tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1842433403915113892024-03-05T06:02:33.984-08:00The Big ThingA little blog about big things.Cathy Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382084566176624993noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184243340391511389.post-63488466421911753362011-01-17T13:13:00.000-08:002011-01-17T13:13:55.204-08:00New Address for The Big ThingHello! I've been doing that whole crazy platform thang. <a href="http://cathyday.com/thebigthing/">My new blog</a>, also called "The Big Thing," no longer has "blogspot" or "wordpress" in the address, and wow, I feel so grown up. <br />
<br />
Please join me over at <a href="http://cathyday.com/">my new digital home</a>.<br />
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I'm going to keep this blogspot address, though. Maybe when I tire of writing about big things, I will return and rechristen this "Little Things."<br />
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Anyway, thanks so much. I learned a lot in this think space.<br />
<br />
--Cathy DayCathy Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382084566176624993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184243340391511389.post-57138807165668601742010-12-12T13:46:00.000-08:002010-12-12T15:08:59.358-08:00FAQ<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.iowow.com/Images/FAQ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.iowow.com/Images/FAQ.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So Cathy, what happened? How did your students do?</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m so sorry it’s taken me awhile to update you! The end of NaNo is also the end of the semester, a busy time, as I’m sure you know. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Okay: FINAL RESULTS. <o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">15 students<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">12 reached 50,000 words. Four of 12 started October 1. Everyone who started October 1 finished. Eight of 12 started November 1 and also finished. Most spent the month/s writing toward the novel they planned to write, but a few students started writing towards another project when one idea petered out. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Three did not reach 50,000 words. One came within 5,000 words. Another came within 12,000 words. Another stopped generating new words at the midway point and started revising.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So did the students who failed to reach 50,000 get a bad grade? <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The 12 students who reached 50,000 words got full credit, 100 points. The students who did not reach 50,000 did not get full credit, but still received 90 points, an A-.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I created the syllabus, I made “NaNoWriMo Completion” worth just 10% of their grade. I wanted their NaNo performance to be about something other than Writing for the Grade. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, I did not reveal how many points they would receive out of 100 if they “lost” NaNo either. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Honestly, about midway through the month, I expected the students who were falling behind to pin me down on this. “<i>Professor Day? If I don’t reach 50,000 words, how many points will I get? If I only get halfway, will you give me 50 points? Zero points?"</i> But, to their credit, they never asked me, so I didn’t talk about it. I just kept saying, <i>Keep trying. Keep going</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Did they write from scratch, as NaNo encourages?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes and no. It was up to each student. Some students started from absolute scratch, others wrote towards ideas and plots and characters that had been germinating for awhile. One student said, </span></div><blockquote>“I pulled out a stack of short stories I wrote in high school. Each was short, no more than five pages double-spaced and they concerned a high school student living in California with her lawyer mother and her socialite aunt. Since I was already familiar with each character, and since a novel concerning the three had been marinating in my head for years (I even based a half-finished screenplay on my stories once) I deemed this a feasible world to write about.”</blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What kind of novels did they write?</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One wrote a novel of psychological and aesthetic realism, akin to<i> What’s Eating Gilbert Grape</i> and<i> The Outsiders.</i> One wrote an epistolary novel akin to <i>The Perks of Being a Wallflower </i>(which we read as a class) and <i>Go Ask Alice</i> (her favorite book). The rest wrote some form of genre fiction. There were many speculative, science fiction stories about time travel, the mind and identity, dystopian futures. There was some fantasy. There was mystery and suspense. Two students ended up writing toward nonfiction projects rather than fictional ones: one student worked on a memoir, an account of a trip he’d taken to another country, and the other wrote worked on an immersion memoir, an account of her November preparation for a very important qualification exam. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, how well did they write? Did they cheat?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On December 1, each student sent me the Word doc file that contained all their NaNo writing. I opened each file, scrolled around a bit to make sure that all the words were legitimately theirs—not cut and pasted text from Wikipedia. All of it was legit. The quality varied widely from somewhat unreadable, very rough (my own 50,000 words could be described as such) to very readable, very decent prose, which is incredible considering how fast they were going. This “readability” quality seemed to depend on how much thinking/planning/writing they’d already done toward the project, but ultimately, readability and writing quality were not the desired outcomes anyway. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, if you’re not grading the quality of their writing, what the heck are you grading? <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here’s the breakdown: <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Process Blog 20%<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Book Report 1 20%<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Book Report 2 20%<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Participation 20%<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="FR"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">NaNoWriMo Completion 10% <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="FR"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Revision of NaNoWriMo piece 10%<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What is a Process Blog?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Simply, it’s a class blog where students chart their progress transparently. They don’t just talk to me. They talk to each other. Over the last few years, I’ve been introducing emerging media technologies into many of my classes. This has been a significant ongoing project: integrating into my teaching practices the lessons I’m learning as a working writer in the 21<sup>st</sup> century. Blackboard allows me to create a closed social media environment that builds camaraderie and community, a fertile environment for risk taking among students. You might ask why not use Blogger or Wordpress so that you could “follow” our process discussion? Interesting in theory, but I think asking students to post to an open blog rather than a closed one might change what they say, what they write about, what they’d be willing to share. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From my syllabus:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div><blockquote>“Imagine that each of you has requested to work with me on an independent study project, a Big Thing. I want you to write a description of your project, a faux independent study proposal, and the Process Blog is a virtual meeting place, a transparent journal, a think space where you’ll post, update, and maintain information related to your project. Every week or so, you will be required to check in with the process blog and take stock. ‘What did I do this week toward my project?’ The process blog is the place you go to talk to me (and everyone else) about your project and your process.”</blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What is a Book Report?</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These reports were worth a combined 40% of their grade, and thus, much was expected. Each report involved a four-step process in which <i>students create their own learning activity</i>. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></div><ol><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The first step</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Identify the technique you want to study</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, something you struggle with and know you need to focus on. Creating emotionally complex characters. Transitioning between scenes and chapters. Structuring a plot over X number of days/weeks/months/years. Creating suspense which leads to a “surprise ending” that actually works. Grounding dialogue so that it’s organically integrated into the scenes.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The next step</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I call </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>“Taking Note</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">” in which you don’t just passively read the book, but also take notes as you read—in the book or on your own. It helps you notice things you don’t always notice while “just reading” and helps you identify and mark patterns, rhythms, recurring motifs, echoes, chronology, the passage of time, the introduction of characters and ongoing subplots, themes, conflicts, characters.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Next, </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">they write what I call </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>a craft analysis</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> (3-6 pages) that responds to these prompts: What did I learn about X from reading this book? How can I apply it to my own writing or to my reading of the work of others? Why did the author approach X this way and not another way? How would different narrative decisions produce different effects?</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The last step</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> is to </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">produce a <b>visual aid</b>, an artifact that represents your physical interaction with the book. An outline, storyboard, collage. A transcription to get the “feel” for the style or voice. You should do whatever you think will be useful. This is shared with the class—because what you find might help someone else, because what you find might help us read your work better</span></span></li>
</ol><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: black;">What books did your students read? </span></b><b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Haven Kimmel, <i>A Girl Named Zippy</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Haven Kimmel, <i>Something Rising (Light and Swift)</i><i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stephen Chbosky, <i>The Perks of Being a Wallflower</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jack Kerouac, <i>On the Road<o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><span style="color: black;">+ </span></i><span style="color: black;">one book of their choice<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Haven Kimmel is a native Hoosier and a Ball State alum, and so it was really amazing to have her visit campus right before NaNo. <i>A Girl Named Zippy</i> provided a good model of a non-linear narrative, a way to write a novel as a collage rather than as a straight line. I chose the Chbosky book because the subject matter is ‘relatable,’ it’s got a discrete timeline (one school year), and it’s got what my colleague <a href="http://mullmullingitover.blogspot.com/">Matt Mullins</a> calls “Two Plots,” <i>the suspense plot</i> (the scenes that dramatize Charlie’s life and build tension) and <i>the emotional plot</i> (the internal character arc, the change Charlie undergoes). I’ve already talked about using Kerouac <a href="http://cathyday.blogspot.com/2010/11/notes-toward-supreme-fiction.html">here</a>. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Also: each student was allowed to pick a book that most directly matched their particular needs for their NaNo project. <o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>What did your classroom look like day to day, week to week, month to month?</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>We spent most of September and October discussing the assigned books.</i> If you had walked past my classroom on most days, you would have thought it was a typical English class. But I set aside a few class periods as “Studio Days,” time devoted to students working individually or in small groups on their Book Report or NaNo Prep. On some Studio Days, I provided focused prompts and we typed, generating character profiles and short scenes. Some days, we simply “sprinted” just to gauge how fast or how slow we tended to write, depending on the circumstances. Studio Days helped us acclimate to writing in that room with each other.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>During November, the class became a writeshop</i>. Students signed the attendance sheet, checked in with me to update their word count, listened to my announcements, and then spent the hour typing furiously. Once, I surprised them and asked to see the words they’d generated that day, which they sent in an email. But for the most part, I removed myself from their writing process. I wanted them to turn off their Internal Editor, that pesky voice in your head that leads to writer’s block. I wanted them to write for their own pleasure and edification. I did not want to be a voice in their head until December. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>On December 1</i>, they turned what remained of their energy toward producing a good first chapter or excerpt of 10-25 pages. They gave this excerpt, along with a novel synopsis, to their peer group (three people) and spent time “workshopping” each other’s novels and talking about what to do next. I read over all these excerpts very quickly—two days with about 150 pages—and provided one or two suggestions about how to polish the excerpt further. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Now what happens?</b> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tomorrow, December 13, 2010 at 4:30 is their scheduled final exam. They will post these synopses and excerpts to the Process Blog. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The process isn’t over. They haven’t written novels yet, and they understand that. But those polished pages do represent a milestone, and as anyone who has ever written a novel or run a marathon can tell you, milestones are pretty powerful things.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2577/3748124893_6ba17c367a_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2577/3748124893_6ba17c367a_o.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Next post: “No More NaNo.” Why I won't be "doing NaNo" again. Not officially, at least. