Can Creative Writing be Taught?

Most people grow up believing that the best authors, at least the true, bohemian, artsy types, only write when inspired.  We imagine that words spew from their pens as one raw, release of emotion, a brilliant catharsis of insight that comes out already polished and perfect on the page.  Writing is a gift granted only to a select few.  And the thought that anyone can be taught to write creatively is absurd.

For many years, this was my thought process as well.  Even when I started taking creative writing classes, it wasn’t because I believed my writing would get any better.  It was just a fun outlet; a chance to practice a skill I thought I was mildly okay at.  Instead, I learned just how much of creative writing is a process, and I was surprised to see how much my style grew and evolved as I studied this skill in a rigorous, academic setting. 

It’s still not easy to teach those aspects of creative writing that aspiring writers tend to want to know about the most, such as where to get ideas, but these points don’t end up being what’s important after all.  Learning that writing is work, and acknowledging the process that goes behind creating and revising a strong piece, is fundamental to the pursuit of writing, and something I would not have learned without my creative writing classes.

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in class is how to take criticism.  It’s easy to feel as though I’ve worked so hard on a piece that I don’t need to revise it any more, or be so embarrassed by a piece that I don’t even want to take a second look at it.  Writing workshops force its participants to share their work with others, and discover what is actually coming through to their readers.  It can still be hard to hear that something isn’t working, but rejection is a part of the writing process, and simply teaches the writer what to work on.

In addition, a good writer is able to give effective feedback to others as well.  From writing workshops, I’ve learned how pick out specific places where another writer’s piece may seem strong, weak, powerful, or useless, instead of simply whether it is good or bad, and explain it to that writer in specific language. Furthermore, a good critic strikes a balance between compliment and criticism; a writer will always be more encouraged to revise if they can see what is working as well as what is not, and being able to point out these distinctions is an important lesson in any area of writing.

Finally, most of what I have learned about the writing process and industry has come from discussions in my creative writing classes.  Even if my classes tend to focus on the craft of writing, the exposure to different styles and authors has given me a stronger picture of the industry as a whole.  In addition, I can steal what I see in another writer’s style for my own writing, and learn from the techniques they use.  This information is priceless if I plan on pursuing a career in writing.

It is easy to be skeptical of an area of study that is so rooted in creativity, but learning how to effectively get one’s vision across is valuable information for any type of writing.  Creative writing is just one niche way to explore that skill.

Study on,
Elizabeth

Currently Reading: Memoirs

My dream has always been to write fiction, and for years I was adamant about my refusal to read nonfiction for fun (picture: pretentious teenage Elizabeth claiming "Oh, I only read fiction.")  Obviously, this was really stupid, and over the past several months, creative nonfiction, personal essays and memoirs in particular, have been some of my favorite genres to both read and write.

I am 100% a product of the 21st century, so when my internet spontaneously stopped working a few nights ago, I panicked trying to figure out how I would entertain myself.  Obviously, I headed straight to the bookstore in search of something mindless and fun to read during these dark times, and came back with Diablo Cody's memoir, Candy Girl.  This book is fantastic, and inspired me to write about a few of my other favorite memoirs.

Candy Girl by Diablo Cody - I have been a fan of the famous stripper-turned-screenwriter ever since the release of Juno, so I knew her writing would be clever, unique, fast-paced, and very very funny.  This book chronicles the year Cody spent working as a stripper in Minneapolis, and in addition to the fascinating behind-the-scenes look at these establishments, as someone who grew up in Minneapolis, I was infinitely entertained by trying to count how many strip club names I recognized from driving past them on the way to my summer creative writing classes.  Not to mention her descriptions of Minnesota, such as, "Minnesota is like a church basement with a leaky popcorn ceiling and a bingo caller who's afraid to amp things up past a whisper" are spot-on.

On Writing by Stephen King - This book is half-memoir, half-how-to-write, and strikes a perfect balance between the two.  King gives an intimate insight into several personal details of his life, including his experiences writing for small publications as a teenager to his terrifying drug and alcohol addiction.  He counters this with step-by-step descriptions of the writing process and advice on everything from vocabulary to the publishing industry, while always maintaining a conversational tone that is easy to read, and never comes across as textbook.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers - This fictionalized memoir is Dave Eggers' first book, and though Eggers writes both fiction and nonfiction with success in both genres, his memoir seems to receive the most praise.  At age 22, Eggers moved from Chicago to California following the deaths of his parents to raise his 8-year-old brother, and he recounts this time in his memoir through not only stories, but lists, fictionalized interviews, and charts.  It's sad, and funny, and creative, and takes crazy risks in its writing but succeeds immensely.  The personalized writing advice I received from Eggers at a signing when I told him I wanted to be a writer definitely only added to my love of this book.

