My daughter Sarah as soon as advised me, “You may clear up any drawback if you happen to make a chart.”
I’ve examined that declare a number of instances. I’ve been testing it currently as I work on an e-book challenge on the necessities of fine writing. What is nice writing? How do writers obtain it? I hope to supply no matter knowledge I’ll have gained throughout my twenty-five years of instructing faculty writing.
To assist me develop the challenge, I’m delving into what has already been written on the topic. I’ve gone to my bookshelves to seek out the books on writing on which I’ve relied over time, and I’ve requested individuals to call the books that come to thoughts as regards to good writing.
My objective is to create a chart that identifies what these books have in frequent. What do all of their writers agree on about what constitutes good writing? My chart would possibly find yourself trying like a multi-circled Venn diagram that exhibits the overlap among the many hottest books on writing and divulges what all or most of them have in frequent.
I’ve been re-reading books reminiscent of Strunk and White’s The Components of Type, Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, Anne Lamott’s Chook by Chook, Stephen King’s On Writing, William Zinsser’s On Writing Nicely, and Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life.
I have to pause for a second on Annie Dillard’s e-book. Whereas re-reading The Writing Life, I used to be halted by one in all her observations in regards to the writing course of. It led me to a choice that I didn’t suppose I’d make.
Whereas addressing how writing occurs, Dillard articulates a preferred debate amongst writers. Ought to one write slowly and edit as one writes? Or ought to one write rapidly, aiming for amount, and edit later?
Dillard writes:
The rationale to good a bit of prose because it progresses—to safe every sentence earlier than constructing on it—is that authentic writing fashions a type.
So, writing slowly and painstakingly—modifying, revising, and growing as we go—permits us to construct upon the shape that we’ve established from the primary line we write. It’s a disciplined manner of writing. This has been my apply for many of my writing life. It has reaped no matter successes I’ve loved.
Then Dillard writes:
The rationale to not good a piece because it progresses is that, concomitantly, authentic work fashions a type the true form of which it discovers solely because it proceeds, so the early strokes are ineffective, nevertheless effective their sheen.
So, pushing oneself to maintain writing with out stopping to edit and revise permits the shape to emerge because the writing proceeds—the shape, or the “true form,” as Dillard describes it.
It’s a way that was first outlined by Coleridge and the Romantics as a pure or natural manner of writing. By this methodology, the writing itself and the topic of the writing contribute to figuring out the shape. The author writes and retains writing to find what emerges on the web page. This can be a apply I adopted for six weeks final winter as an experiment. Whereas it felt unusual and sometimes pressured, I used to be not disenchanted by the outcomes.
Writer Jami Attenberg’s weekly “Craft Speak” e-mail arrived in my inbox final week. It jogs my memory that her yearly initiative #1000WordsofSummer will start on June 1. Attenberg conceived this occasion to assist writers jumpstart writing initiatives or to beat author’s block. Fairly merely, to take part in 1000 Phrases of Summer season, one commits to writing 1000 phrases per day on daily basis for 2 weeks.
On the finish of that point, if one has been profitable in writing the prescribed variety of phrases every day, one has 14,000 phrases of fabric—a part of a book-length manuscript, maybe, or tough drafts of quite a lot of tales or essays.
I’m usually not a joiner. And I’m at all times cautious of “free” provides that I believe will result in my being requested to spend some cash after I’ve develop into emotionally invested in them. (Not that I begrudge Jami Attenberg eager to earn a living. Writing is her sole supply of revenue, and I applaud and admire her for her skill to help herself along with her novels and craft books.)
However I’m going to take part within the 1000 Phrases of Summer season occasion. I’m registered for the Zoom kickoff that may happen tomorrow morning. I really feel foolish and dumb, and I’m nearly positive that I’ll disappoint myself, however I’m going to do it anyway. What the heck? I’ll dive in with the Romantics’ belief in natural writing, and I’ll look ahead to the messy, fragmented, dissatisfying writing to vogue its personal type, as Dillard would say.
And naturally, as my daughter Sarah would advocate, I’ll maintain a chart of my day by day phrase counts, my topics and genres, and my emotions about every day’s work.
It’s for less than two weeks. I can do that.
Beforehand Revealed on georgiakreiger.com