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div>Cathy Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382084566176624993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184243340391511389.post-55963037692716752822010-12-03T06:48:00.000-08:002010-12-03T06:48:58.854-08:00Finding Time for a Big Thing<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The last two questions on the midterm Survey Monkey survey I gave to my students: </span></b><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b></b>What has been the <i>hardest part</i> of this process? What has been the <i>easiest part</i> of this process?<b> <o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Far and away, they said the hardest part was finding the time to write:</span></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Making time within the day to write. I have so many things going on.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Sitting down and actually writing... I get distracted by online quizzes and video games easily.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Actually finding the time day to day in order to write.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“making myself sit down and do it”</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Writing without distractions has proven difficult.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Exhaustion. Approach-avoid conflict.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Keeping up with the writing.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Scheduling time to make up missed days.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Forcing myself to write.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Finding the time to write.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://kenyonreview.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/daylight-savings-time.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://kenyonreview.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/daylight-savings-time.jpg" /></a></div><b style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You might be surprised by what they said was easiest. </span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Here's a sampling.)</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Writing it. I just find it enjoyable and I love taking time off from homework to do it. In fact, I stopped calling the writing process homework. I just find it too much fun to consider it in that category.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“When I get going, I usually don't stop unless I have to go do something. Also, writing directly after amputating the words 'distraction' and 'road-block' from my vocabulary. Sitting down and writing 2,000 or so words an hour every class period has helped immensely.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many students said they would have liked “more guidance on how to find the time to write.” </span></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I laughed. <i>Well, duh. Limit or eliminate television, gaming, and Facebook, and you’re golden.</i> The request made me cranky. <i>It’s not my job to teach you time management skills!</i> But then I realized that, yeah, it sort of is—given the unique nature of the course. </span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A former student of mine who lives and works in San Francisco just started participating in <a href="http://www.reverb10.com/">#Reverb10.</a> It’s kind of like <span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: #2c2525;"><a href="http://www.750words.com/">750words</a> + New Year’s Resolutions. Each day during December, Reverb10 sends you a writing prompt, which my student is using to reflect on her life generally and her writing in particular. She’s sharing these reflections on her blog--->sharing your journey is part of the point--->you send out “reverberations.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: #2c2525;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: #2c2525;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Her prompt for December 2 was “</span></span></span><em><span style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; color: black; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Writing</span></span></em><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">” <a href="http://youwillknowelasticity.wordpress.com/2010/12/02/december-2nd/">She outlined a typical day and took a good hard look at how she spends her time.</a> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Next time, as part of our preparation for this course, I will require my students to outline their own days and take a good hard look at how they spend their time. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Actually, why not do this in all my creative writing classes?) </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even if you don’t become a writer in the long term, even if you don't finish the novel you drafted, you learn a lot from participating in NaNo. It reveals with startling (sometimes painful) clarity the reality of how you spend your days. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Everyone%20Else/images-4/clock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Everyone%20Else/images-4/clock.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How do you find the time to write 50,000 words in a relatively short period of time? Well, how do you incorporate <i>any big thing</i> into your life? Said “big thing” being novel writing, having a baby, caring for a dying parent, taking a second job, studying for the bar exam, <a href="http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/the-quest-for-1-million-photos-interview-with-thomas-hawk/">taking 1,000,000 pictures</a>, training for a marathon, <a href="http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/places-ive-been/">traveling to every country in the world</a>, eating a healthy, well-prepared meal every single night, etc. You find time, make time, create time. Or you don’t.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Recently, <i><a href="http://fictionwritersreview.com/interviews/some-supernatural-source-of-primal-energy-an-interview-with-benjamin-percy">The Fiction Writers Review</a></i> asked the incredibly productive writer Benjamin Percy this question:</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpLast"><strong><span style="color: black; font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“You’ve got this novel coming out. Stories keep popping up in magazines. You teach at Iowa State University and in the low-res MFA program at</span></span></strong><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></span><a href="http://www.pacificu.edu/as/mfa/"><span style="color: #0295ab;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pacific University</span></span></a><strong><span style="color: black; font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. You contribute to</span></span></strong><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></span><a href="http://www.esquire.com/features/james-franco/james-franco-short-story-0910?click=main_sr"><i><span style="color: #0295ab;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Esquire</span></span></i></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></span><strong><span style="color: black; font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and other publications. How do you balance it all and still find new material and time to work on your fiction? How do you stay in the ring, to reference another of</span></span></strong><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></span><a href="http://www.benjaminpercy.com/nonfiction.htm"><span style="color: #0295ab;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">your<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em>P&W</em><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>articles</span></span></a><strong><span style="color: black; font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">?”</span></span></strong><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpLast"><strong><span style="color: black; font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></strong></div><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ben said:<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<blockquote>“You’re forgetting the hardest job of all: I’m father to two young children. I don’t sleep: that’s the answer. Five hours a night sometimes. My blood type is caffeine. I never take it easy—I’m always working, always writing or editing or grading. Even when I’m supposedly relaxing, I’m not. If I’m at the gym, I’m listening to an audiobook. If I’m watching a movie, I’ve got my notebook out and I’m jotting down ideas. If I’m out in the yard with my kids, I’m pushing around sentences in my head. People often seem to view writing as an indulgence, but I operate under the belief that you must give up all indulgences if you want to write seriously. I used to think this was a calling—that’s too romantic of a term. I’m fairly certain that I’m driven by obsession.”</blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For some, the answer isn’t how to do more with less time, but to alter one’s life, to make it more outwardly simple in order to live more richly.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpLast"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In her novel, <i>The Maytrees</i>, Annie Dillard writes:</span></div><blockquote>She took pains to keep outside the world’s acceleration. An Athenian marketplace amazed Diogenes with, “How many things there are in the world of which Diogenes hath no need!” Lou had long since cut out fashion and all radio but the Red Sox. In the past few years she had let go her ties to people she did not like, to ironing, to dining out in the town, and to buying things not necessary and that themselves needed care. She ignored whatever did not interest her. With these blows she opened her days like a piñata. A hundred freedoms fell on her. She hitched free years to her lifespan like a kite’s tail. Everyone envied her the time she had, not noticing that they had equal time.</blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A few months ago, the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>New York Times </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ran this piece, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/business/08consume.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=homepage&src=me&pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1291384855-M+xi7Tr9ARTVhyte7PSLjQ">“But Will It Make You Happy?”</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> which seemed to strike a cultural chord. I know it certainly did with me.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finding time to write wasn't something I thought about until I was no longer in school. Suddenly, the external structure that had guided my writing life up to that time was gone. NaNoWriMo teaches valuable lessons about personal development and life planning, knowledge that students can keep for life, the ultimate transferable skills. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Next time, I’ll talk about why I’m NOT going to formally engage with the National Novel Writing Month headquarters next year.</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes, this probably surprises you. It surprises me, too.</span></div>Cathy Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382084566176624993noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184243340391511389.post-6338577205095123412010-11-28T14:16:00.000-08:002010-11-28T14:16:46.919-08:00Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction<div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Back to <a href="http://cathyday.blogspot.com/2010/11/survey-says.html">the Survey Monkey survey</a> I gave my students on November 16. This is a fairly long post, but that's because it's about one of the most important decisions my students had to make. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Question 3: How would you describe the extent to which you prepared for NaNoWriMo?</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many hours, lots of concrete planning 5</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A few hours, some concrete planning 6</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hardly any time, hardly any planning 2</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No time, no planning 0</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Are you happy with the amount of time you spent planning?</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Everyone was either glad they’d planned or wished that they had planned more. Except for one person who planned a lot and hadn’t gotten very far at that point. S/he skipped the question.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Writer, Know Thyself: Are You a Plotter or a Pantser?</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">NaNo says there are two types of novelists: plotters (those who plan) and pantsers (those who write by the seat of their pants). I strongly encouraged my students to be plotters, but that's because when it comes to writing a book as opposed to writing a short story, I'm definitely a plotter. But I didn't demand that they plot just because that's what makes sense to me. Like </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Richard Hugo said in <i>The Triggering Town</i>, "Every moment, I am, without wanting or trying to, telling you to write like me. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But I hope you learn to write like you. In a sense, I hope I don't teach you how to write but </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">how to teach yourself how to write."</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This topic—how much to prepare—was a big topic of discussion in our class in the months leading up to NaNo. Many of my students were afraid to do too much planning. They didn’t want to take all the fun and joy out of actually writing their novels. Some believed that “writing with a plan” was cheating somehow. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the Road</span></b></i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> as NaNo Novel</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To that end, we read <i>On the Road</i><span class="Apple-style-span"> and a wonderful essay on its composition history by Howard Cunnell, </span><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=aVskh9hHNzwC&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=fast+this+time+cunnell&source=bl&ots=E6AyjgRGL7&sig=YsqEWcL8-ahaIBK-pH5IozMLZa0&hl=en&ei=LqzyTMqCKc3AnAfPhrz3AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=fast%20this%20time%20cunnell&f=false">“Fast This Time: Jack Kerouac and the Writing of <i>On the Road</i>,”</a> which refutes</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> the perception that Kerouac “pantsed” that novel. Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t the product of a semi-magical, drug-induced twenty-one day binge writing session, but rather a fourth draft; three “proto novels” exist. And Kerouac didn’t compose the “scroll version” in 1951 off the top of his head. As he typed, he was surrounded by notebooks, journals, correspondence, and previous typescripts.</span><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No matter what you think of <i>On the Road, </i>teaching this novel (or just an excerpt) along with the Cunnell essay are great pedagogical tools to dispel commonly held myths about the writing process.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I would not, however, recommend teaching “The Scroll Version” in addition to or in place of the published version of <i>On the Road.