Just Kids by Patti Smith - I read Patti Smith's memoir about living as a starving artist in New York in the late sixties and early seventies before really knowing anything about her music or career, and fell in love with it so much that I quickly developed an unhealthy obsession with her music and art.  (I even skipped my poetry night class one night to see her in concert, using my grocery money to buy the ticket, which is so Patti Smith in and of itself that I can't even handle it.)  This novel is beautifully written and illustrates perfectly and honestly what it means to be an artist.  I love this book because it allows those of us who have dreamed of the starving artist lifestyle to live vicariously through Patti Smith's.  I'm not exaggerating when I say is one of my all-time favorite books.

Read on,
Elizabeth

The Coraline Generation, or The Book That Made Me Want to Write

A few nights ago I met one of my greatest role models.

I have been a fan of Neil Gaiman’s writing since first reading Coraline when I was ten years old.  My memories of growing up with this book still play like a montage in my head—I remember how I was running errands with my aunt, wandered into a children’s bookstore, and was handed Coraline by a salesperson after I told her I wanted something scary to read; reading the book in a matter of hours that afternoon; my aunt buying tickets for us to hear Neil Gaiman speak during his Coraline book tour a few weeks later, and after the Q&A, eating stale Altoids and reading brochures on summer creative writing classes to pass the time as I waited for an hour and forty five minutes to get my copy signed; reading the book at least five more times over the next few years, throwing it in my backpack before school, and dropping it in the muddy puddles on floor of the bus, the stains of which are still visible on the pages of my warn, battered, beaten copy.

Coraline is a badass.  In the story, she travels through a mysterious door in her family’s new flat and meets her Other Mother, a woman with black buttons for eyes who wants to raise Coraline as her own.  Coraline escapes, but after the Other Mother kidnaps Coraline’s real parents in order to lure her back, she returns to her alternate universe to rescue her parents.  Coraline dreams of being an explorer; she scavenges through overgrown gardens and abandoned theatres, is stalked by rat circuses and left to spend the night in a closet haunted by the spirits of the Other Mother’s former victims, and outsmarts every monster by the end of the book.  What ultimately made me fall in love with the book was its message that children are capable of more than they’re given credit for; even just the fact that the story is so scary compared to other children’s books proves that stories don’t need to be dumbed down for children.  Reading it, I felt like I was being taken seriously, like I was being treated like an adult, which at ten years old, is all a child really wants.

I read everything I could find by Neil Gaiman over the next several years.  But even as I grew up, I always came back to Coraline, and everything it had taught me about the power of books.  I began taking creative writing classes, and decided I wanted to learn the craft of fiction writing for myself, so I could someday create art that I hoped would affect readers in the same way Coraline had affected me.  So when I saw that Neil Gaiman would be doing his final tour for his newest novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, in Chicago at the Music Box Theater on July 9^th, nearly ten years after I’d met him in Minneapolis, I knew I had to go.

I was counting down the days until the signing, when I saw an interview with Neil Gaiman online titled The Book That Made Me Want to Write.  In it, he begins talking about a signing recently held in Cambridge, and says, “I found myself meeting a lot of really really nice young ladies… who were incredibly keen to see me.  And they were, you know, 19-21 years old… and I realized that this was the Coraline generation.”  When I saw this video, I almost screamed.  Not only are there other girls out there who have been affected by Coraline in the same way as myself, Neil Gaiman is aware of these girls.  The thought of a “Coraline generation” is inspired, it proves the affect a really good book can have on a child, even years into the future.

The reading at The Music Box was perfect, as expected, but the most memorable part of the night for me was when I made it to the front of the line to have my book signed.

I had brought my beat-up copy of Coraline and showed it to Neil Gaiman, explaining that I’d met him about ten years ago.  “I’m studying creative writing now,” I told him, “and I consider this the book that made me want to write.”

He reached out and took my hand, looked into my eyes and said, “Thank you for telling me that.”  Then, glancing at the rat drawing he’d made ten years ago, sketched a second rat in my copy of The Ocean at the End of the Lane.  “There,” he said, “now this is the only copy of Ocean with a Coraline rat.”

