Whether you're dreaming of writing the great American novel or you've just got a few poems you're trying to publish, you'd be surprised at the wealth of options available to help you improve and mature as a writer. This week we'll take a look at some ways to hone your craft with a focus on the workshop and creative writing programs. Next week we'll take a look at getting your work published.
The Importance of the Workshop
If you've only been honing your craft with your significant other, and maybe a few questionable critics on a message board, you should consider joining a workshop: a small group of writers, usually led by an instructor, who share and critique each other's work. Workshops have become the backbone of writing instruction in this country, and the format offers a lot of advantages.
The structure of a workshop is simple: 1) participants bring in work for review; 2) each participant reads and critiques it; and 3) the group discusses the work as a whole. This provides you with a lot of differing opinions on your work and exposes you to the struggles and successes of other aspiring writers. You'll learn what works (and doesn't work) for you, but you'll also glean what works (and doesn't work) for others. Finally, a workshop allows you to develop relationships with other writers: your classmates might be your doorway into a local poetry community and could turn into your most trusted readers.
What to Expect in a Workshop
Having your writing scrutinized by a dozen people is stressful, and everyone secretly hopes they'll be told to dust off some mantle space for a Nobel Prize. But the truth is, sterling workshops rarely happen. The nature of a workshop is to seek out mistakes so it's important to try to lower your expectations, distance yourself from your work as much as possible and be prepared for criticism. It should be constructive, but it isn't always--your classmates aren't just learning to write, they're learning to critique.
Be prepared to screw up. Early on in graduate school, a classmate announced (with a little too much glee) that I'd committed the "pathetic fallacy." I was young, I wanted to be taken seriously, and I was petrified by this. I'd made, not just a fallacy, but a pathetic one, and I seemed to be the only one in class who had no idea what that meant. The instructor explained that the pathetic fallacy is a term for "assigning human feelings to inanimate objects," and didn't necessarily reflect my level of effort. The key word there being necessarily--I remember that poem was kind of a dud.
Finally, be prepared to deal with some egos. You might see crying, screaming, or see someone storm out of class; I went to school with someone who quoted French poets in French and wouldn't translate; you'll always find people chirping about their accomplishments. During my first workshop--when my writing meant the world to me and I had no idea what I was doing--the girl beside me asked if I'd been published before she even introduced herself. That's it, I thought, I'm totally unqualified for this. I later learned that a friend of her mother's made her "publications" on Print Shop. Geesh. Just remember: the more you can roll with all this, the better a workshop will go for you.
Local Workshop Opportunities
Your local universities or community colleges probably offer workshops (look for introductory creative writing classes), and you can probably find one at an arts/writer's center in your neighborhood. You might even find one meeting at your local coffee shop.
Writer's Conferences
If you're willing to shell out some money, you could spend a couple of weeks at a writers conference. They're sort of like summer camps for adults, wherein you'll be immersed in workshops, readings and lectures on writing. They even offer work-study opportunities for less-established writers. Look into The Breadloaf Writers Conference near Middlebury, Vermont and the Sewanee Writers Conference at the University of the South in Tennessee.
Creative Writing Programs
If you're looking to make a more serious run at writing, you should consider applying to Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) programs. Most are two year programs (though some one year programs are out there). Workshops form the backbone of the curriculum, but most schools also require you to take literature courses related to your genre, the idea being that a strong literary background helps make a good writer.
Where should I apply?
Look carefully at schools before applying, and try to find some that suit your goals. The University of Iowa hosted the first writing program, and it remains one of the most renowned, but it also had a reputation for fostering competitiveness that can overwhelm a writer. Columbia University has a terrific faculty, but I've heard that financial assistance is harder to come by than at other schools. Do your research and pick schools that suit you. If there are contemporary writers you admire, you should look to see if (and where) they're teaching. Be sure to check on their accessibility. How many classes do they teach each year? Are you guaranteed a spot in their class?
A few programs allow you to work on your degree from home. The Warren Wilson program, run out of Warren Wilson College in Asheville North Carolina, is highly regarded and only requires you to be on campus for a short period of time.
How much does this cost?
Since poets aren't expected to make money with their degree, programs are cognizant of ways to alleviate costs. A school usually offers a combination of fellowships and teaching assistantships--wherein you teach introductory writing or composition classes. In my experience, the programs come close to paying for themselves.
Do I have to be published to get in?
Even the top MFA programs accept unpublished or scarcely published students--judgment is primarily based on the quality of work submitted. That said, being published helps. Check in next week and we'll talk about how to start publishing.
Come back every Sunday for more from John Lundberg.
I, personally, am an advertising creative and writer at a small agency in Florida. Not that this represents my future plans, but lots of people have said that advertising is almost like an artist's work study program, or a poor man's MFA. We'll see if i ever decide to find out if that's the case.
I wonder how many writers understand that referance?
Malcolm
you want to dismiss the question; but it shows that the problem is writing's eclipse as a medium- not a lack of talent among writers. america has always suspected the whole idea of artistic genius anyway, much prefering more democratic endeavors susceptible to scores, points and other objective measurement.
and why not? nothing has to be represented or symbolized any more. so i don't think anybody in any workshop is going to outsell the next diet doctor; but it won't be because of deficient writing skills that he/she doesn't do so.
everybody acquiesces to the el dorado illusion that there is this big vast kingdom called "literature". actually it would be helpful to most creative writers to clarify in their own minds what, in an objective way, they are actually doing relative to other human beings and their cultures. for instance, the reason why you can't write successfully is not because you are compared unfavorably to james joyce. it is because your potential readers down at the mall are comparing both you and james joyce unfavorably to glenn beck; and, moreover, are using criteria that are absolutely unknown within the dream kingdom of literature, criteria that are based in their own lives without relationship to any literary criticism of any kind. a writing workshop is about as representative of the general public as a ballet troupe.
i know workshops go far beyond critical schools and studies into targeting and marketing. the problem is no one is there to target and market. everyone is there to express themselves and tell their story- except glenn beck. this is why writers always talk about what they've published instead of how much they've made, except glenn beck.