</i> There’s not a big enough difference between the scroll and the published book to generate much discussion. In fact, I think I unwittingly reinforced the idea that a novel written in one month can be and should be published almost as is, which is definitely not what I wanted to do. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Storyboarding </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD8-0j2P_eM05TmVBtIydYyuh8QLVtba3CYu35tb3dfKU6XxSsfsTDWI5Vf0VSxJowKPrH9dQifQCrTPwk5m2JfkXHstVgItVSAVk7ShvFl4Pw8zTYJ9iQIqSqptCzBY7-c2nNIKTAmtM6/s1600/788778560_aacdd58519.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD8-0j2P_eM05TmVBtIydYyuh8QLVtba3CYu35tb3dfKU6XxSsfsTDWI5Vf0VSxJowKPrH9dQifQCrTPwk5m2JfkXHstVgItVSAVk7ShvFl4Pw8zTYJ9iQIqSqptCzBY7-c2nNIKTAmtM6/s320/788778560_aacdd58519.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Photo by Rachel Norman</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I encouraged my students to storyboard their novels, to concretize their plot in broad strokes. We looked at lots of examples. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=V6D3UgM05WwC&pg=PA46&lpg=PA46&dq=anne+tyler+index+card+method&source=bl&ots=WSK8SiQXnw&sig=D_c7CDyIRLVIyMmSoMBa8w6IT9g&hl=en&ei=tZfJTIeeFMGWnwfJh4jZDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anne Tyler’s famous "index card method."</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even Faulkner storyboarded, as you can see in the photo above. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I pointed them to lots of resources: old-fashioned <a href="http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2241959/how_to_storyboard_a_novel_memoir_or.html?cat=38">index cards or post-it notes</a> or <a href="http://carolynecooper.com/writing/resources/fiction-writing-plot-development-storyboards/">storyboard sheets</a>, and <a href="http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php">new-fangled programs</a> for their computer.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For the Plotters</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I provided them a formula. Yes, a formula. When attempting something this large, it helps to have a blueprint, a map, some kind of guide so you know what you’re writing toward. <a href="http://www.sydfield.com/featured_theparadigmworksheet.htm">Syd Field’s “Paradigm Worksheet” </a>worked great for this purpose.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I asked my students to consider:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><ul><li><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What’s the basic story? </span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Roughly, what do you think is going to happen? Beginning, middle, end.</span></li>
<li><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How much time will your novel cover?</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> One week? One month? One year? Five years? Fifty years?</span></li>
</ul><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Students came in for conferences. They were required to fill out a paradigm worksheet, inserting their own plot points. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.scriptxray.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/photo1-300x225.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://www.scriptxray.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/photo1-300x225.jpg" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, if they needed to adapt the worksheet for their own purposes, that was fine. If they needed to write a narrative synopsis instead, that was fine. If they decided NOT to fill this out, they needed to talk about why. Did they firmly believe that pantsing was the way to go, or were they "default pantsing" because they hadn't given themselves time to plot? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This month, I saw many of them begin our in-class writeshops with something sitting next to the keyboard. An outline. An index card. A chart. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For the Pantsers</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some of them, however, didn’t have anything next to the keyboard.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The editors of <i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_2047643356">Wired</a></i><a href="http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Write_a_Novel_in_a_Month"> </a>magazine suggest that, at the very least, you end each day’s writing session with a note to yourself about what to write the next day. “Having the scenes for tomorrow in your head today will give your brain time to work on it even when you aren't thinking about it directly. In fact, you may well find yourself dreaming about your novel, working out ideas in your sleep.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Writer Timothy Hallinan describes <a href="http://www.timothyhallinan.com/writers.php?id=21&partid=3&mode=chapter">his process </a>as a few months of what he calls “noodling around.” </span></div><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Long before I begin to write a book, I begin to<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>write about<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>the book. I just open up and let it flow – no censorship, no self-criticism, no pressure. I write about the problem, the setting, the characters. I write biographies of the characters. I let them write about themselves, in the first person. I do a lot of work on what's at stake – what it is, why it matters, how each of the major characters stands on it. (I may even diagram that.) What's the worst that can happen, and to whom? What's the best possible outcome? I make notes for possible scenes and, just for the hell of it, drop my major characters into those scenes and let them begin to talk to each other. (Quite a bit of this material later gets cut and pasted into the book, and then revised as necessary.)<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>I give myself permission to make mistakes.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></blockquote><div class="maintext"><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">is the kind of writing that isn’t always encouraged in creative writing classrooms. </span></span></div><div class="maintext"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="maintext"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Because how do you grade it? Who does this kind of writing mean anything to--except the writer herself? Is it “real” writing? When you’re writing <i>about </i>your book, does that count the same as actually writing your book? At what point does one become the other? </span></span></div><div class="maintext"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="maintext"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hallinan says that usually after pantsing around for 100 or 200 pages, he realizes he’s writing the opening scene of the book, and that’s the moment he knows that’s he "really" writing a book, although he still may not know what’s going to happen. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="maintext"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="maintext"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hmmmm....NaNoWriMo asks participants to write 50,000 words or about 175 pages. </span></div><div class="maintext"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="maintext"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a few days, my students will send me the file that contains all the writing they did during November, and I really don’t care whether it was plotted or whether it was pantsed. Whether it's the end result of scrupulous planning or determined noodling. I don’t care if that document is a Supreme Fiction or merely Notes toward a Supreme Fiction. It can be abstract. It can change. And as long as it gives pleasure, the effort, it seems to me, was worthwhile.</span></div>Cathy Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382084566176624993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184243340391511389.post-69037816676996543812010-11-26T11:20:00.000-08:002010-11-26T11:20:27.805-08:00MFA vs. NYC = Team Short Story vs. Team Novel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://images2.cpcache.com/product/234510082v3_480x480_Front_Color-Violet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://images2.cpcache.com/product/234510082v3_480x480_Front_Color-Violet.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In his book, <i>The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing</i>, Mark McGurl says that it’s time we paid attention to the “increasingly intimate relation between literary production and the practices of higher education.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So. This is me. Twenty years as a writer-teacher. Finally paying attention. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Apparently, I’m not the only one wondering whether the creative writing classroom can accommodate Big Things. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here’s <a href="http://www.missourireview.com/tmr-blog/2010/11/09/can-mfa-programs-teach-novel-writing/">Michael Nye at <i>The Missouri Review</i> blog</a>, where even Peter Turchi weighed in with a comment. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here’s another <a href="http://www.jenmichalski.com/2010/11/personal-best.html">response.</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">HTMLGiant</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <a href="http://htmlgiant.com/random/a-list-without-numbers-is-still-a-list/">noticed</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And today I read <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2275733/">this fantastic essay</a> on <i>Slate</i>, “<span style="color: black; letter-spacing: .25pt;">MFA vs. NYC: </span><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">America now has two distinct literary cultures. Which one will last?” </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Novelist and <i>n+1 </i>editor Chad Harbach says: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The MFA system also nudges the writer toward the writing of short stories; of all the ambient commonplaces about MFA programs, perhaps the only accurate one is that the programs are organized around the story form. This begins in workshops, both MFA and undergraduate, where the minute, scrupulous attentions of one's instructor and peers are best suited to the consideration of short pieces, which can be marked up, cut down, rewritten and reorganized, and brought back for further review. The short story, like the 10-page college term paper, or the 25-page graduate paper, has become a primary pedagogical genre form. It's not just that MFA students are encouraged to write stories in workshop, though this is true; it's that the entire culture is steeped in the form.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span> </span></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.greenturtle.com/images/i%20love%20new%20york%20t%20shirt%20ndf10500m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.greenturtle.com/images/i%20love%20new%20york%20t%20shirt%20ndf10500m.jpg" width="190" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I highly recommend that you read this piece, an <a href="http://nplusonemag.com/issue-number-10-self-improvement">excerpt from <i>n+1.</i></a> For one thing, Harbach suggests (rightfully so) that without "MFA program culture" to offset "NYC publishing culture," the short story might cease to exist at all. For another thing, it's a useful paradigm. MFA vs. NYC might seem reductive, but it expertly frames the difficulties of making a literary life in the late 20<sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">th</span></sup> but especially the late 21<sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">st</span></sup> century. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I think about my cohort, the “second generation” of writers-teachers who will one day take the leadership reins of AWP and academic writing programs, I wonder (perhaps more than I should) about the future of creative writing instruction. Forty years after the first generation of writer-teachers established our curriculums and classroom practices, what have we learned? Where are we going? Where have we been? </span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Harbach wonders this, too.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It will be interesting to see what happens when this group of older writers dies (they are unlikely to give up their jobs beforehand); whether the MFA canon will leap forward, or back, or switch tracks entirely, to accommodate the interests, private and aesthetic, of a younger group of writer-teachers. Perhaps (among other possibilities) the MFA culture will take a turn toward the novel.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And now, back to my novel...</span>Cathy Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382084566176624993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184243340391511389.post-31997213308021827922010-11-21T20:10:00.000-08:002010-11-21T20:14:35.555-08:00Changing Habits During NaNo<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://everseradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/change-of-habit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="252" src="http://everseradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/change-of-habit.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Survey Question 2: Did you start writing on Nov. 1 or before? </b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">9 students started on Nov. 1</div><div class="MsoNormal">4 students started before Nov. 1 (sometime around Oct. 1)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Are you happy with that decision?</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">All the students who started on Oct. 1 are happy with that decision. And they are all cruising right along, almost done.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Of the 9 students who started on Nov. 1, five are happy with that decision and four are not. Not surprisingly, the four who are not happy with their decision had the lowest word counts.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In an <a href="http://cathyday.blogspot.com/2010/11/nanodra2mo.html">earlier post</a>, I talked about why I encouraged my students to start NaNoWriMo on October 1 instead of November 1, so I won't rehash that here, except to say that next time I do this project (and I will do this again) I am going to mandate that everyone starts on Oct. 1. It's just more reasonable to ask students to write about 850 words a day than it is to ask them to write 1667 words a day while taking classes, working, etc. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Besides, writing 50,000 over the course of two months rather than one instills a far more practical lesson in young writers: that it's better and easier and healthier to do a little writing every day.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>I'm serious people: doing this NaNo thing as a class activity is very, very enlightening</i>. It forces students to confront their writing process--or lack thereof--in ways that would never happen otherwise. My god, it’s forced ME to confront my writing process—or lack thereof—in ways that should have happened years and years ago. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I've been teaching craft for years, but I've never really talked with students about <i>time.</i> How much freaking time it takes to write a book. Probably because until recently, I was just like my students, writing without a regimen of any kind. </div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41YICEW9Q4L._SL500_AA300_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41YICEW9Q4L._SL500_AA300_.