1. While John Lee Hooker plays “Boom Boom,” the camera goes on a little tour of the street, giving us shot after shot of storefronts, people, little objects. When I first saw this movie, I probably thought of this scene as a good time to go to the bathroom. Now I find it fascinating. Sometimes this movie seems to be doing the work of a documentary, giving us a picture of a time and a place, none more so than this scene.
2. It’s not about the money. Sure, they need to get $5000 to save the orphanage, and that device fuels the plot and one legendary car chase that lasts approximately four minutes longer than my wife’s patience for car chases—but that’s not what this movie is about. What is it really about? The answer can be found in Sister Mary’s last line as she throws them out of the orphanage: “Get out!” she says, “and don’t come back until you’ve redeemed yourselves.” But do they really redeem themselves? More on that in a minute.
3. You know the hero’s journey.

The hero starts at home, goes through the whole journey, and ends up back at home. If you look at The Blues Brothers through this lens, Joliet Jake’s home—his true home—is prison.

4. Have they redeemed themselves? Have they? The strongest case you could make without tying yourself in rhetorical knots is probably “somewhat” (although Carrie Fisher’s character might give a different answer). At first, I thought of this as sloppy storytelling, but now I’m wondering if that half-assery isn’t part of the point. Total redemption isn’t an option for any of us, the filmmakers might be saying. Human beings are agents of damage and destruction, even when we’re trying to do good—maybe especially when we’re trying to do good. In the end, all we can hope to do is to take care of the people who have taken care of us—the orphanage, the band—so that they, in turn, can take care of others. If we’re lucky, we leave a legacy of destruction and caretaking and joy-giving in equal measure. Some might call that balance.

The panel included a poetry editor at Alice James Books, an editor of nonfiction at St. Martin’s Press, and an agent at Curtis Brown, Ltd. What follows is not a transcript, but some paraphrased selections.

The Agent: What makes me say yes to an author is if they have a sense of building an audience and being a literary citizen—along with the writing, of course. It’s a whole package situation for me. (The editor of nonfiction later added: Agents don’t pick you up because they’re like, Oh, I’m so moved by this work. They pick you up because they’re like, I can sell this tomorrow.)

[My note: It used to be the case that building an audience/platform was more important for writers of nonfiction than fiction. This agent made it sound like it’s just as important in the world of fiction now, which . . . gah.)

Editor of Nonfiction: The most successful writers I’ve seen are the ones who engage with the front lines of bookselling, the people who engage with independent booksellers and book clubs.

The Agent: Working with the wrong agent is worse than having no agent at all, so don’t be in a rush just to have an agent. Find someone with a good sense of what you’re trying to do. It’s a mixture of patience and alignment. (The St. Martin’s editor later added: You’ve got to be entrepreneurial about who you connect with because it’s a big factor in your success.)

Tip from the agent: Start a spreadsheet of the books that you love. Include fields for agent, agency, editor, publishing house. This is the data that will guide you when you try to place your own book. If you don’t have the vision about where you fit in the literary conversation, your agent will not know how to package you.

Tip from Poetry Editor: First-time authors can feel so lucky to get their foot in the door that they kind of freeze. You should know that you can ask questions about process and expectations. You should know that you can negotiate the contract—the money, the deadlines, the number of books, etc.

I just discovered that 97% of my mission as a writing teacher falls under a single category. That category goes by the unsexy name of “self-regulation.”

Self-regulation is the ability to set and coordinate . . . goals, to engage in deliberate processes to meet those goals, and to reflect on one’s performance in meeting them.

Self-regulation in the writing process is a multifaceted construct that has been characterized as consisting of three types of processes: environmental, behavioral, and personal.

Environmental processes have to do with organizing the task environment, such as location, materials, and resources. Do I have sufficient lighting and a comfortable chair? Do I work better while listening to music, or in a quiet space? Enough sharp pencils or pens with a comfortable grip? Have I installed Internet-blocking software on my computer?

Behavioral processes have to do with monitoring one’s performance, such as how many words have been written, and whether a particular task, such as revising a thesis statement or locating missing evidence to strengthen an argument, has been addressed.

Personal processes include time management, goal-setting, self-evaluating according to personal standards, and use of cognitive strategies.

