- Sure, it's very satisfying to finish something. Take a couple of days and be happy, or happyish.
- But—then you have to get to work to get your project published.
- And then you start on a new project.
- Writing is a way for me to understand the complicated world I have been born into….
- Sometimes! But it's changed over the years.
- I usually listen to the Clash before starting work....
- Well, it's capitalism.
- Percival Everett once told me that "the writer's true self will always elbow its way onto the page."
- For most of us, our fears are very deep and usually unspoken.
- We are all complicated!
- You can just skip a space, and then the narrator can begin the next section, "Months later...."
- The best thing about teaching CW is working with energetic young people....
- Stories can come from everywhere, and do.
- Once a piece gets published, it's pretty much done. But until it's published, feel free to go back and back again, if you want, until you are truly satisfied....
- Many writers have a tendency to overwrite the ending. Just cutting off the last couple of paragraphs or so, or even the last words, can be an easy fix to make the story better.
- There are no definitive endings in nature. Abrupt is often better...?
- In a short story, you don't want to have very many characters. There’s not enough room for them!
- I know my first drafts are flawed. I know that every text is flawed. So—of course, I've written a flawed text.
- Then I revise—and I fix the flaws.
- My advice—accept the flaws and move on and finish. Then fix the flaws.
- Of course, I grew up in the 1970s, and these things were little understood....
- The more you write, the better you get. It really is a learning process....
- Paragraphs!
- You probably want to leave with the impression that the life of the protagonist is....going on....but it's going on differently because of what happened in the story....
- Yes. Keep moving forward. Finish the story.
- Then—abandon it, or revise it. But finish it.
- Please don't ever delete your work!!!!!!!! You might want those words later. THEY ARE PRECIOUS.
- Well...it took me 45 years to finish writing my first book. But—from first word to final draft? About three years.
- The idea what to write—well, I have hundreds of ideas. I'll never write them all. But I chose the one that spoke to my heart.
- Make significant changes. Look deep into your story and your poems. Elevate them.
- Just making grammar/spelling/punctuation changes are not enough....
- For me, the crisis we're living through is a spur to get going and keep going. "I will not be defeated," etc.
- Try taking your response—anger, sadness, whatever it is you're feeling—and put it in your writing. Engage with your environment.
- "Anger can be power."
- Pandemic is putting the kibosh to FTF networking.
- Keep writing. Keep learning. Support other writers. Be a Literary Citizen.
- Make everything better.....
- There are many ways of telling stories....
- NO!!!!!!!!!
- Again, I grew up in the 70s. So, yes. And there are stories about that.
- America has always been a tense and violent place.
- You have heroic rescuers! Anguished loved ones! And the tick-tock final breaths of the unfortunate trapped human....
- Yes, a contemporary rebooted version of Ace in the Hole would probably add more moral complexities....
- It would be a heartwarming human struggle which would take our media minds off the grim pandemic/political news.
- People would go crazy for this!
- (Let's pool our money and acquire the rights....?)
- A novel? One....
- Stories? Maybe eight or ten....
- I think he was going for bleakness—the (apparent) emptiness and desolation of the desert….
- But my favorite is--The Big Lebowski!
- Best movie about journalism? His Girl Friday, with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. (Streaming on Amazon).
- Every little town had a least one newspaper.
- All kinds of madnesses are out there....
- We get to talk about it next week!
All of the answers, none of the questions....
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All of the answers, none of the questions....
As usual, all answers, no questions....
Here are some of my answers to written questions from students this past week….
(Yes, as always--just the answers—no questions).
In a face-to-face class I get to talk to the Young Scholars about writing and what-all—but!—now that we’re all on Pandemic Zoom, basic interaction is more limited. So I have the students post written questions about writing or about the readings. Here are some of my answers from this week…. (Yes, just the answers—no questions).
I often have students post written questions about the readings or the class or about writing in general. I did that this week, and the answers are below. Just the answers—not the questions. (I didn’t ask the students for permission to use their questions!) If you like questions so much, you can make up your own questions….
Sometime c. 1980 I turned in an assignment for a journalism class I was taking at the University of Texas. My professor was the great Red Gibson, a truly wonderful teacher. The class was Editing and Layout, and we had to submit several pages of annotated headlines—the headlines literally cut from various newspapers and pasted onto heavy paper, and then annotated by hand, commenting on font, size, how they were written. Gibson looked skeptically at my submission. He said, “You know, in twenty years you’ll be the only person who can read this.” I said, “Yeah….” “The more you write, the more it’ll look like you,” Gibson said. “Right now it looks like a dog wrote it.” Well, Gibson was right. Forty years later I'm pretty much the only person who can (easily) read my handwriting. Even thirty years later, in the early days of my teaching career, students were complaining about my handwriting. I mean—yeah—it’s all kinds of slurred-up. But, so what? So it’s slurred. I see it as a big part of who I am, like having blue eyes or being bald. I like it. It’s me. Still, I’m aware of the hard-to-read slurringness. I type almost all my comments on student work. Almost. Because sometimes, when pressed for time, I just—write…. And occasionally some people get pissed. Here’s a comment from my evals: It’s not fair that we have to type and he just writes and nobody can read it and another He expects us to read his illegible handwriting So…a few years ago, when I was teaching in Kansas, a couple of students made snarky rude comments about my handwriting. My feelings were hurt. But then I had a moment of inspiration—I thought, I'll prank those youngsters and digitize that thing! Ha! And I made my own font--LMW Olblique. Still, I got a nice font out of it....
It's January. Been January for 31 days now. I'm trying to do things....
I've obviously been spending more time on the NORMAL SCHOOL novel/blog/website than I have on this--my rightful and beloved blog. But I've been doing regular writings and editings--I've started a new book--and I've been crazy busy with teaching. Go check out NORMAL SCHOOL, if you have the time. And then buy some books...and then come back and see what else I'm up to....
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Lowell Mick White
Author of the novels Normal School and Burnt House and Professed and That Demon Life and the story collections Long Time Ago Good and The Messes We Make of Our Lives. Categories
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