great, classic stories, but if you assign them back-to-back, your students will think you’re a creep. #lessonlearned
Younger son: Why do you always pay at the cash register at Mexican restaurants?
Older son (in a tone of patient condescension): It’s their culture.
Not sure where to go in Indianapolis to sacrifice your firstborn? Here’s the place!
When your kids are little, you do a lot of active, hands-on parenting. Playing with them, actually doing things together.
Around ten, they get into activities and friends, and your parenting becomes less active. You take them to soccer or guitar practice…and you sit there until they’re done. They go play at a friend’s house…and you sit around your house in case you’re needed.
You’re not free, but you’re not really with them, either. You’re in this weird in-between place. On standby. On hold. You’re off-stage in your own life.
It’s happening in my house, and I don’t like it.
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