Ideally.
Of course, anyone who has spent much time in workshop knows that this is not always how the environment shakes out. Hopefully, under the guidance of a strong workshop leader, most workshoppers will fit, more or less, into the above description. Or they’ll come around as they learn to value and respect the opportunity (and responsibility) they have been afforded. If they, as fledgling (or experienced) writers, truly care about writing, then they will take their obligation as a workshopper seriously, and they will work hard to offer feedback that reflects, at the very least, their best efforts to say something contemplative, selfless, and beneficial. If your fellow workshoppers don’t truly care about writing, then they will try to enter the workshop (and the world of writing) for other, less pure reasons—reasons that have more to do with ego and an ongoing performance of identity that is (at best) self-defeating and obnoxious, and (at worst) dangerous to themselves and others. For these group members, writing and workshopping are merely vehicles for fabricating a much larger fiction: in this case, their writing persona. Let’s look at a few of these workshop “characters.” I’ve identified thirteen (named conveniently after some popular and beloved authors). Their genders are arbitrary (based on whatever names and images I could scrounge up). It's important to remember that anyone can fit into any of these categories, male or female. Of course, some writers don't fit these personas, while others fit more than one. There are probably hundreds more ill-considered personas being carefully cultivated in workshops all over the country even as we speak. Still, this small cross-section should be enough to drive home the point. . . .
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I can't say I learned much that semester, but I did come away from the experience a bit wiser . . . .
 Our lives are anistropic narratives—that is, they are constantly in the process of being created, bound to inescapable directedness from past to future, ‘til death parts us from this mortal coil. As such, they don’t much resemble the narratives we read for pleasure. They don’t, for example, have anything resembling literary closure (unless you count death, but we don’t really get to close the book and ponder it with detached satisfaction or disappointment afterwards), and they certainly don’t contain within them any force akin to foreshadowing (except for maybe intuition, which isn’t really the same thing because it’s not the product of backward causality).
Unlike fiction or even carefully crafted nonfiction, our lives are open—they are not shaped according to the Freytag’s triangle, are not bound by determinism or, to be literary about it, “plot.” This poses a challenge to Realist writers who must lull readers into attaining Gardner’s fictional dream despite the artifice of form. . . . I was recently contacted by a student who asked if I would write a blog entry on “flow,” and seeing as I haven’t done one of these craft blogs in a while, I figured I probably should. . . .
In my workshops and classes, I have a rule banning the use of the word “flow”—what I call the other F-word. (Incidentally, the regular F-word is fine for use in my classes. Sometimes even ideal.)
I tell students, unless you are reading about fountains, faucets, or feminine hygiene commercials, you should never use the word “flow” in your feedback to another writer. I have a “flow jar” into which we put a dollar if we slip up and use the word. (At the end of the semester, we’ll spend it frivolously on burgers and shakes; there’s always enough cash to ensure that everyone eats until full.) I detest this word. Flow. So why do we instinctively reach for this particular abstraction in order to talk about art--how a story or poem either “flows” or “does not flow”--and what does it really mean?  Very excited to announce a pair of craft essays that have come out this spring. These started as teaching materials for my Community Writing classes, and took on a second life as publications:
I also have another craft piece, "To Break a Heart," forthcoming in CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writing published by Cambridge Writers' Workshop, so keep your eye out for that, too!  Every once in a while I’ll come across an article (or have one sent to me by writer friends) that inspires me to put together a blog entry. Nine times out of ten, it is because the author has written something valuable—offering an artist’s insight that I find educational or illuminating; I want to engage with it intellectually and artistically, and I’d like to pass it along to my friends, my readers, and my students, in the hopes that they might feel inspired to enter into that larger discussion, as well.
This isn't one of those times. This is that tenth time where I find myself so irritated by the wrongheadedness and pretentiousness of an article that I feel the obligation as a writer, reader, teacher, and scholar of craft, to provide some counter-point. . . . I'm a little behind in posting this, but the most recent SummerBooks podcast, recorded live at the Winter Wheat Festival of Writing is an absolute must read for any writer--particularly those working on novels! Writer Matt Bell (How They Were Found; Cataclysm Baby) offers some excellent insights into the writing process, from research and influence to drafting to revision (and all those moments of "not knowing" that occur in between). He also shares his thoughts about language-driven writing, unreliable narration, recent common trends (or "moves") in writing, and some of the challenges that face contemporary teachers of writing, as well. (Plus, he explains why it is that "a bear requires a squid," which is something you definitely want to know!)
And, for those audiophiles out there, he also tells us about some of the music that forms the soundtrack to his writing. So, stop reading this, already, and go listen to Matt Bell and the SummerBooks gals!  Once, in my younger and more vulnerable years (as the story goes), I found myself sitting at an MFA reading, across from two businessmen who happened to be the current boyfriends of two of the women who were reading. Both of these women were serious writers—talented and well published. There were some other writers reading their work that night, as well. These writers were less serious and, perhaps, less talented, but all had studied writing at the graduate level in college. When the first woman finished reading, the second woman got up to take her turn, and in that moment of transition between them, Boyfriend #1 (soon to be Ex-boyfriend #1) turned to Boyfriend #2 and said, “Can you believe they’re actually going to school for this stuff?” Boyfriend #2 grinned, nodded, but was smart enough not to say anything more. The implication in their exchange was that writing was not a field worth studying seriously: It’s a hobby—perhaps even a talent you are born with—but not something that should require any formal education. Certainly not three years’ worth at the graduate level.
I’m put to mind now of what my first writing mentor Joan Connor said once when I met with her one afternoon in her office to discuss an early draft of the story collection I was writing for my Master's thesis: “A writer’s apprenticeship is 15 years from the moment you start taking the work seriously.” I wonder what the two yahoos across the table would have thought about that advice. (Probably not much.) |
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