writing resources – Patricia J. Parsons

Anyone who knows me knows that I was an accidental academic. When I took my first part-time university teaching position so many years ago, I had no intention of making it permanent. I didn’t see myself starting off as a lowly assistant professor making my way up the academic ladder to associate professor and finally the ultimate academic goal: Full Professor. But that’s what happened. You know the old saying… “If you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans…” Well, God must be laughing. Anyway, that happened, but that part of my life is also over. And I find myself back where it all began: teaching writing.

Yes, that first course I taught all those years ago was a writing course. You see, I had already begun to carve out a path for myself as a writer. I had published numerous magazine articles mostly in my specialty area of health and medicine, and I had also already published my first book – also in my specialty area. So, teaching writing seemed natural to me. And it still does. However, my venue has changed.

This past year I finally pulled together thirty years of writing and publishing experience to share it with the world. I thought I’d be able to be a mentor to newbie writers just starting out. But something happened.

In the intervening years between when I first established myself as a writer, and today, the writing and publishing industry has undergone nothing short of a transformation. Everyone can be published today. No one seems to need a publisher. Or even an editor. And so many writers are part of an online writing community that oozes self-congratulation and disingenuous positivity about everyone’s writing – all because you never know what someone else might say about your writing. You pat my back and I’ll pat yours, or something like that.

The upshot of this whole project was a book that seeks not only to provide a bit of mentoring to new writers but also to provide a foundation in reality and to disabuse writers these days of some of the myths about fame and fortune as a writer. The book is Permission to Write: How to Write a Book and Other Myths from the Real World of Writing and Publishing. I’ve also decided to share additional materials through the medium of video.

Thus, I’ve begun a 10-part series to accompany the book. The first episode “Want to be a rich and famous writer? Don’t give up your day job” is already up and running.

Today episode number two launches: “Don’t write that book! Or at least don’t publish it.”

So you can see that I don’t necessarily paint a rosy picture for wannabe writers. However, serious wannabe writers will get through them and still want to write that book. Those are the writers I aim to help.

The videos are posted on the Moonlight Press YouTube channel. Let your friends who “wanna write a book” know.

The rare book library at the University of Toronto is open to the public.

This past weekend I found myself roaming the spaces inside the rare book library at the University of Toronto and thinking about novelist Rita Mae Brown when she wrote: “When I got my library card, that’s when my life began.” I suspect I could have said the same thing. I have always loved a library, and this visit brought back a flood of memories, and reminded me about what a real, book-filled library can mean to writers.

When I was 16 years old I started my first part-time job. I was paid 80 cents an hour to work ten hours a week in the local children’s library. A writer and book lover even then, I was elated not only at the extra $8.00 I had to spend (or save if I was feeling virtuous), but most especially because I could spend those hours among the stacks, re-shelving books and helping kids find that perfect read. The next year I started university and got another library job; this one was completely devoted to stacking books among the very many, multi-tiered spaces that constituted the main library at my university. I was still delighted to breathe in that unmistakable smell of books. I loved it until I could no longer afford the time away from my studies and that was that.

Years later I found myself toiling as a university professor; again the library became an important refuge for both work and for research. But the end was drawing nigh. Online resources became so much more convenient, saving me both time and effort thus permitting me to accomplish so much more. The digital book became a god-send, although I thought that I’d probably not go that way for my own leisure reading. I was wrong.

Today I cannot imagine not carrying my library around with me on a mini-tablet. I cannot imagine not being able to highlight with a click of a finger-tip, or to make a note that will immediately be filed in order. I cannot imagine a student today wanting to lug around heavy books. But none of this means that I like a real, book-filled library with a real, living, breathing librarian any less, nor does it mean that the library is any less important to culture in general and to writers in particular.

So what does this real library offer today’s digitally-savvy writer? Here’s what it means to this writer.

How could you not be inspired by such books as an original Chaucer?? You have to go to a library to find these gems.

“I ransack public libraries, and find them full of sunken treasure.” So said Virginia Woolf, and so do I. Libraries are treasure troves of writing ideas. You can go into a library without a single notion of what to write, and come out with a journal full of ideas. Although free roaming can be inspiring, if you have a general area of interest you can go to that section of the library and begin scanning book titles. Or, what’s even more fun, you can randomly select a few books from the stacks, find a comfortable place to curl up with them (libraries are full of these areas) and begin to explore between the covers.
“A library is the delivery room for the birth of ideas, a place where history comes to life. “ I like to think that Norman Cousins was echoing my own notion that when you have an idea for a piece of writing, but are not entirely sure how to get it from the beginning germ of an idea to a fully finished piece, you go to the library and allow that idea to gestate and elaborate. I begin by searching for a specific book about the topic area. For example when I started writing about Edgar Allan Poe in In the Shadow of the Raven and I had an idea about the female heroine, I went into the university library and searched for a book about 19^th century women. I found a wonderful and very old book that was just the inspiration I needed to get into the character. Then all you have to do is scan the shelves near to your first book to see related but increasingly divergent topics. Just get to know the cataloguing system in the library of your choice. Often public libraries use the Dewey Decimal System, while university libraries use the Library of Congress System. And yes, you can go into a university library to peruse the books even if you can’t take them home.
“Google can bring you back 100,000 answers, a librarian can bring you back the right one.” Neil Gaiman hit the nail on the head with this one. Librarians are amazing professionals. I have never met a single one who wasn’t delighted to help me find that exact resources for me. That’s because finding materials is what they do and they do it very well. Start with Google of course, but get that one crucial piece of information from a real person. The American Library Association put it this way: “When you absolutely positively have to know, ask a librarian.”

Libraries can be magical places for writers. You can have your coffee shop writing sessions or your marathon computer stints, but I’d recommend trying a library appointment with yourself.

I’ll let Frank Zappa have the last word: “If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.”

Tag: writing resources

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