The Craft and the Heart of Writing
In three days I'm about to start teaching a whole new crop of high school kids the craft of writing. This will be around the twentieth time. 20 X 25... that's 500 students. That's a humbling thought because every time prior to meeting my new students, I feel that I'm not qualified to teach them. I do write and I have been published professionally (as an educator) and as a freelancer in real magazines and periodicals, but -- lest it sounds like I'm exaggerating -- my total published pieces are around 10. Maybe a dozen but definitely not twenty.
When I was a kid I wanted to be a writer. I read this book from Scholastic Press (I think): The Mystery of the White Oak. Not a famous book by any stretch. I'm sure it's been long out of print. Years ago, I Googled it. It took me a lot of fancy Boolean search logic before I finally found it.
Anyhow, it was the first chapter book I read if you don't include Bobby Coon by Thorton Burgess. Interesting story on that book is that my godparents bought me a large, expensive picture book for Christmas when I was about six. We lived in Montreal at the time and the book was in French. As a six-year-old, I didn't have much tact. I said, "This book is in French. I don't read French." My parents were horrified; my godparents graciously took back the book and, several weeks later, came to the house and presented me with Bobby Coon (written in English).
The first few chapter books I read as a child boggled my mind. I was blown away at the fact that writers could create imaginary worlds with imaginary people that behaved so realistically. I felt their joy and pain and died small deaths each time I finished a book, realizing that that world which had invaded my imagination wasn't "real".
A decade or so later, I learned that Samuel Taylor Coleridge calls this the willing suspension of disbelief.
_____________________________
When I studied literature at university, many of my profs -- by sheer exclusion because it was beneath them to spend time talking about best sellers -- made a clear distinction between literature and pulp fiction. I've wrestled with the distinction ever since. I can read a book by Robert Ludlum, for example, and, five years later, I can pick it up and wonder (several pages in) Have I read this book? I think on the next page, bad guys are going to come over the bluff and kill this woman. Yup. I've definitely maybe read this book.
Okay, I am getting older and that might account for my forgetting, but the point is there are some writers who have mastered the craft of writing, who make a truckload of money and whose work is very forgettable. But here's the thing. I love it when I'm reading that kind of fiction and there's a character or a passage or a plot event that's truly moving. It's written from the heart.
__________________________________
I've just read a novel, The Between Years, written by Derek Clendening, a former student of mine. I went to a book signing at Chapters and bought his novel. I couldn't stay long because Doris, my wife, was waiting for me at Starbucks and because, well, I was so proud of Derek that I was afraid I was going to cry. Derek, in my humble opinion, is well on his way to mastering the craft of writing. His plot clips along, his characters are believable and he taps into some pretty universal stuff -- namely the loss of a child. To be objective and fair, it's uneven and some parts don't work as well as others. And for Derek's next novel I hope he spends the $300 and hires a professional proofreader/editor. It'll put the shine on his work that it deserves! Heck, he can buy me a Starbuck's coffee and I'll proofread it for him!
Having said all that, I think Derek has a career ahead of him in writing. I can't wait to read his next book. He's going to work his craft, his imagination is first rate and he's just the kind of thoughtful young man whose books people are going to want to read. And I can't wait for him to come in and speak to my English Writer's Craft class.
Speaking of my writing class, several years ago my students were trashing what I call Hallmark writing. Yes, okay, it's shmaltzy, but you try writing it and making a career out of it if it's so easy! It reminds me of an interview I heard with Paul Simon a few years ago. His parents were classical musicians and they were trashing the 3-chord pop music of the 5o's. Paul Simon made the point that if it's so easy to write a 3-chord, #1 selling pop song then why doesn't everyone do it? The answer is that it takes real craft/talent to pull it off.
But -- although I appreciate, enjoy and marvel at craft -- it's the heart-moments in writing (or any art for that matter) that really move me. I know Derek. I know the small town he grew up in; I worked there for twenty years. I know the haunts, I know the geography, I know the native centre, I know the Bingo halls and I know the powerful Niagara River that claimed the lives of 2 young people whom I taught in the 80's and 90's. It's the parts in his novel where I suspect that Derek was writing from a heart of personal experience and knowledge -- both pain and joy -- that made me think, Yes, this is what good writing is all about! The craft is necessary, but the heart -- when you can tap into that deep current of real emotional, universal experience -- is what makes readers truly and willingly suspend their disbelief.
It's the heart-moments when you're so moved by a film or a song or a book that make you want to share it. It's why craft can happen for the most part in solitude and why art has to be shared; true art happens best in community.
