writing craft – Page 12 – Patricia J. Parsons

Putting pen (or pencil) to paper

Posted on 8 Nov 20118 Nov 2011 by Patricia J. Parsons

Do you ever write with a pen and paper? Hmm? Or are you forever hunched over the computer keyboard like most writers these days? If you only ever write at a computer keyboard, I think you might be missing out. Stay with me for a few moments all you tweeters.

I wrote a guest piece for our students’ new online newsletter Symmetry recently on the topic of creativity and how it can be leveraged in fields other than the traditional “creatives.” Some people think that writing creative pieces needs to be done by putting pen to paper – literally.

Ever since I discovered her work in the late 1980’s, I have considered Natalie Goldberg to be one of my major writing teachers. I’ve never met Natalie Goldberg. My writing is not one bit like Natalie Goldberg’s writing. But her early books on writing practice, most notably Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, were my signposts along the journey toward finding my own voice as a writer. And although I’m seriously dedicated to writing while hunched over a keyboard, Natalie’s approach to teaching writing has often given me pause to consider if there is a difference in the extent to which we might be able to mine our creativity when inputting words to a computer versus letting them flow onto paper through our writing hand.

Natalie’s approach to writing is that it is a ‘practice,’ and that by practicing, we improve our writing. We don’t have to publish everything we write. Writing is often for ourselves only. (To tell you the truth, I often read material that I wish the writer had kept to him or herself!)

I’ve talked about Nataile’s timed writing approach in previous posts, but her ideas bear further reflection. She tells us to just “go!” and “keep your hand moving!” That’s where the pen and paper thing comes in—you can’t do this kind of practice with a computer.

She also tells us to “lose control.” This is easier said than done, but I believe that this is how we mine our personal creativity. As writers, we put pen to paper and if we’re able to lose control and keep the writing hand moving, interesting ideas just seem to flow.

Lee Rourke wrote a terrific piece in The Guardian’s book blog recently. In it he refers to longhand writing as a “secretive pleasure.” He says he “can sit in a corner of a café unnoticed and write to my heart’s content. I’m less conspicuous than the iBook brigade, cluttering up London coffee houses and pubs with their flashy technologies.”

Of course, my personal obsession with writing journals is related to the notion of putting pen to paper. Sometimes it’s just nice to sit in a comfortable chair and think. Then pick up that journal and just write. Okay, I will admit that these days I often pick up my IPad and do this, but to tell you the truth, it’s not the same. I highly recommend a good dose of the Natalie Goldberg approach to writing practice – with that pen firmly planted on a piece of paper that (preferably) is contained in a beautiful notebook.

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.

Ideas generation, Journals, Memoir, Writing craft

Keeping journals

Posted on 18 Aug 201119 Aug 2011 by Patricia J. Parsons

Plan B journal — What kind of book notes & ideas reside in this journal? Hmm...

Do you keep a journal? If you’re a writer, perhaps you ought to consider it. There is hardly a teacher of writing craft around who doesn’t encourage students to keep journals. It is said that, “Journals have been the secret weapon for writers from Allen Ginsburg to Virginia Woolf to Victor Hugo.” So, there are aspects of a writer’s journal that might bear discussion.

First, let me edit my original question to make it more specific to me and my own backstory. Do you keep journals? That “s” at the end of the word is key for me since I keep multiple journals. In fact, I’m a tad addicted to the notion of journals – and I have journals that are pen and paper ones, as well as journals that reside on my computer. As you can see, I’m not a purist either way.

Virginia Woolf is quoted as having said, “The habit of writing for my eye only is good practice,” and that sums up the first reason for keeping a journal: it gives you a chance to work on your writing without the self-consciousness of knowing it will be read by others. Although this might, at first glance, seem like that cathartic kind of journaling that has become the ubiquitous habit of the navel-gazers among us, it’s really more than that. This kind of journaling is really an exercise that lets you try out different turns of phrase, that lets your mind wander to ideas deeply buried in your sub-conscious (see the comments on last week’s discussion), and that is a safe place for writing that you have no intention of showing anyone else. And this kind of journaling can be semi-structured.

Writer and teacher Natalie Goldberg’s approach to journaling is one that I’ve come back to year after year. In her first writing book (which I highly recommend) Writing Down the Bones (originally published in 1986 and re-released in 2010), she suggests that you take pen to paper – something that she’s adamant about – and place your pen on the paper, never lifting it for your ten-minute writing practice each day. Her rule is this: keep your hand moving. Begin with the words “I remember…” or even “I don’t remember…” (She has other suggestions but you’ll have to read her book to get those ones); and never stop or lift the pen as it moves across the page. Every time you get stuck, write down “I remember…” again and keep going for the full ten minutes. It’s a very liberating process.

There are other reasons other than practice, though, for keeping journals. One of my primary reasons is so that I have places to keep ideas that come to me. These ideas can be thoughts, clippings, photos etc. But I also have general idea journals and a special journal for every project I’m working on. Okay, I do have lots of journals, but I’d wager a guess that I’m not the only one!

One of the journals I kept for many years was a bit like a diary – but it focused
on only one of the general kinds of experiences in my life. It chronicled my experience as a ballet mom. That journal became the basis for my memoir Another Pointe of View: The Life and Times of a Ballet Mom. I was able to capture detailed memories that would have faded into themists of my mind, and that would have been altered by subsequent experiences. That journal was critical to my ability to write a story that might resonate with other mothers of gifted children.

Right now, I have so many journals on the go. I have two that hold notes on two separate book projects. I have one that is a kind of general catch-all for ideas. I have a travel journal (this is a new idea – it’s time to capture details of our travels). I have one that keeps notes about a book that my husband and I will write in our retirement to add to the four that we wrote some years ago. I have two new ones that have not found their purpose yet, but they will. And I have one for this blog. I also have two computer-based journals and one on my iPad.

The very best part of my journals, though, is when I look into one of them and what I read becomes part of something larger – something that I’ll write that
someone else might read and enjoy – or at least learn from.