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">In <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Habit-David-Huddle/dp/0874516684/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1290397368&sr=1-1">The Writing Habit</a>,</i> David Huddle says:</div><blockquote>“The major difficulty a writer must face has nothing to do with language; it is finding or making the circumstances that make writing possible. The first project for a writer is that of constructing a writing life.”</blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Later on the Survey Monkey survey, I asked my students, “What has been the hardest thing about this process?” The responses were almost unanimous: <b>finding or making the circumstances that make writing possible.</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal">Before NaNo, one of my students said she planned to create that circumstance by finishing all her homework so she could focus solely on her writing. I told her, "I used to think that way, too. But that's a sure way to never write. Because <i>the desk will never be clear</i>. You'll never get all your work done, and besides, even if you do get it all done, you'll be so tired and brain dead, you won't have any energy left to write. Write during your good hours."</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Write during your good hours</i>. That’s advice from Huddle, too.</div><blockquote>“<b>If you’re a would-be writer, what you need to find out is not how someone else works but how you are inclined to work.</b> You have to determine your good hours, the writing tools and the writing environment that best suits you, the limitations you can overcome and the best methods for dealing with the limitation you can’t overcome. You also have to become aware of your inclination toward laziness, dishonesty, glibness, and other personal foibles. You have to become skillful at outwitting those negative aspects of your character.”</blockquote><div class="MsoNormal">Turning my class from a <b>workshop into a writeshop</b> has created the circumstance that makes writing possible for 16 people, myself included. And that's a good thing.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Writing Habit</i>, David Huddle describes his “Lake St. Clair Experience,” a few productive months he spent writing in solitude, which “demonstrated to me what it felt like to have a real writing life…I have never been able to duplicate that experience, but because I had it that once, it gave me something to aspire to again.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Will my students continue writing a little each day even after NaNoWriMo and the semester are over? I don’t know. I hope so. But even if they don’t, I’m glad they’ve had a version of their own Lake St. Clair experience.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Next time: Plotting a novel vs. “pantsing” it</div>Cathy Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382084566176624993noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184243340391511389.post-81340632526974650062010-11-19T06:00:00.000-08:002010-11-23T15:05:45.448-08:00The Gamification of Novel Writing<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Question </span></b><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1: What is your current word count? (on Day 15)</span></b></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The results varied. At this point, my students should have been at about 25,000 words. (I wasn’t quite there myself, alas.) Three students hadn’t broken 20,000 yet. One student was already at 58,000 and was sprinting toward 70,000 words. Seven students were a</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">t 25,000 or above. Six students hadn't reached the half-way milestone yet. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Are Word Counts like "Points"?</span></b><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/176/f/8/shall_we_play_a_game__HDTV_by_newSaint.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/176/f/8/shall_we_play_a_game__HDTV_by_newSaint.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For twenty years, my writing practice had no structure. I wrote when inspired and I would keep writing until I wasn’t inspired. If I didn’t have a big block of time, I wouldn’t write. I waited until I did have a big block of time—which happened…oh…never. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was 25 years old, two years into an MFA program, and I still acted (without really realizing it) as if writing was something I did “for school.” And then one fall, the buzz among all students in my program was that <a href="http://www.jmu.edu/english/faculty_majors.html">Inman Majors </a>had returned from summer break with a 200-page manuscript, a rough draft of a novel. Of course, we all hated him immediately.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I ran into him at a back-to-school party, and I asked him how he did it. He took a swig of beer and spoke the words I have been quoting ever since: “Well, I’ll tell you, Cathy. Every day, I’d write two pages. And then I’d play <s>golf.</s>” [Inman has since informed me that he was playing BASKETBALL that summer, not golf. My apologies.] I felt like Moses at the Burning Bush, hearing the voice of God. Really? It was that simple? Well, of course it’s that simple.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It only occurs to me now (because I am incredibly slow sometimes) that Inman turned lots of things into games. <a href="http://www.metropulse.com/news/2009/jun/17/inman-majors-revisits-knoxvilles-worlds-fair-era/">It's in his blood</a>, so to speak. He liked to make things interesting. He was the guy who always organized the NCAA Bracket Pool (before the internet started doing it for us). He liked to place a bet or two, as I remember. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You can’t just sit down and draft a book. You can’t just sit down and write 50,000 words. A marathon is run mile by mile. A football game is played one down at a time. Like Anne Lamott says, you have to take it bird by bird. <i><b>NaNoWriMo forces students to turn an abstract big thing into a series of small concrete things</b></i>. Words. Pages. Accumulating incrementally over time. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like gold stars.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.warwicksu.com/pageassets/societies/exec/recognition/waa/gold_star.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://www.warwicksu.com/pageassets/societies/exec/recognition/waa/gold_star.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like X’s on the calendar.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.marriedwithluggage.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/calendar-crossed-off-days-225x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.marriedwithluggage.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/calendar-crossed-off-days-225x300.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like hash marks on the wall.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://cache4.asset-cache.net/xc/872100-001.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=F5B5107058D53DF5D5E779DB43ADDFF32FD2A5E90C018FEEA27A502F6800A782E30A760B0D811297" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://cache4.asset-cache.net/xc/872100-001.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=F5B5107058D53DF5D5E779DB43ADDFF32FD2A5E90C018FEEA27A502F6800A782E30A760B0D811297" width="162" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like Weight Watchers points</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://mac.softpedia.com/screenshots/Weight-Watchers-Points-Calculator_1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://mac.softpedia.com/screenshots/Weight-Watchers-Points-Calculator_1.png" width="159" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like frequent flyer miles</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/17/2010/11/2010-11-04_120420.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="131" src="http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/17/2010/11/2010-11-04_120420.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like earning your stripes</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/lhfgraphics/lhfgraphics0904/lhfgraphics090400029/4695258-air-force-officer-and-enlisted-rank-stripes-insignia-for-uniforms--textured-vector.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/lhfgraphics/lhfgraphics0904/lhfgraphics090400029/4695258-air-force-officer-and-enlisted-rank-stripes-insignia-for-uniforms--textured-vector.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like racking up points in a video game.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1287/1350677403_2cc2b9ba2d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1287/1350677403_2cc2b9ba2d.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Aha!</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8UJhr1zEKDweI74tUAV-j3YvyI5he8bK6XiM94mUkkuSJ2b-li49_q4irTZvTQrcErmdHM_g6rQ0s68cTkxoD0qYuiNabFMrMKrt5VJreuxuuU7WJLesTI1WjzvbHIS_MEcaLfXLog8Um/s1600/NaNo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8UJhr1zEKDweI74tUAV-j3YvyI5he8bK6XiM94mUkkuSJ2b-li49_q4irTZvTQrcErmdHM_g6rQ0s68cTkxoD0qYuiNabFMrMKrt5VJreuxuuU7WJLesTI1WjzvbHIS_MEcaLfXLog8Um/s320/NaNo.JPG" width="283" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><b>This is why NaNoWriMo is so popular with Generation Y: because it turns writing a novel into a game. </b></i><b><i>A huge, dynamic multi-player game in which you accumulate words and pages instead of points.</i></b> </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here’s an interesting article from </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The Chronicle </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">on the trend of </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/gamifying-homewor/28407">“Gamifying Homework.”</a></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here's an interesting talk (30 minutes long) by Carnegie Mellon professor <a href="http://gamepocalypsenow.blogspot.com/">Jesse Schell</a> on the <a href="http://g4tv.com/videos/44277/dice-2010-design-outside-the-box-presentation/">Gamification</a> of...well...Everything. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Are you appalled by what I'm suggesting? Are you thinking, "But Cathy, novel writing isn’t a game! How dare you suggest such a crazy ass thing!"</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But anyone who has written a novel knows that, indeed, it is a game—one you play against yourself, mostly. The only way to win is to get a first draft, and you do it bird by bird, page by page, racking up words until you hit 50,000.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Game over?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No. There are many more levels, but you can’t get to those levels until you hit 50,000. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[Here, my video game metaphor breaks down a bit because I know nothing about them. <a href="http://salvatore-pane.com/">Sal Pane</a>, where are you?]</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For a very long time, what separated "real writers" from "wanna-be writers" was that real writers figured out some way to get the writing done. More than likely, this involved creating some kind of internal rewards system or "gamification" to tap into the motivational part of their brains. And then they crafted, yes, and they used their talents and intellects, yes, but first, they had to write a freaking draft. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now we have have lots and lots of external rewards systems. Like NaNoWriMo. Like </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.750words.com/">750words</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, whose creator, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://enjoymentland.com/2010/09/17/is-life-a-game/">Buster Benson, is a big believer in "gamification."</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> And--oh my god--what are c</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.awpwriter.org/">reative writing classes and programs</a> but another form of external rewards?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More and more people writing more and more words. The word count keeps climbing. </span></div><br />
<object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/IIagp8CEw48?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/IIagp8CEw48?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You either find this up-ticking counter frightening, or you find it thrilling. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm the latter. </span>Cathy Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382084566176624993noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184243340391511389.post-8339135334469572492010-11-18T09:22:00.000-08:002010-11-18T09:29:46.088-08:00Survey Says!<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On Day 15 of NaNo, I created a <a href="http://www.surveymonkey.com/">Survey Monkey</a> survey so that I could check in with my students. This was so incredibly easy to create and implement, I know I will keep using this tool. </span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is what the survey looked like.</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzJfDqNCuwbPTn4Jl3dQd4g7ww_y-wruwGcCwUAq3fHOaVoaMvRM4uuRkoidM3v7EMiewNPpNJCyrdLy5DayyaRZkpwP-jFHWjYOJJleZrYKIMdgcapCm2UdC1w97aDhs_zJkniNxXm0CK/s1600/Survey.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzJfDqNCuwbPTn4Jl3dQd4g7ww_y-wruwGcCwUAq3fHOaVoaMvRM4uuRkoidM3v7EMiewNPpNJCyrdLy5DayyaRZkpwP-jFHWjYOJJleZrYKIMdgcapCm2UdC1w97aDhs_zJkniNxXm0CK/s640/Survey.JPG" width="494" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have 15 students, and 13 of them took the survey,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> and I have decided to share this <i>enormous</i> amount of scientific data with you.</span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And because I am also trying to get to 50,000 words while teaching classes, grading papers, living life, and blogging about this teaching experience, I am going to post the results one or two questions at a time, along with a little reflection on those results. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://blog.lib.umn.edu/arras004/socialetymologies/family-feud.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="http://blog.lib.umn.edu/arras004/socialetymologies/family-feud.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tomorrow's post: the "gamification" of writing a novel. </span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