I write because I CAN. I'm a tech nerd, and I do freelance writing on the side because I earn an extra $5-10k a year and I like seeing my name on books and magazines when I go into Borders.
My advice to aspiring writers?
1) Cost of entry: learn to write well. (duh!) What I mean is, learn to care about _every_ _single_ _word_ - how it looks & 'sounds', whether it fits with its neighbors, whether it's precisely what you want to say. Precision is far more important than creativity. Your writing skills can certainly improve over time, but you have to absolutely positively _love_ that core self-edit process.
2) Steal from good writers. When I write a short story I listen for John Updike's voice in my head. Travel: Bill Bryson.
Military History: John Keegan. You don't need a muse, you just need good templates.
3) Peer review. Find a mentor, a writing group, or some other mechanism that regularly puts your work in front of other people and allows them to tell you what's wrong with it. Editors simply saying 'no' to your query don't count.
4) do it part-time and prove you can sell something... No reason to take a 'plunge'. Take that reliable dayjob paycheck and write on the weekends. (Someday when I get that 6-figure book deal or start selling articles to New Yorker, I'll consider quitting. But until then it's strictly a risk-free side business...)
5) Set honest goals and never be ashamed of them. Getting published means I'm not as big a loser as my ex-girlfriend thinks I am. That simple motivation drives me. What do you want out of it? ...money? fame? prestige? Don't feel bad if you don't have some metaphysical desire to write. I don't and I'm not one ounce less legit than the natural born-talents, or the 'write every day'/'I have to' people.
Writing talent is innate. You can read all the books, take all the courses, and attend all the workshops you want, but the only way you become a writer is by WRITING.
I do well as a freelance writer but yes, it's an extremely hard life. I put in more work hours now than I ever did in a staff job, with tenfold the amount of stress. I tell people to think 2 and 3 times before taking the plunge, and don't expect to make any real money for the first 2 years. I still miss the social atmosphere, the health insurance, the security of a regular check. Right now, freelancing works for me and my lifestyle. But once my teenager enters college in a couple of years, I just may consider staff again. But then I probably won't get hired because I'll be considered too old!
"You must write every single day of your life.
"You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next.
"You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads.
"I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime.
"I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you.
"May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories - science fiction or otherwise.
"Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world. --Ray Bradbury
I might add that, while attending writing focus groups or workshops, one might want to consider the source of critiques. Are the attendees would-be's, or already-are's? Also, are the critiques from writers within the same genre? For example, is a children's picture book writer holding court on an adult literary piece? The need for good writing may be similar, but the story and character development might be quite different from one genre to the next.
Consider the source and respond accordingly.
I'd also like to echo my colleagues here that for many, writing is a lonely profession and not for the faint of heart.
Good luck to us all as we pursue our passions.
Ani
It offers a lot of freedom but requires more hard work than you probably think. Editors are very picky about what goes into their magazines, and you might work on a story idea for several hours, days or weeks, only to have five different publications tell you "no." (Then you'll spend more time tweaking the idea five different ways to get them to reconsider it, and they all might still say "no.")
Also, getting paid takes a while, sometimes months. This is in marked contrast to working in an office, where, if your paycheck is even a day late, corporate will move heaven and earth to cut you a check.
While pondering the life of a freelance writer, I imagined all the time off I could enjoy. But as a freelancer knows, any time you take off is time you are not earning money. And if you do go on vacation, you'll feel compelled to turn the trip into a sellable article, which could mean you spend part of the vacation serving the article but not necessarily doing what you wanted (like spending some much-needed time relaxing on a deck chair—generally an activity very uninteresting to read about).
My advice to anyone who wants to be a freelance writer is to make sure you have three qualities in spades:
1) the ability to self-motivate
2) a thick skin for all the "no"s you'll hear
3) a ton of creativity and passion
Finally, only take workshops and classes that require you to produce material. Any other courses are a waste of time. The question you have to ask yourself is this: Do you want to talk about being a writer, or do you want to write?
Good luck to all those who wish to do this for a living.
Then, the poets began to arrive. I don't like poetry, I don't "get" poetry, and I really cannot critique poetry.
Before too long, we were overrun by poets, at which point I quit attending. Ah, well, it was fun while it lasted.
Why in God's name I'd want to sit in a room and have a manuscript picked apart by wanna-be's is a mystery to me. The only opinions that matter are 1) your own, and 2) your editor's.
If you can't hear what's wrong in your own writing you will never be a writer. And I'm sorry, but I don't think anyone can teach you to hear in that way.
The guy above who said it's innate, not taught, is right. And wanna-be's should think a little more seriously about whether they want this life. No employer health plan, no office to go to, no one to set your hours, no idea in hell what you'll earn in a given year -- if anything -- no unemployment benefits, no pension, no co-workers to hang out with. Great for me. Probably not for you.
Making a living at it is never guaranteed but I think you have to enjoy the process whether you get published or not. I found a very good agent at a writers conference I attended but you have to bring the goods and have some luck.