Research has shown that explicitly teaching particular self-regulatory processes of setting goals, using cognitive strategies, setting standards for self-evaluation, and consulting resources such as tutors and books is associated with stronger writing performance.

A THINK-ALOUD APPROACH TO WRITING ASSESSMENT by Sarah W. Beck

When my boys were very young, I took them to a dolphin show at the zoo. When the first dolphin jumped and their little faces lit up with wonder, I started weeping.

There are just some moments when it hits you, you know? Like: You’re a dad. You’re doing dad-ly things.

This week I’m taking my older son on his first round of college visits. It’s not quite a dolphin show . . . but, man, is it close. So far I’m holding it together, but only because there’s no splash zone to blame for a wet face.

If you are a creative person—a writer, an artist, a scrimshaw-er, whatever—here is a thing you need to do: Listen to Julianna Baggott’s audio series, Efficient Creativity.

(That’s right, I’m going beyond “I recommend…” or “You should really think about…” You need to do this thing and then you can thank me.)

Julianna is a brilliant writer who knows a thing or two about productivity, having written over twenty books while teaching and raising a family. But she didn’t just draw on her own experience to create this series; she studied the creative processes and practices of a ton of working artists to figure out how the rest of us can Get Shit Done.

One more thing about this series: It’s useful and accessible for beginners, but as Julianna notes in the opening week, it might be even more useful for creative workers who have been in the game for a while. (As a mid-career writer who is currently in week two of the program, I can tell you: It is.)

Our second #TopDawg play nominee. Paul Jorgensen from DEEP in the win over No. 1 Villanova. RT/Like to place your vote as we look at the top plays of the year so far this season. pic.twitter.com/SbftlQrbYW

— Butler Basketball (@ButlerMBB) January 23, 2018

Salute to Paul Jorgensen, Prince Harry of Harlem. Your last season with Butler didn’t go exactly as you’d hoped, I know, but you brought me a lot of joy over the last couple of years. When you hit this shot against #1 Nova, I jumped out of my seat and made a sound like an injured Wookiee.

237.

That’s the number of public libraries in Indiana. I wrote a letter to each of them, asking them to consider ordering my new anthology, MY NAME WAS NEVER FRANKENSTEIN.

Putting together these letters shouldn’t have been that hard. I mean, we can debate the wisdom or cost-effectiveness of this promotional strategy, but the work itself is just . . . work.

So it shouldn’t have taken me months to do it. And yet it did.

When it comes to writing stories and novels, I have as much imposter syndrome as the next schmo, but it’s never stopped me from writing.

When it comes to “being a writer” out in the world, though—especially the business of promotion—it’s a different deal. My self-consciousness ramps up to paranoia. I hear all the terrible voices.

That’s his idea of promotion?

Oh, that’ll never work.

Who does he think he is?

Nobody wants to read his stuff, anyway.

So I hide. I shirk. I put off promotional tasks, telling myself I have more important things to do. Telling myself that promotion doesn’t really work, anyway.

And all the while I feel enormously guilty that I’m not doing more to help my book and my publisher.

Sometimes my students are filled with doubt about their writing and they ask me how they can get over this feeling. You can’t, I tell them. And if you wait for your doubt to go away, you’ll never write. Find a way to co-exist. Tell it to make itself comfortable in one corner of the room, and then go off to the other corner and write.

It’s the same deal with “being a writer.” Those doubts and fears are always going to be there. If I wait for them to ease up, I’ll never give my work a chance in the world. And now that I see that, I have to follow my own advice.

(237 thanks to my wife, Shelly, who helped me stuff these envelopes and kept me from burning them all in despair.)

Yep, you’re seeing that right. Swedes will put ketchup on macaroni.

(Cultural relativism be damned; that’s an abomination.)

Today on my run I passed
a woman on the salted hill
(she was coming up, I was coming down) and she said Hi,
like a normal human,
and I said
THE SUN IS GOOD, ISN’T IT
I LOVE THE SUN
and her smile got stuck
and she ducked her head to walk faster.

My God! What is wrong
with me? I think I know:
Sometimes the sun
fills me up too much
to be human and I charge
around the kingdom, shouting
dumb truths,
the truest truths.

My ears burned as I ran away

from the woman, not only because

I was embarrassed, but

because I was greedy

to hear what would come out

of me next.