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</span></span></div>Cathy Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382084566176624993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184243340391511389.post-12681030913361442032010-11-12T05:40:00.000-08:002010-11-12T05:40:18.183-08:00Writing Together<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">On Monday, I opened the door to my classroom and my Advanced Fiction students filed inside. I opened up some cookies, scattered some leftover Halloween candy on the desk. I showed them that we’d received another postcard from the students in <a href="http://loriraderday.blogspot.com/">Lori Rader Day</a>’s class. They’re doing NaNo, too. I passed around a postcard, and a few students wrote down their words of encouragement. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVyiBh67nkt2dKYmmlO4qJxK7HfR4EWpy1QhhqM8O6b4pF4tv5BzubKQC_TLGACCptLoqBKG7gtVtXz7L6y0XCQmPbgC2w5RITAXoSki23deKObdImVZ179geJb7nHjs2VhF5OJpe-TUeS/s1600/IMG_20101109_204729.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVyiBh67nkt2dKYmmlO4qJxK7HfR4EWpy1QhhqM8O6b4pF4tv5BzubKQC_TLGACCptLoqBKG7gtVtXz7L6y0XCQmPbgC2w5RITAXoSki23deKObdImVZ179geJb7nHjs2VhF5OJpe-TUeS/s320/IMG_20101109_204729.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHZwpWhw_tiAlpVg7_bdholAr4xNR1oI13xIRqC7uqWOeT2i9tJ8XwVk6wrpFOuOjiXkFglur0EiQZhpIa0aa2ZkeyEY1MVV_uL6lBYtiFav_CQDLZG6u9Gq8guj00FH3NM6hjfJE2wWoe/s1600/IMG_20101109_204712.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHZwpWhw_tiAlpVg7_bdholAr4xNR1oI13xIRqC7uqWOeT2i9tJ8XwVk6wrpFOuOjiXkFglur0EiQZhpIa0aa2ZkeyEY1MVV_uL6lBYtiFav_CQDLZG6u9Gq8guj00FH3NM6hjfJE2wWoe/s320/IMG_20101109_204712.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I walked around the room to find out how everyone was doing. “What’s your word count?” Some people started in October and are farther along than others. At this point, one week in, they should be at about 25% of the goal or 12,500 words. Most were. Some weren’t, but they recognized this and told me their plan to get back on track. I marked their progress on this handy-dandy poster I got from the Office of Letters and Light. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-6iJukMp76RGRJsp1v0zgbuajPZ07KMAC1Dh3MynBKjlmYdYFp23IUHWzWbeqtsSLm7uuQstj6vDsxBYQfx8I-WChHvyjIUfLRKBiWjt8fY9OLALVVuPGeEwkjh9RsDWtwAI4Q6uZbjMN/s1600/IMG_20101109_204302.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-6iJukMp76RGRJsp1v0zgbuajPZ07KMAC1Dh3MynBKjlmYdYFp23IUHWzWbeqtsSLm7uuQstj6vDsxBYQfx8I-WChHvyjIUfLRKBiWjt8fY9OLALVVuPGeEwkjh9RsDWtwAI4Q6uZbjMN/s320/IMG_20101109_204302.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
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</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">They settled in. Some like to use the computers already in the room, always the same one, same spot. Some bring their own laptops. Some sit on the floor. One student brings her own pillow for this purpose. They fired up their iPods. Logged into <a href="http://750words.com/">750words.com</a>. Opened up Word or <a href="http://baara.com/q10/">Q10</a>. And then they started writing. Tap tap tapping. Everyone entered the world of their story. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I have been teaching creative writing for almost 20 years, but I’ve never witnessed anything like this. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">My students. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Writing. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Right in front of me. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Usually, this activity takes place privately, out of sight, and I am merely presented with the fruits of said activity. Over the course of the semester, I’ve slowly gotten them used to writing in this room, with each other. It wasn’t easy. Many of them resisted, and I understand why. I’ve never liked writing in public places—coffee shops, libraries, etc. But I’m realizing now that there’s something profoundly comforting about doing so, like the difference between practicing yoga alone vs. in a studio full of people. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://freelance-zone.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Freelance-travel-writing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://freelance-zone.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Freelance-travel-writing.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Writing is a profoundly meditative activity, and to do so in the presence of others reminds us that we aren’t alone in this endeavor. Anti-NaNo-ists are troubled by the idea of millions of people engaged in the act of writing—alone or in small groups, in real rooms and virtual ones—but I don’t understand why they are so troubled. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This morning, I got up at 6 AM so that I could spend an hour inside the world of my book. This is my 43rd day of continuous writing. Sometimes, I rise a little earlier than normal so I can get my words in before the day begins. Sometimes, I close the door to my office for twenty minutes. Sometimes, I write in the classroom with my students. I’ve come to look forward to this time. Its sanctuary. Its blessing. I’m beginning to realize that writing isn’t something I should associate with a physical place. Not a desk. Not a particular computer. Not a room. Rather, it’s like a small garden in my head, and finding a way to spend time in that garden—making time for it—is what matters. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Everyone wrote for 70 minutes or so, and then I gently announced that class was almost over. Slowly, we all left our stories and returned to the room, returned to the real world. We looked around at each other. And then we left the room and went on with our days.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div>Cathy Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382084566176624993noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184243340391511389.post-59468202775684756112010-11-10T18:59:00.000-08:002010-11-10T18:59:36.912-08:00Publicity as a Motivator<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.bsudailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.2399735!/image/2571744648.png_gen/derivatives/landscape_240/2571744648.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="94" src="http://www.bsudailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.2399735!/image/2571744648.png_gen/derivatives/landscape_240/2571744648.png" width="200" /></a></div>The Ball State Daily News <a href="http://www.bsudailynews.com/features/project-demands-50-000-words-in-30-days-1.2399715">ran a story today</a> about National Novel Writing Month.<br />
<br />
Seriously. Front page. Above the fold.<br />
<br />
The neighboring headline read "Sex Study places BSU 31st." And right above, there was a huge picture of Conan O'Brien. So: the editors could have led with a story about S-E-X, or a story about a HUGE CELEBRITY, but <b>instead they went with a story about a bunch of students writing fiction.</b><br />
<br />
Which is pretty awesome, I think.<br />
<br />
It was a nice article (thanks Keshia Smith!) and it definitely got my students pumped today. They walked into class full of energy and quickly got to work. Making the front page of the student newspaper will do that to you.<br />
<br />
This is what my classroom sounded like today. I think it's a glorious sound.<br />
<br />
<object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/pJspT6qtJCM?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/pJspT6qtJCM?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>Cathy Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382084566176624993noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184243340391511389.post-62489469450589071572010-11-09T10:10:00.000-08:002010-11-09T10:10:37.214-08:00Facebook: The Pedagogy Forum<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.tcd.ie/disability/projects/DS3/images/facebook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="75" src="http://www.tcd.ie/disability/projects/DS3/images/facebook.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Over the weekend, I responded to a Facebook status update. </span></span></span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></span></span></div><blockquote><span class="apple-style-span">"KYLE MINOR</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">notices that MFA programs are producing more good short story writers than good novelists. Many of my friends from many different programs have had difficulty, post-graduation moving from the short form to the long. Five-plus years into this novel, I've come to believe that the novel and the story are very different animals which might require different training."</span></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And so began an interesting exchange, lots of writers discussing their experiences as students and teachers. One of the responders, Michael Nye of <i>The Missouri Review</i>, just posted his thoughts on TMR blog. <a href="http://www.missourireview.com/tmr-blog/2010/11/09/can-mfa-programs-teach-novel-writing/">You need to read this. </a></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Any veteran of fiction workshops can tell you: the short story is a more workable and practical pedagogical tool than the novel. Nye discusses this at length. I related to many of his frustrations, both as a former student and as a teacher and mentor.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">However, I remain convinced that writing programs can (and should) accommodate both long and short-form fiction. I don’t agree that a writing program is only capable of teaching you how to write a short story, that graduates of fiction workshops must figure out how to write novels entirely on their own. </span></span></span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">We can do it. We just have to start thinking outside the box we've been living in for 50 years.</span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Do you teach fiction writing in a creative writing program? Then read <a href="http://www.facebook.com/kyleminor1/posts/139366866114045">Kyle Minor's FB thread</a>. Read the responses to <a href="http://www.missourireview.com/tmr-blog/2010/11/09/can-mfa-programs-teach-novel-writing/">Nye's blog post</a>. Think about your own pedagogy. Talk about it here or elsewhere. If you've figured out ways to encourage novel writing in your classes, share your insights and ideas.</span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Because it seems clear to me that inquiring minds want to know. </span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 47px;"><br />
</span></span>Cathy Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382084566176624993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184243340391511389.post-32424408989704063292010-11-07T07:13:00.000-08:002010-11-07T07:13:02.279-08:00Five (or Six)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.wisdomportal.com/Christmas/Demuth-Figure5InGold.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.wisdomportal.com/Christmas/Demuth-Figure5InGold.jpg" width="164" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Charles Demuth, Figure 5 in Gold</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A few days ago, Sonya Chung posted <a href="http://www.themillions.com/2010/10/what-we-teach-when-we-teach-writers-on-the-quantifiable-and-the-uncertain.html">this great essay</a> on <i>The Millions</i> about being a teacher of creative writing and about the uncertainty that’s inherent to the writing life. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">She mentions a recent visit from author Jennifer Egan, who confessed to being an “unconscious writer. The first drafts of her novels are written by hand on legal pads. The handwriting is illegible. She doesn’t consciously think about craft at this stage. She just goes, and because she’s writing by hand instead of on the computer, she doesn’t fiddle with what she’s written. It’s only after she’s hand-written a full draft that she goes back and revises and shapes and crafts and starts thinking and making choices. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikNydQ0JOhbgop1hkm-RAEhPBZgpvlfuSrFldFC06M_ik6y-M5SyF5DBN9iYYVxkmK8gbJh6c7yrYtTpL4ohu_ilX6j6FCbhAu4Q0Hg5Ai44THVNITp_w4hkW8FvPwoIF7k9tSkwXEoHlv/s400/chanel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikNydQ0JOhbgop1hkm-RAEhPBZgpvlfuSrFldFC06M_ik6y-M5SyF5DBN9iYYVxkmK8gbJh6c7yrYtTpL4ohu_ilX6j6FCbhAu4Q0Hg5Ai44THVNITp_w4hkW8FvPwoIF7k9tSkwXEoHlv/s200/chanel.jpg" width="200" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Chung says one of her students raised her hand asked Egan about what sort of goals she sets, given her largely unconscious way of writing.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">“Five pages,” she said. “Every day I aim for five pages. It doesn’t matter how much time I spend, I could sit for three hours and not get any pages. I’m after the pages.” I saw a number of students scribbling in their notebooks. I thought I heard a collective exhale of relief. Five pages. Something concrete, something quantifiable." </span></span></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #010101;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It’s worth pointing out that a NaNo participant is doing the same thing as Jennifer Egan. Some proceed with a plan, some without, but still, they’re just trying to get pages done every day. Not five, but six pages down every single day during the month of November. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/da/5-skylt,_Swedish_roadsign.svg/512px-5-skylt,_Swedish_roadsign.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/da/5-skylt,_Swedish_roadsign.svg/512px-5-skylt,_Swedish_roadsign.svg.png" width="200" /></a><span style="color: #010101;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The <a href="http://www.salon.com/books/laura_miller/2010/11/02/nanowrimo">next time I hear someone criticize NaNo</a>, I’m going to tell them that Jennifer Egan is a NaNo writer, too. And I'm going to tell them to read<a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2010/11/12-reasons-to-ignore-the-naysayers-do-nanowrimo.html"> this passionate, articulate defense</a>, too. </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #010101;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #010101;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Egan's not an official NaNo Novelist, of course. She doesn’t sign up on the website or get a widget. She doesn’t need external reinforcement and the behavioral rewards system. Maybe she did once upon a time, who knows? She's come up with her own regimen, which she self-enforces.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #010101;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #010101;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">[Which begs the question "Does writing performed with the aid of constraints or rewards make said writing less valid than writing performed without those aids?" I'll address that issue soon.] </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #010101;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="http://rhonabennett.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/jackson-5-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://rhonabennett.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/jackson-5-1.jpg" width="200" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #010101;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">My students are very resistant to the idea of writing a shitty first draft, to letting their unconscious minds run amok. They say to me, “I respect novels too much to write something crappy.” Or “I had three hours to write new pages today, and all I did was fiddle with what I wrote yesterday. I can’t stop myself.” </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #010101;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #010101;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Or “It’s just embarrassing to me to know that I have written all these crappy sentences. Eventually, I will have to fix those crappy sentences, so why not now?”</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #010101;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">All their lives, they’ve had to write, tinker, turn in, get a grade. <b>The rhythm of the semester demands that a messy first draft needs to quickly become a polished final draft. </b>It’s interesting to me that even though I’ve said to them over and over again, “You're not required to turn that messy first draft into a polished final draft. So just write. I'm not grading this." But the impulse to “revise as you write” is so well ingrained they want to do it anyway. Some days, I have to forcibly tell them to stop it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bK8zv-Wc2Pk/RfoAIQDNm6I/AAAAAAAAAgM/VxbSg5O7xbc/s400/greenspan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="141" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bK8zv-Wc2Pk/RfoAIQDNm6I/AAAAAAAAAgM/VxbSg5O7xbc/s200/greenspan.