But that's a topic for a whole new post in which -- if I get around to it -- I'll blog about reading clubs among other ramblings. In the meantime, check this out:
http://castroller.com/podcasts/CbcRadioVinyl/2134386-VC%20January%2022nd,%202011%20Book%20Club
When I was a kid I wanted to be a writer. I read this book from Scholastic Press (I think): The Mystery of the White Oak. Not a famous book by any stretch. I'm sure it's been long out of print. Years ago, I Googled it. It took me a lot of fancy Boolean search logic before I finally found it.
Anyhow, it was the first chapter book I read if you don't include Bobby Coon by Thorton Burgess. Interesting story on that book is that my godparents bought me a large, expensive picture book for Christmas when I was about six. We lived in Montreal at the time and the book was in French. As a six-year-old, I didn't have much tact. I said, "This book is in French. I don't read French." My parents were horrified; my godparents graciously took back the book and, several weeks later, came to the house and presented me with Bobby Coon (written in English).
The first few chapter books I read as a child boggled my mind. I was blown away at the fact that writers could create imaginary worlds with imaginary people that behaved so realistically. I felt their joy and pain and died small deaths each time I finished a book, realizing that that world which had invaded my imagination wasn't "real".
A decade or so later, I learned that Samuel Taylor Coleridge calls this the willing suspension of disbelief.
_____________________________
When I studied literature at university, many of my profs -- by sheer exclusion because it was beneath them to spend time talking about best sellers -- made a clear distinction between literature and pulp fiction. I've wrestled with the distinction ever since. I can read a book by Robert Ludlum, for example, and, five years later, I can pick it up and wonder (several pages in) Have I read this book? I think on the next page, bad guys are going to come over the bluff and kill this woman. Yup. I've definitely maybe read this book.
Okay, I am getting older and that might account for my forgetting, but the point is there are some writers who have mastered the craft of writing, who make a truckload of money and whose work is very forgettable. But here's the thing. I love it when I'm reading that kind of fiction and there's a character or a passage or a plot event that's truly moving. It's written from the heart.
__________________________________
I've just read a novel, The Between Years, written by Derek Clendening, a former student of mine. I went to a book signing at Chapters and bought his novel. I couldn't stay long because Doris, my wife, was waiting for me at Starbucks and because, well, I was so proud of Derek that I was afraid I was going to cry. Derek, in my humble opinion, is well on his way to mastering the craft of writing. His plot clips along, his characters are believable and he taps into some pretty universal stuff -- namely the loss of a child. To be objective and fair, it's uneven and some parts don't work as well as others. And for Derek's next novel I hope he spends the $300 and hires a professional proofreader/editor. It'll put the shine on his work that it deserves! Heck, he can buy me a Starbuck's coffee and I'll proofread it for him!
Having said all that, I think Derek has a career ahead of him in writing. I can't wait to read his next book. He's going to work his craft, his imagination is first rate and he's just the kind of thoughtful young man whose books people are going to want to read. And I can't wait for him to come in and speak to my English Writer's Craft class.
Speaking of my writing class, several years ago my students were trashing what I call Hallmark writing. Yes, okay, it's shmaltzy, but you try writing it and making a career out of it if it's so easy! It reminds me of an interview I heard with Paul Simon a few years ago. His parents were classical musicians and they were trashing the 3-chord pop music of the 5o's. Paul Simon made the point that if it's so easy to write a 3-chord, #1 selling pop song then why doesn't everyone do it? The answer is that it takes real craft/talent to pull it off.
But -- although I appreciate, enjoy and marvel at craft -- it's the heart-moments in writing (or any art for that matter) that really move me. I know Derek. I know the small town he grew up in; I worked there for twenty years. I know the haunts, I know the geography, I know the native centre, I know the Bingo halls and I know the powerful Niagara River that claimed the lives of 2 young people whom I taught in the 80's and 90's. It's the parts in his novel where I suspect that Derek was writing from a heart of personal experience and knowledge -- both pain and joy -- that made me think, Yes, this is what good writing is all about! The craft is necessary, but the heart -- when you can tap into that deep current of real emotional, universal experience -- is what makes readers truly and willingly suspend their disbelief.
It's the heart-moments when you're so moved by a film or a song or a book that make you want to share it. It's why craft can happen for the most part in solitude and why art has to be shared; true art happens best in community.
But that's a topic for a whole new post in which -- if I get around to it -- I'll blog about reading clubs among other ramblings. In the meantime, check this out:
http://castroller.com/podcasts/CbcRadioVinyl/2134386-VC%20January%2022nd,%202011%20Book%20Club
Talking about songs that get the heart of things.
ReplyDeleteListen to Regina Spektor's, "Laughing With"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pxRXP3w-sQ