Patricia J. Parsons

One writer’s sabbatical

Posted on 7 Sep 2011 by Patricia J. Parsons

It’s September again. That usually means some new school supplies and back to the classroom for a hard-working university prof. But not this year. This semester I’m on sabbatical. It’s funny how people respond when you tell them you’re on sabbatical. Usually they say something like: “Gee, must be nice.” (With just that slight edge of sarcasm.) Or they say, “You university people have all the perks.” Well, let’s just say that there are few people who would not like to be in my shoes right now regardless of how much they like their jobs. So, what’s a sabbatical for anyway?

Naturally, the web is full of definitions. Let’s start with the etymology of the word (where the English word has its source).

The word itself derives from and is related to a bunch of words in other languages. The Latin sabbaticus, the Greek sabbaitkos, and even the Hebrew Shabbat, all have similar meanings. They refer to a hiatus from work. This is interesting to a university professor, I’m sure, since a sabbatical does mean a break from one’s regular teaching and administrative responsibilities, but the requirement to produce work related to the other components of a prof’s contract is even higher. That part, of course, is the research and writing part. A university professor on sabbatical is supposed to be researching and writing. The idea, though, that one can be freed up from other daily responsibilities to focus more fully on the kind of work that really is done better with single-minded focus from time to time, is a forward-thinking one. Everyone should have a sabbatical once in a while. But not to lie around slothfully and vegetate, in my view. So, what kind of productive work can a writer produce when she is on sabbatical from other work?

Believe it or not, there is a web site called YourSabbatical.com that provides services for employers and employees regarding sabbaticals. Who knew? According to their web site they partner “…with businesses to implement customized sabbatical programs that attract, retain, and accelerate top talent through personal and professional enrichment…” They do, however, have a useful blog for people on sabbatical, and I was especially interested in their interview with a “prolific writer” who has the following tips for productive writing when taking a hiatus from your regular work. According to Casey Hawley (author of 10 Make-or-Break Career Moments: Navigate, Negotiate, and Communicate for Success, a book that I cannot recommend since I have not read it), we all need to…

Have a schedule for our writing. To tell you the truth, this is a no-brainer for me. I think that if you can’t even make a date with yourself to write, then you’ll never get a project finished especially when you have so much more freedom than usual.
Reward ourselves. She suggests that if you set a word goal, for example, then you reward yourself – perhaps you can go out to lunch. Whereas I do agree with this suggestion, I also think that you need to revisit tip #1 and add that your goals should be realistic, and also more than the minimum. I can write thousands of words a day but that doesn’t mean they will be the words I should write. On the other hand, if I were to set my goal for 500 words a day and then went out for lunch as a reward, not only would I be under-performing, I’d probably be fat!
Have writing rituals. Lots of creative people tell us this. Twyla Tharp, world-renowned choreographer and author of The Creative Habit (which I can and do recommend), says, “It’s vital to establish some rituals – automatic but decisive patterns of behavior – at the beginning of the creative process, when you are most at peril of turning back…Turning something into a ritual eliminates the question, why am I doing this?” She then provides numerous examples of artists’ rituals. Evidently Igor Stravinsky always did the same thing every morning as he entered his studio: He sat down and played a Fugue by Bach. Then he got to work. These days we’re more likely to check email or a Facebook site – but that little ritual can get you into a whole lot of trouble as the act itself begins to consume ever larger portions of your day. I suggest leaving the online rituals until later. Perhaps make them the reward! (see #2 above)

So, those are the three tips for being more prolific in your writing. I better move on and set my goal for the day which will be followed by my reward, but not until I perform my ritual. That ritual is setting my goal for the days and deciding on what kind of a reward I’ll have if I produce. A bit circular, non?

Off to San Francisco tomorrow for a wedding and a bit of a reward for all this writing.

Finding my point of view

Posted on 30 Aug 201130 Aug 2011 by Patricia J. Parsons

“What’s your point of view?’

Whenever you hear that question directed toward you, what do you think? For anyone who isn’t a writer, it’s simple. The question is asking if you have an opinion, a perspective, a personal take on something. When a writer is faced with that question, it takes on a whole new meaning – and it’s something that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately as I consider my next major writing project.

For many years as a non-fiction writer, it was fairly straightforward: my writer’s point of view was my bias. When I wrote my first-ever-published book way back in the dark ages, it was about the ethics and politics of organ transplantation.

My point of view, or my bias, was clear from the outset. The book began with a section called “A Parable.” My story-within-a-story was about a Transplant Surgeon who presents himself to St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter tells the Transplant Surgeon that an unusual situation has developed: God would like a few one-on-one personal words with him before a decision about granting him access to heaven is made. God has a few questions for the Transplant Surgeon.

“Who decides if a person needs an organ?” God says.

“Well, I do,” says the Transplant Surgeon.

“Who decides which person gets the organ when there are not enough to go around?”

“Well, I do.”

“Who decides if someone’s life should be saved with this organ?”

“Well, I do.”

“Who decides when technology has been stretched to its limit?” This is God’s final question.

The Transplant Surgeon is becoming increasingly uncomfortable.

Finally God says, “I am afraid that I am going to have to find another place for you other than Heaven…I just can’t afford the competition.”

…and with that, the author’s point of view is clear and sets the stage for the pages that follow.