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Five."</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #010101;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010101;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #010101;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">[Could it be that it's the "credentialed writers" especially, those who emerge from writing programs, who have the most difficulty moving from short stories to novels? I'll address that issue soon, too.] </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #010101;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #010101;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">For now, I'm going to tell my students about Jennifer Egan’s process. Five—or six—pages every day. </span></span></span></div>Cathy Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382084566176624993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184243340391511389.post-40771268529123379952010-11-03T17:00:00.000-07:002010-11-03T17:00:02.646-07:00"Workshop" to "Writing Group"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.gettysburg.edu/academics/firstyear_seminars/fee_fys.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="177" src="http://www.gettysburg.edu/academics/firstyear_seminars/fee_fys.JPG" width="200" /></a></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I love what Peter Turchi has to say about workshop <a href="http://www.peterturchi.com/resources.html#WorkLab">here</a>. This and Madison Smartt Bell’s <a href="http://faculty.goucher.edu/mbell/nardesign.html">introduction to <i>Narrative Design</i></a> have really informed my thinking about how I teach workshops.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">When I’m teaching a workshop in which students are sharing “big things,” I ask them to read Turchi’s essay, especially this part:</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><blockquote>The first step in preparing to discuss another writer’s draft is to try to identify the work's intention. This is much more challenging than it might sound. It’s difficult to truly suspend our own tastes; it’s also difficult to identify with any confidence the intention of a work that isn’t fully realized (especially since the author might not have a clear intention, yet). But we need to try; and we need to be patient in doing that before we start talking about any specific scene or character or line of dialogue or description. (Far too often, workshop discussions are devoted to a few details at the expense of the whole.)</blockquote><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">How do we recognize the intention of a work in progress? When students are workshopping stand-alone short stories, my mantra is: <b>The story must speak for itself</b>. But when students are workshopping big things, I think it’s okay (and necessary) for the author to speak on behalf of the manuscript. Not during the workshop itself, which causes much awkwardness, but before class, outside class. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Idea: require students to use the Blackboard learning environment to create a process blog about their big thing. Ask each writer to articulate the larger goals of the project,<a href="http://paulgorman.org/writing/dramatic_structure.php"> its structure</a>, the character’s overall arc, the possible chapters to come, where things are going. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/161/384673993_91f0a2532f_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/161/384673993_91f0a2532f_o.jpg" width="200" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Another idea: require students to turn in their pages presented like a book manuscript: cover page with title and contact information, table of contents, epigraph, even maps and photographs, if they wish. I teach them to use the abbreviation “TK,” the printing reference that signifies that additional <span lang="EN">material will be added at a later date. If they think their book will be comprised of eight stories, but they’ve only written two and a half and the other five are still in their heads, I tell them, yes, it’s okay to give us two and a half stories, to give us placeholder titles, maybe even short synopses of what is “to come.” Basically, they need to teach us how to read their book. We need to know: are we reading stand alone stories, related stories, or a novel? <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">This approach often shifts the default setting of the class from “workshop” to “writing group.</span>”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Cathy Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382084566176624993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184243340391511389.post-31054976078821672802010-11-01T16:22:00.000-07:002010-11-01T17:32:06.743-07:00NaNoDra2Mo?<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/10926434/2/istockphoto_10926434-desk-calendar-november-2010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/10926434/2/istockphoto_10926434-desk-calendar-november-2010.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Not only do I want to change the name from “Novel Writing” to “Novel Drafting,” I also want to change it from one month to two. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">National Novel Drafting Two Months!<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">NaNoWriMo creator Chris Baty says he picked November as National Novel Writing Month because “it’s a bad weather month.” Really? What about the long, dark nights of February or March? Why not schedule NaNoWriMo in say, May or June, when lots of people start Summer Projects? Or what about September! It’s time for school and shiny pencils and new notebooks. You’ve got back-to-school energy, even if you’re not in school. November? My internal batteries are fading. Why November? It’s a busy month. Final projects. Deadlines. End-of-year reports. Plus the holidays. Commitments to family and friends. How does anyone expect you to do anything <i>this big </i>during November? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">But that’s the beauty of it, see. Because who doesn’t have a ton of shit to do all the time? As I tell my students: <b>You’ll probably never have time to “just write,” so ask yourself how you’re going to organize your life so you can get writing done. How are you going to incorporate it into your already scheduled life? </b>What’s on your plate? What can you remove from that plate? And what can be shifted around to make room for writing? Now, nobody’s asking you to quit your job or break up with your girlfriend or flunk a class or stop tucking your kids in at night. What about television? Gaming? Facebooking? Yammering? Putzing? Hard-core partying? Recovering from hard-core partying? Shopping on Etsy or Ebay? I don’t know…whatever else it is that you do that I can’t think of because I’m old and boring. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Still, I was worried. Maybe it’s not possible or reasonable to ask the average college student to draft a novel during November. Maybe it contributes to their well-ingrained “binge” mentality. They deny themselves all week, and then binge drink on the weekends. They don’t write anything for months, and then binge write for 30 days. Is this healthy? Then my husband said, “I don’t know how they can stand the suspense. Why don’t you just let them start?” </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://tusb.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/mt/all-nighter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img border="0" height="210" src="http://tusb.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/mt/all-nighter.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So I decided to offer the class a choice: They could participate in NaNo just as Chris Baty intended, or they could modify the experiment and start writing on October 1. Instead of writing 1667 words a day for 30 days of November (NaNoWriMo), they could write <s>980 words a day for the 51 days </s>of <b>October and November </b>(NaNoDra2Mo). </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">[Wow, do I suck at math. Wow. Make that 819 words a day for 61 days. Because 31 + 30 = 61. Yes.]</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">At the end of September, I gave my students an in-class timed writing exercise: write a profile of your main character. They wrote for about 30 minutes. Then I had them shout out their word count. Some typed swiftly—no editing or tweaking—and pounded out over 1000 words. Others wrote more slowly and laboriously, only producing about 300 words. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/10275077/2/istockphoto_10275077-october-2010-calendar-series.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/10275077/2/istockphoto_10275077-october-2010-calendar-series.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I said, “Okay, some of you wrote quickly and some of you didn’t. There’s no right way to write. But what does this exercise tell you about how much time you need to write 819 words? To write 1667 words? For those of you who wrote quickly, you could do what you just did—spend just a half hour at the keyboard every day for two months—and you’re done. You could go on with the rest of your day. <b>You'll hardly notice the difference--other than the great feeling that comes with writing a little bit every single day. </b>For those of you who wrote slowly, how much more time do you need to write 819 words? To write 1667? And ask yourself if you can realistically create that much time in your day? Maybe you need to use both October and November to accomplish this task. Or maybe you need to stop being so hard on yourself and just write like hell. Don’t edit or spell check. Get out of your own way and just go.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So: half the class started on October 1<sup>st</sup>, and they are all about half way to the goal of 50,000. The other half of the class decided to wait and start on November 1<sup>st</sup>. </span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I’ll keep you updated on their progress.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 3px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>Cathy Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382084566176624993noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184243340391511389.post-46367363962525667032010-11-01T09:41:00.000-07:002010-11-01T09:41:16.829-07:00NaNoDra2Mo StatusHere's my current word count:<br />
<br />
<img src="http://www.nanowrimo.org/widget/LiveSupporter/642262.png" />Cathy Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382084566176624993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184243340391511389.post-36318152353233133522010-10-30T09:26:00.000-07:002010-10-30T09:26:13.375-07:00The Seven-Hour Story<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">On Thursday, I took a break from thinking about my big thing to write a small thing. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><i><br />
</i></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><i>Huffington Post</i>’s <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-campbell-and-nicole-walker/7-days-7-artists-7-rings_b_666403.html">“Seven Rings: A Game of Artists’ Telephone”</a> is a new media blog/art project curated by poet Nicole Walker and artist Rebecca Campbell. “Seven Rings” works like this: someone writes a poem, sends that poem to a visual artist, who has one day to respond with a work of visual art, which is then forwarded to a writer who has one day to respond with a poem, story, or essay, which is forwarded to another visual artist who responds in one day with painting or drawing or photograph…and so on.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I signed on for this in June, and I've been nervously anticipating it ever since. What would they send me? Would I be inspired enough to write something? And would the story be good enough to publish? </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I knew the art would be sent to me Thursday, Oct. 28 at noon Pacific time. So I cleared my schedule for Thursday night and Friday morning. Right on time, Nicole Walker sent me this picture:</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i819.photobucket.com/albums/zz113/7Rings/AngeloSosa2sm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://i819.photobucket.com/albums/zz113/7Rings/AngeloSosa2sm.jpg" width="269" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
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</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Basically, Top Chef finalist Angelo Sosa painted (and sculpted) on a white plate his response to Robin Hemley's piece:</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7ie5wVxZ6UJoNet2g9Bm_zBoxiF4jpnGRbU2Fnk8WC_wBe23iAvotHTSY9tpdcX0_ZnnR9Z4dewam_4uJGH36eI3gDMGreSu1cgS2szsYmV5kCLz1iBwe-xypzonHoXA5VbrhHX8MJON3/s1600/Hemley.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7ie5wVxZ6UJoNet2g9Bm_zBoxiF4jpnGRbU2Fnk8WC_wBe23iAvotHTSY9tpdcX0_ZnnR9Z4dewam_4uJGH36eI3gDMGreSu1cgS2szsYmV5kCLz1iBwe-xypzonHoXA5VbrhHX8MJON3/s400/Hemley.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Which was a response to Adam Bateman’s art:</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i819.photobucket.com/albums/zz113/7Rings/AdamBateman.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://i819.photobucket.com/albums/zz113/7Rings/AdamBateman.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The conversation seemed to have taken a meta-turn about the nature of art, about representation itself. I was reminded of what James Woods said in <i>How Fiction Works</i>: “Since Plato and Aristotle, fictional and dramatic narrative has provoked two large recurring discussions: one is centered on the question of mimesis and the real (what should fiction represent?) and the other on the question of sympathy and how fictional narrative exercises it.” At first, I thought I should push myself to write the literary equivalent of the Adam Bateman painting, a story that resists the real, resists narrative. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Sometimes it's only when we are presented with art that challenges our assumptions that we recognize that we even<i> have</i> assumptions. Why does there need to be, as Mario Varga Llosa said, a "trampoline of reality" from which you create a fabrication? Why can't a white plate be a canvas? Why can’t food be sculpture? Hmmm….paradigm shifts. I sat there for awhile trying to figure out how to speak to paradigm shifts. Maybe I should write a prose poem or lyric essay and focus less on narrative and more on language. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And then I realized, <i>Wow, time is really flying by</i>. So I did what comes naturally. I wrote a story. For whatever reason, I can't resist narrative. I. Just. Can’t. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So I wrote about the gender paradigm (a VERY big thing), something that’s been on my mind a lot lately: </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Do women writers need “wives”? </b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Why are some men ashamed of performing household duties? Why are some women ashamed of performing household duties? Why do so many couples maintain dual careers, double incomes, double the stress, rather than opting to live more simply on a single income? And why is it usually the man who works and the woman who stays home? Why does the opposite arrangement freak people out? What is a wife in the 21st century? How do couples who <i>both </i>feel they each have important work to do (a relationship in which there is no “wife”) deal with the challenge of compromise that is built into a marriage? <b>Who makes dinner?