Notes on Creativity

Teachers: Don’t be the bottleneck

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Teachers of writing, I bear glad tidings: You do *not* have to grade everything your students write. In fact, you shouldn’t.

From teachwrite.org:

Kelly Gallagher, high school teacher, researcher, and author of Write Like This, reminds us,
“Students should be writing way more than a teacher can grade. When
teachers grade everything, the writing pace of the classroom slows down.
Volume suffers. It is only when students begin writing more than the
teacher can grade that they approach the volume necessary to spur
significant growth.” How much writing is this? Gallagher suggests
students should write FOUR times more than teachers can grade.  

Consider yourself liberated, you grading martyrs.

An offer for anyone teaching an editing class—

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Sarah Layden and I wrote a textbook. We used it in our own classes last spring and now it’s ready for beta-testing.

If you are interested in using it in an upcoming class, we’ll send you a pdf that you can distribute to your students.

No charge. Nothing to buy. All we ask in return is a little feedback at the end of the semester. A chat over the phone, a brief email exchange, nothing onerous.

Feel free to share the offer with any friends who teach editing. If you’re interested, hit me up at furuness(at)gmail.com

Quote

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[Writing] is hard work, and it’s been hard work for everyone all along.
There’s good reason to believe this, apart from the fact that it’s true.
If you think that writing—the act of composition—should flow, and it doesn’t, what are you likely to feel?
Obstructed, defeated, inadequate, blocked, perhaps even stupid.
The idea of writer’s block in its ordinary sense,
Exists largely because of the notion that writing should flow.

But if you accept that writing is hard work,
And that’s what it feels like while you’re writing,
Then everything is just as it should be.
Your labor isn’t a sign of defeat.
It’s a sign of engagement.

SEVERAL SHORT SENTENCES ABOUT WRITING, Verlyn Klinkenborg

Resource: Job-lists for Writer Types

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So you want to look for a job in publishing … but where do you look? When Jensen Beach, writer & teacher, asked this question on behalf of his students, the Facebook hive came back with some answers:

Media Bistro

Bookjobs

Jobs for Poets

Publisher’s Lunch job board

University Presses

Erika Dreifus’s List

The Submishmash Newsletter usually includes some job listings, too.

As one of the commenters noted, an internship is a good way to make yourself more competitive for these jobs. To land an internship (which will almost certainly be unpaid), you might think about contacting local literary-type organizations—presses, literary magazines, writers’ organizations, bookstores, reading series—to volunteer your time and talents. Internship opportunities abound, but let me point up a great one, if you’re in the Indy area and you have a free summer: Indiana University Press takes on summer interns, and if I was in college, that’s where I would spend my summers.

IT

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One Halloween when I was eleven- or twelve-years old, I went to a “haunted forest” with my friend Mike Deemer. Afterwards, we walked back to my house. I must have forgotten my key, so I rang the doorbell.

“That wasn’t so scary,” I said as we waited on the porch.

“Not scary at all,” said Mike.

“Kind of funny.”

“Really funny.”

“Hilarious.”

Then my mother opened the door and we both jumped and screamed.

Why do I bring this up now? Because I thought I was holding myself together pretty well while listening to the audiobook of IT, but this morning I opened the shower curtain to see my dog staring at me, and I almost jumped up on the curtain rod.

Photo from Unilad.