It is true that a non-fiction author can try to be objective (that’s the purview of the journalist, I think, although objectivity in reporting these days is a bit difficult to find), but usually there is a purpose to the writing and that purpose as articulated from the outset sets up the bias. If I want to write a story about what happened on September 11, 2001, I have to decide on a “slant.” Will I tell a survivor’s story? A firefighter’s story? A victim’s story? My selection of that viewpoint will dictate the kind of research that I’ll have to do and eventually the bias that the story will hold. But, the story is still circumscribed by the facts – even if I choose which ones I’ll use. The same is not true for fiction.

Fiction writers have a lot more leeway. I don’t have to be reined in by facts when I write fiction. I can choose the ones I want to incorporate and even change ones that need changing to fit the story. There’s something a bit freeing about that, don’t you think? The problem when beginning to tell a story, however, is that a writer has to make a decision about point of view. The decision has to be deliberate, and then the voice has to be consistently used throughout the story if it is to hold any plausibility for the reader.

We all learned about the difference between first and third-person story telling when we were in fourth grade or thereabout. But there are other considerations. Here’s my current dilemma.

I have an idea for my next historical novel. The inspiration came from a picture of an object that I think would be interesting to follow through an historical journey. I could take on the role of narrator myself with an omniscient viewpoint and tell the story through generations. Or I could make it a first-person account; however, since I plan for it to cover several centuries, the first person will have to change from one character to another since people inevitably have to die. Or will it? What about first-person, inanimate-object perspective? Inanimate objects can endure through the ages and we’ve often said, “If only [it] could speak.” Well, why can’t it speak and be that narrator for us?

Obviously, this is not a new idea. Others have done it before. What I’m not entirely sure about, though, is if it works. Can a reader suspend his or her disbelief long enough to really believe that this object is telling a story? Does the inanimate narrator have to break through that fourth wall and speak directly to the reader? If so, is there anything wrong with that?

As you can see, the selection of point of view is an important one. It’s almost as if I can’t even complete the research until I know how my head is viewing the material. If I’m going to be a character (a person) in the story, I’ll have to think about the material in one way. On the other hand, if I’m going to be that object (if anyone asks, I might tell you what the object is), I’ll be thinking about the material I uncover quite differently. It’s time I decided.

Cross-writing, Genres, Writing books, Writing craft

Writing across genres

Posted on 23 Aug 2011 by Patricia J. Parsons

books — So many genres...so little time.

It may come as something of a surprise to students I’ve had over the years – those who have have sat in my classes to learn about communication ethics or strategy – but I began my unexpected academic career as a writing teacher. I never intended to be a university professor.

I had always been interested in teaching and thought that it was probably one of my strengths. I had done it for several years in a previous incarnation – I taught anatomy & physiology, ethics and human sexuality (!) to nursing students before my career evolved into health and medical communication, leading eventually to writing books and teaching in the area of communication (public relations to be specific). But I went to the university initially as a writer who could teach writing.

The first course I taught (before I ever considered teaching full-time) was called “Print Media.” There is no such course with that title any longer, but its descendent “Text-Based Media” comes close. I also taught news and feature writing and persuasive writing after the then-chairman of the department talked me into applying for a full-time job. But I never intended to stay.

That was 23 years ago! So, what’s the lesson here?

For me, it means that our skill sets can cross many disciplines – and in writing can cross different genres. But writing across genres has two different meanings. First, let’s talk about individual writers writing across genres; then we’ll talk about those genres that cross genres themselves.

When I was trying to create copy for my web site, it occurred to me that this was, in fact the hallmark of my writing: I am a bit of a switch-hitter. As I say on my home page…

…Goethe is said to have opined that every author in some way portrays himself [sic] in his works, even if it be against his [sic] will. For someone who writes in a variety of genres, this is either a symptom of some kind of mental confusion – or perhaps the hallmark of an interesting personality. I’d like to think that, in this case, it’s the latter…

The bottom line is that I started my writing career as a medical writer. Skills honed there took me into medical communication which morphed into communication in general – most of my past work has been writing about health and corporate communication. But, I’m a writer. To me that means that I can use my skills to write anything that takes my fancy. I decided to move into creative non-fiction and wrote my memoir, then took my research skills into an area that I love to read – historical fiction.

In my view, writers, like everyone else, have individual strengths – and my strengths are probably not the same as yours. I think it’s important to know what those strengths are and see how you can use them across genres. For example, my meticulous research skills, honed in the areas of non-fiction, have been enormously useful to me in moving into historical fiction. Story-telling is also a strength that many of us have – it’s a skill that is important both to non-fiction (creative or otherwise) as well as to fiction writers.

The second way that you can think about the concept of “writing across genres” is the notion that there are discrete categories of writing, and to create a mash-up, to use the current parlance, is to create a cross-genre genre. Make sense?

Here’s my example: I have a secret – I sometimes read chick lit and I’m not apologizing for it. Since I like a bit of escapist reading from time to time, and only if it’s well-written like some chick lit is, I am also interested in creating some of my own. But I don’t want to be formulaic. So, I’ve taken my interest in travel and travel writing and put it together with my interest in chick lit and I’m writing a travel chick lit book. Is this a cross-genre? Maybe, but who’s to say? Who is the arbiter of what is and is not a genre? And who says that because my book is funny, with a young, modern woman as the protagonist, that it’s chick lit anyway? Maybe it’s just women’s literature – ooh, that sounds a lot better for a university prof-type, doesn’t it?

In any case, cheers to coming up with your own genres and writing whatever moves you.