</b> As Viriginia Woolf said, “Marriage [is] the art of choosing the human being with whom to live life successfully.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Here. Read <a href="http://www.wcwonline.org/content/view/1922/38/">this essay by Carole DeSanti</a>. She talks about it all here. </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So, I wrote this story in about seven hours—appropriate, that number. Seven. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Lately, I’ve been drafting my novel quickly, taking Anne Lamott’s advice to write a shitty first draft. But for this project, I went back to my old way of drafting: write a sentence, revise it, tweak it, move on to the next sentence, repeat. The story is about 1200 words long, and the first draft took me five hours. I ate dinner, and then I revised that draft for another couple of hours. In the morning, I tweaked a bit and sent it off. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And I felt good. <i>Really good.</i> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Perhaps, even in the middle of writing a big thing, it is good to stop for a day or two and get that high that comes when you finish something.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Cathy Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382084566176624993noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184243340391511389.post-79248451885689296682010-10-27T14:31:00.000-07:002010-10-27T14:31:13.640-07:00My Blogroll, My Students<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.arboresque.com/images/Family%20Tree_640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://www.arboresque.com/images/Family%20Tree_640.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">J</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ust so you know: I’ve been thinking about this idea—THE BIG THING—for ten years now. Ask my students. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">How many have worked with me on a Big Thing? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Oh my. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Hundreds. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This is the statement that goes in the syllabus of a Big Thing Workshop. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><blockquote>Your goal is to produce what I call a “big thing,” fifty pages of polished work. This can be the beginning of a novel, a novella, a series of interrelated stories, a collection of non-related short stories, fifty one-page stories, or a combination of things. I want you to aspire with this project. I want you to aim high. I want you to start writing the book you’ve always wanted to write, but never seem to have the time for. I want you to care deeply about whatever it is that you’re writing about. Much of the work you have to do will take place outside of class, in solitude. But when we are together, we will work collectively to help each other achieve our individual goals. In other words, you must expect much from yourself and give even more to each other. If you aren’t ready for something like this, then please bow out gracefully now.</blockquote><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">But they never drop. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Most people think they have at least one book inside them. Sometimes all you need to do is tell them that it’s time to try and write it.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Sometimes that big thing is published. Usually it’s not, but does that have to be the point? Sometimes the big thing becomes part of an application to a writing program or a fellowship program, an opportunity that leads the writer to another place, another subject, another big thing. Sometimes I recognize bits and pieces in their blogs. Sometimes those 50 pages become a single poem. Sometimes the humbling experience of having attempted a big thing leads to a life-long appreciation of books. Sometimes they never write another word of fiction, but they write other things instead. They teach. They read. They write. They blog. They review. They edit. They participate. There are about a million ways to be a writer, and you don’t have to publish a book with Random House or get a job teaching creative writing. You just need to write.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.8pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So, I decided to use my blogroll to show off the different ways my former students are making literary lives for themselves. Today I reached out to a young woman who graduated last year and is going through what Ted Solotaroff called “writing in the cold.” And she responded right away: “I'm so excited for this now. I've been trying to read as many writing blogs as I can because it helps the feeling of isolation when you're working on a project for hours and hours all by your lonesome. I'm so excited to get back to work on my Big Thing but also TERRIFIED. Time to conquer that fear and keep on learning!”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.8pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.8pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">My blogroll, then, is a kind of family tree. It’s a link to my students' blogs and websites (some personal, some professional, most a little of both), and I hope it gives you (and them) a sense of how many different ways there are to lead a literary life. Each link, each person is different, but what connects them is the shared experience of having written a Big Thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.8pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.8pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">If you were a student of mine in a senior seminar or graduate workshop, please send me a link to your blog or website. If you’re reading this and you’re friends with someone who was in one of my classes, please pass it on. Thank you. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>Cathy Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382084566176624993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184243340391511389.post-64585626270047644222010-10-25T19:17:00.000-07:002010-10-25T19:17:42.892-07:00NaNoDraMo?<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.aboutfreelancewriting.com/wp-content/uploads/rough-draft.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://www.aboutfreelancewriting.com/wp-content/uploads/rough-draft.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 9.02778px; line-height: 19px;">"<i>This is a draft. For the next 30 days, you will write a 50,000 word big thing. </i><i>This is only a draft.</i>"</span> </td></tr>
</tbody></table>On the first day of my Advanced Fiction course, I dropped the bomb. "Everyone in this class is going to participate in National Novel Writing Month. Even me."<br />
<br />
You should know this: not a single student dropped. In fact, many of them got pretty excited.<br />
<br />
I'd never tried this before--as a writer or as a teacher--and, to be perfectly honest, I wish now that I'd called it "National Novel <i>Drafting </i>Month" instead.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><br />
</i></div><blockquote>To draft. To draw up a preliminary version of or plan for. To create by thinking and writing; compose: draft a speech.</blockquote><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It's the name itself, "National Novel Writing Month," that produces the derision. <i>Oh, the humanity! All these…people…with no formal training, who don’t know what they are doing, pretending that they are actually writing a novel! It's absurd. National Novel Writing MONTH! How about National Novel Writing Year? Well, in my case, you might call it National Novel Not-Writing Decade…</i><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And at first, it <i>was </i>the name that confused my students. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>You want us to write a novel?</i><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">No, I want you to write a <i>draft </i>of a novel.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Well, that’s not what the acronym says. WRI stands for writing.</i><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I know. Ignore it. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>But Cathy, to write 50,000 words in a month, I would have to write about six pages a day</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That’s right.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>It takes me about four or five hours to write that many pages of good, solid prose.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I don’t want you to write good, solid prose. I want you to write a shitty first draft.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://icladdagh.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/shitty-first-draffts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://icladdagh.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/shitty-first-draffts.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>You want me to do what?</i><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[I hand the student a copy of <a href="http://www.orcutt.net/othercontent/sfds.pdf">Anne Lamott’s famous essay</a>.] See. There is sound pedagogy behind what I’m telling you.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>You want me write shitty?</i><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Yes. I want you to write really, really shitty.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>But I can’t stand shitty prose.</i><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Neither can I. But you if you fuss and fret over every word, you'll never get a draft. T</span>he point here is to know what it feels like to finish a draft. You stand a better chance of finishing something if you turn off your Inner Editor and just go and go and go.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So: that's what I'm calling it. NaNoDraMo. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Coming up: ideas on how to run a novel "writeshop" instead of a novel workshop. And a list of good books that were written quickly. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Strike that. <i>Drafted </i>quickly. </div>Cathy Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382084566176624993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184243340391511389.post-4221708459822004282010-10-24T19:14:00.000-07:002010-10-24T21:16:42.257-07:00You need visual (and aural and tactile) aids<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4JMK13VfEVvpIDIHlSNr-A4FF1I17Pn_sPU9AAfnZ-Xh4j3lbmK5uc9WY-rS4LsP94LdQ4evnRwEmgQ2drT4tDtL-0FeWLgbvr7MwQVrdGFmfut41wgbVeGkbVkcc0rBPKNuib9ZxCpzF/s1600/IMG_20100922_173514.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4JMK13VfEVvpIDIHlSNr-A4FF1I17Pn_sPU9AAfnZ-Xh4j3lbmK5uc9WY-rS4LsP94LdQ4evnRwEmgQ2drT4tDtL-0FeWLgbvr7MwQVrdGFmfut41wgbVeGkbVkcc0rBPKNuib9ZxCpzF/s200/IMG_20100922_173514.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I was young, I obsessed about craft as a writer and teacher, because I thought craft alone could save me and save my students. I learned (and then taught) the methods of characterization, effective use of dialogue, how to use setting to create mood and atmosphere. Et cetera. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In class, I never, ever talked about the writing process itself. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In <a href="http://faculty.goucher.edu/mbell/nardesign.html">“Unconscious Mind,”</a> an excellent essay about craft and creativity that introduces his textbook <i>Narrative Design</i>, Madison Smartt Bell says: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“The great defect of craft-driven programs is that they ignore the writer's inner process. Creativity, the inner process of imagination, is not discussed. So far as the craft-driven workshop is concerned, creativity is sealed in a black box; you're supposed to remember that the box is there, but there is a tacit agreement not to open it in public.”</span></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here’s the problem, as I see it: in order to create an environment in which Big Things can be written and discussed, you have to move away from the straight-up craft-driven workshop. You have to acknowledge and talk about the creative process itself. You just have to. I mean literally: how do you get all that story on the page? It would be like training your body to run a marathon without also <a href="http://www.marathontraining.com/marathon/m_psycho.html">training your brain</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What I learned the hard way as a writer was that craft knowledge was not enough. I needed that other kind of creative writing book. The non-craft kind. You know, the self-helpy sort that talks about the boring day-to-day-ness of it, the goofy shit you find yourself doing when inspiration strikes, the obsessive rituals, the dogged regimen and fierce will that are required, all the ways in which you must talk yourself into embarking on (and sticking with!) the protracted journey that is the writing of a Big Thing. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPH5_mOb1fKZJW5mGHP0mq3IpafnKLRGHW99HKRN2cL1MjK0dpjSfIfR-HDmelwWbxmOrkeybz0vqNStq8VjS4mB8y16SG2YGyYUM83cjvKy8GL9NSleUK9jVgw1uUgKzu86Bn5DE_Dzyd/s1600/IMG_20100922_173316.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPH5_mOb1fKZJW5mGHP0mq3IpafnKLRGHW99HKRN2cL1MjK0dpjSfIfR-HDmelwWbxmOrkeybz0vqNStq8VjS4mB8y16SG2YGyYUM83cjvKy8GL9NSleUK9jVgw1uUgKzu86Bn5DE_Dzyd/s320/IMG_20100922_173316.jpg" width="320" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This semester, I’m teaching a section of Advanced Fiction. My students and I are preparing to embark on <a href="http://www.nanowrimo.org/">National Novel Writing Month</a>. At the beginning of the semester, I asked them to read this great article, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703740004574513463106012106.html">"How to Write a Great Novel,"</a> and respond to these questions: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“What do you notice about the different ways that these writers get their stories out of their heads and ultimately into the books you read. What process and methods and tricks do they use? Do you see any pattern or similarity in how they work? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is what we came up with. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span>It’s okay to have a plan, a blue print, an outline. (Banks and Ishiguro and Pamuk).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj76PH8Vq8hrvroYIxJai8JlKd6aw0KNISkuBx_Xii_PfPvcWUQ64Kh3z-SlV9LvV1iHQSc4aURyxtSM6mwTm2lyl_W_RmEygCfHpMKXaYYwZjPuUQq1-blFUD9D6zwx_4YfZQR2QHCpDQ/s400/Storyboard2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span>Pay attention to your obsessions. Save stuff until it starts to assume some kind of shape. Maybe you don’t just need a writing desk. Maybe you also need <i>a wall </i>(Danticat and Mantel). Maybe you need a <i>card catalogue</i> (Chaon). <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span>Don’t work on a word processor, which encourages endless fussing. Consider hand writing on paper, notecards, blue books, napkins, etc. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span>Consider talking out loud and recording yourself (Powers and Baker).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">5.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span>If you do write directly into the computer (McCann), manipulate the machine’s capabilities to your advantage (Rice, Baker). And once you get it into the computer, then get it out of the computer so you can <i>move it around </i>(Atwood) or <i>listen to it </i>(Danticat) and <i>see it </i>(Lippman).