There are dozens of people I admire and would love to meet, and this isn’t the first time I’ve pledged my admiration in shaking, broken sentences to an author at a signing.  But as I was leaving the Music Box that night, I realized that there was no other author who had had the same lifelong impact on me as Neil Gaiman.  I will always be a part of the Coraline generation.

These are only some of the Neil Gaiman books I own; back in Minnesota, I have Good Omens, Sandman Volumes I and II, The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish, The Wolves in the Walls, Fragile Things, and two books on the making of Mirrormask.

Read On,
Elizabeth

New Lit Mags: The Pros and Cons

There’s a scene in the first season of HBO’s Girls that often gets forgotten among the much more GIF-able quotes from the show.  In this scene, Jessa meets up with an ex-boyfriend, who begins to brag about his new, older girlfriend.  “She’s a publisher,” he says, “She has a small press.” To this, Jessa instantly replies, “Have you ever looked into that?  She could just be running off copies at Kinko’s, and saying she has a press, but who’s to say that she actually has one?”

I love this quote because Jessa is actually touching on a fascinating trend in the contemporary literary world.  With the rise in online- and self-publishing, several people do claim to be published authors, when in reality, they’re working with nothing more than a printer or a WordPress site.  And one of the most common places I’ve noticed that writers are finding to quickly publish their work is through small online literary magazines, dozens of which pop up every week. 

As someone who loves the idea of DIY and underground art, I think it’s amazing that nowadays anyone can get their work out into the world.  But not everyone shares this view, especially when taking into account the many potential issues that can come along with submitting to just any online magazine.  Brandon Tietz’s column, "Author Beware: New Lit Mags," gives a cynical heads-up to writers looking to submit to a new lit mag.  As Tietz writes, “here’s the reality: anyone can register a domain and designate it as a lit mag. Anyone.” So in many cases, the editors actually have no experience or credibility in the literary world.  In addition, he goes mention how “a large percentage of new businesses fail within the first year, and lit mags are no different,” meaning submitting to one of these mags could easily be a wasted effort.

There are other potential issues that can arise when submitting to just any magazine too.  Victoria Strauss's blog post, titled "Submission Guidelines to Beware of: Midwest Literary Magazine," points out a few more red flags to watch out for, including publications with anonymous editors (giving them no credibility), and publications who claim the right to publish work at any time in the future, with or without the author’s input.  In extreme cases, publications may even ask for copyrights to the piece, or could eventually make money off of it without ever compensating the author.

Yet despite the potential dangers that come along with sharing one’s work with the world, there’s something very cool about submitting to a brand new lit mag as well.  Creating, supporting, and submitting to small lit mags can be a great way for writers to network and take part in a community, assuming they’re still maintaining ownership of their writing, even while accepting that they may not receive any major recognition or compensation in return.  After all, every project has to start somewhere, and there’s nothing to say a certain publication won’t one day lead to literary success.

My personal rules for submitting are that I’m not comfortable sending my writing anywhere that doesn’t grant me full rights to my work, anywhere where I don’t either know the editors personally or know them to be qualified, or anywhere that asks me to pay to submit.   These are some of the biggest issues I’ve come across while exploring the lit mag world, and I’m only just learning the ropes myself.  However, I think it’s important for every writer to acknowledge these potential dangers, in order to start to develop their own personal set of rules when it comes to submitting.

Write on,

Elizabeth

Introductions

Reading and writing are often seen as solitary acts, in constant clash with the energy and excitement of city life.  But when I chose to move from my comfortable Minnesota suburb to pursue creative writing in Chicago a year and a half ago, it was with the hope that the city itself would serve as my inspiration.  I have not been disappointed.   Every new person I meet, or event I attend, confirm my belief that it is possible to infuse the grit and energy of city living with a passion for literature.

As I shed layer after layer of clothing with every rising degree of the thermometer, I'm just beginning my first summer in Chicago, where I plan on taking on the calendar full of projects and activities that my break from schoolwork, fantastic new internship, and cozy city apartment are bound to help me accomplish.  I don't pretend to be an expert on the literary world, but that won't stop me from documenting my thoughts on my favorite books as well as the industry as a whole, alongside some notes on my everyday life.  Buzzed on caffeine and blinded by the city lights, I can't wait to get started.