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">6.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span>Remove yourself from distraction. Write on the subway (Wray) or in the bathroom (Diaz) or in your sugar shack (Banks). <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">7.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span>Embrace the bountiful array of products available at your local Office Supply Store. Get out the scissors and tape (Ondaatje), the colored index cards (Chaon), the binders and flow charts (Ishiguro), the thumbtacks (Danticat). <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPH5_mOb1fKZJW5mGHP0mq3IpafnKLRGHW99HKRN2cL1MjK0dpjSfIfR-HDmelwWbxmOrkeybz0vqNStq8VjS4mB8y16SG2YGyYUM83cjvKy8GL9NSleUK9jVgw1uUgKzu86Bn5DE_Dzyd/s1600/IMG_20100922_173316.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj76PH8Vq8hrvroYIxJai8JlKd6aw0KNISkuBx_Xii_PfPvcWUQ64Kh3z-SlV9LvV1iHQSc4aURyxtSM6mwTm2lyl_W_RmEygCfHpMKXaYYwZjPuUQq1-blFUD9D6zwx_4YfZQR2QHCpDQ/s1600/Storyboard2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj76PH8Vq8hrvroYIxJai8JlKd6aw0KNISkuBx_Xii_PfPvcWUQ64Kh3z-SlV9LvV1iHQSc4aURyxtSM6mwTm2lyl_W_RmEygCfHpMKXaYYwZjPuUQq1-blFUD9D6zwx_4YfZQR2QHCpDQ/s320/Storyboard2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One day not long again, I set aside some class time so that my students could work on their visual aids. The class meets in a room that’s lined with computers and has small tables set up in the middle. Some students went work at the computers, others sat at their tables to draw their outlines. One student was using crayons and colored markers. I sat down at a table to write thumbnail scene sketches on blue and yellow post-it notes. Someone came into the room, looked around, and asked, “Is this a writing class?” and I looked up and said, “Yes. Yes it is.” </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Cathy Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382084566176624993noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184243340391511389.post-67520614216356476102010-10-22T19:30:00.000-07:002010-10-22T19:30:38.756-07:00Writer's Center of Indiana @ Marian University<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.indianawriters.org/images/i1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.indianawriters.org/images/i1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>I'll be in Indianapolis tomorrow, Saturday, October 23, to talk more about making big things at the Gathering of Writers. If you're in Indy or there bouts, please drop by.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.indianawriters.org/gathering.html">http://www.indianawriters.org/gathering.html</a><br />
<br />
If the technology gods are shining down on me, I'll be presenting my thoughts in the form of a Powerpoint, a form which I like to call The Illustrated Essay.<br />
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I don't use bullets. I use metaphors. I use my own experiences. I have been known to use the word "I."Cathy Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382084566176624993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184243340391511389.post-76496241947805083692010-10-21T19:14:00.000-07:002010-10-21T19:14:49.397-07:00It’s not a story. It’s a manuscript<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://writenonfictioninnovember.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/book-manuscript.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://writenonfictioninnovember.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/book-manuscript.jpg" width="132" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I know someone who took a Novel Workshop in college. This is how it went down. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First, they studied the first sentences of a bunch of novels and wrote one of their own, then workshopped it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then they studied first paragraphs of novels and expanded their first sentences into first paragraphs and workshopped those. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then they studied first chapters of a few novels and wrote one of their own, then workshopped their chapters. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And then the semester was over.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m sorry, but I think that’s a pretty stupid way to encourage the writing of novels in a creative writing class. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most courses labeled “Fiction Workshop” are actually “Short Story Workshop.” Nobody says you must write a short story, but that’s what everybody does anyway. Why? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whether we’re aware of it or not, we transmit this subextual message to our students: “You will learn to tell a story in 8-15 pages. If you are a budding Lydia Davis, you must artificially inflate your story so that we will not think you’re lazy. If you’re a budding Tolstoy, you must artificially deflate your story because more than 15 pages makes us very cranky. Please don’t write a story that is nonrealistic, because genre fiction makes us nervous and uncomfortable. Unless you’re doing a Saunders thing. We like George Saunders. If you want to do a Saunders thing, fine. Otherwise, no. Convey your story in a scene (or two) in the aesthetic mode of realism, preferably minimalism. We like minimalism. Show don’t tell is—amazingly—a quite teachable concept in an otherwise subjective discipline. Show don’t tell is reassuring, like a lucky sweater, like “Sweet Home Alabama” on the jukebox. The opposite of show don’t tell, the tell tell tell of artful narration, well, that’s complicated and hard to do well, so perhaps you shouldn’t really try that. As an added bonus, show don’t tell virtually guarantees that your story will be mercifully short. Think Hemingway, not Faulkner. Think Carver, and certainly not Coover.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.annemini.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/right-title.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.annemini.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/right-title.jpg" width="151" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here’s one simple thing you can do to encourage the making of big things in your writing workshop or your writing practice: </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">don’t call it a story</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. Call it a </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">manuscript.</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Show them an example of a book manuscript: cover page with title and contact information, table of contents, epigraph, even maps and photographs, if they wish. I teach them to use the abbreviation “TK,” the printing reference that signifies that additional </span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">material will be added at a later date. If they think their big thing will be comprised of eight stories, but they’ve only written two and a half and the other five are still in their heads, I tell them, yes, it’s okay to give us two and a half stories, to give us placeholder titles, maybe even short synopses of what is “to come.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don’t put the word </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">story</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> in my syllabus, and I don’t use it in class. I say, “So, how are you doing on your </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">manuscripts</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Turn in around 15 pages of your </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">manuscript</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> to discuss. This can be one 15-page short story, or two 6-page stories, or fifteen 1-page stories, or one 2-page story plus one 12-page story. It’s your </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">manuscript.</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> You decide.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> “Remember, your </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">manuscript</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> is due this week.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And later, one of my students came to my office and said, “I have a question about my manuscript.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She didn’t say “my story.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And she certainly didn’t say “my paper.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She’s working on a </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">manuscript</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, a big thing. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>Cathy Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382084566176624993noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184243340391511389.post-21855154225813789542010-10-20T06:57:00.000-07:002010-10-20T06:57:06.205-07:00Maybe it's not a bad story. 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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://image.absoluteastronomy.com/images/topicimages/w/wi/winesburg,_ohio_%28novel%29.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://image.absoluteastronomy.com/images/topicimages/w/wi/winesburg,_ohio_%28novel%29.gif" width="130" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span>The title of this blog comes from an old mentor of mine, <a href="http://www.johnkeeble.net/">John Keeble</a>. He referred to our books in progress not as novels or short story collections or books—and certainly not as MFA theses—but simply as “big things.” </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span>It was my second year of graduate school, and I knew I was trying to write something akin to <i>Winesburg, Indiana.</i> Instead of emerging one by one, however, the stories came out hopelessly fused. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span>Imagine if Sherwood Anderson sat down and wrote the title, “New Willard House” and proceeded to describe all the characters who lived in or passed through that fictional boarding house. The end. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span>That’s a pretty good description of the story I submitted to Keeble’s workshop for discussion, a big, messy failure of a story. I knew it, and everyone sitting around that table knew it.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span>And then the most amazing thing happened. Keeble opened the discussion by saying, “Some of you are working on stories, on the small thing, but I think this piece wants to be a big thing. Rather than talk about whether or not this works as a story, let’s talk about it as material toward a larger project.” </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span>Just like that, Keeble shifted the default setting of the workshop from <i>dissection</i> to <i>enlargement</i>, from <i>what’s wrong </i>to <i>what could be</i>. My peers weren’t allowed to say, “This story is muddled and digressive. There’s no main character and no dramatic arc.” <b>All of which would have been absolutely true.</b> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span>Instead, they said things like this: “Oh, that Tandy Hard. Good character. And Elizabeth Willard. She almost kills her husband. That’s a story. Oh, and also the night she dies with all that money hidden in the floor. That’s a good story. And maybe the day George Willard leaves the boardinghouse once and for all is a story in itself, not just a scene at the end of this story.” </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span>Forty-five minutes of productive discussion, and I walked out with pages of scribbled notes, stories crystallizing in my brain, and boom, I was off. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span>I was lucky.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span>Typically, students want to prescribe. They want to talk about what’s not working. It’s up to the instructor to create the default setting, to frame the workshop so that big things can be brought to the table and discussed meaningfully. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span>Next time, I’ll talk about some of the ways I try to do that. </span></span></div>Cathy Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382084566176624993noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184243340391511389.post-368627173100440392010-10-19T13:54:00.000-07:002010-10-19T18:46:41.515-07:00Origin Story<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://images.imagestate.com/Watermark/2458921.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="148" src="http://images.imagestate.com/Watermark/2458921.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">These questions have been on my mind for quite a while:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div>Why did I spend twenty years working on short stories as opposed to novels? Is it nature or nurture? Am I really predisposed to write short stories, or do I write them because it is the only prose form for which I received explicit instruction?<br />
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How do you write a novel? And how do you teach a class on how to write a novel?<br />
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Is our current and much discussed market glut of short stories due to a genuine commitment to the form, or is it due to the fact that the many, many writers we train in creative writing programs simply don't know how to write anything else?<br />
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Is a workshop antithetical to generating a big thing? Is it possible to teach a class that is a "writeshop," not a workshop? What would that look like?<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">Gradually, I've incorporated all this thinking into my classes. And also--because for me teaching and writing are inextricably linked--I've incorporated all this thinking into my own writing practice; I'm in the beginning stages of a novel. Not a novel-in-stories this time. A novel. I created this blog in order to share this journey with others trying to make the same shift from "story" to "book."</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There are an infinite number of venues to talk about creative writing, but not as many to talk about <i>teaching </i>creative writing--which is unfortunate, because I absolutely love to talk about teaching creative writing. That's one of the reasons I love being friends with writer/teachers on Facebook; we share what we're doing, how we're doing it, what's not working, what is working.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I've never blogged before, but I've wanted to for a long time. The best way to begin, they say, is to begin with what you're passionate about, and right now, this is what I'm passionate about: the big thing--generating one, revising one, publishing one, teaching others who are interested how to do it, too. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This blog isn't slick, and I know I have a lot to learn. I came very close to not starting the blog for those reasons. I'm a Virgo, a perfectionist. My impulse is to spend hours fiddling with the format, figuring out everything about how this works--but I can't. I have a big thing to write. And students who have a big thing to write. Onward. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div></div>Cathy Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10382084566176624993noreply@blogger.com4