This past week, I was offered and accepted a position teaching writing at Michigan State University. So obviously I’ve spent the past four days looking at syllabi and reading the course textbook. But mostly I’ve been thinking: what did my writing teachers do to both give me knowledge and inspire passion? What projects was I assigned that I enjoyed doing?

In tenth grade, our first assignment was to write a sort of writer’s autobiography, to assess our strengths and weaknesses as writers. Like an idiot, I included a line that basically said I was awesome. My teacher wrote one word next to my claim: “Really?” That was the first time I really realized that I had a lot to learn, because it was the first time my writing knowledge had been challenged. I still react this way, and now make sure that my readers don’t sugar coat their feedback. I just want it straight; my feelings are less important.

During my sixth year of college, I took a graduate-level English class at the invitation of the professor. Our final project was to create a graduate-level project on one of our books. That was pretty much our assignment. My professor, who knew I was applying to MFA programs, encouraged me to use my creative writing skills in the paper, and I ended up writing a creative research paper where I mimicked Carole Maso’s Ava, a lyric novel that plays with truth, has an unreliable narrator, and no paragraphs. (This is probably the reason I really enjoyed writing the imitation pieces in grad school—I got to play.)

I always loved these hybrid assignments, and I’ve been brainstorming ways to introduce them in my own class. How does social media relate to communication? How is truth malleable? How can creative writing enter the research-writing classroom? How can I introduce writing assignments that get the students to respond as if to a community of peers, from a real desire to contribute to the dialogue, rather than simply because they want to pass the class?

Strangely, looking back at the first of my two examples here (or perhaps because of it), the assignment I’ve probably responded the most negatively to over the years has been that of the writer’s autobiography. It has always felt pretentious to me, because it feels so limiting, as if I’m supposed to make an inventory of what I’ve done and what I’ve learned up to this point but which leaves no room for the fact that I don’t think I know much definitively, because the day I stop learning through my writing is probably the day I stop writing altogether.

So what assignments/teaching styles did you respond to? What did you appreciate in your various writing class, and what made you go crazy? Help a new professor out.

I signed up for a writers workshop through the local evening college, and in the first class yesterday, I mentioned a Twitter chat for writers of children’s literature. I don’t follow the chat myself, but many of my followers participate in it, so I’ve seen enough to see how useful many people have found it. Except, my suggestion went over the heads of the other class participants because it turned out that I was the only one using Twitter.

The idea still persists that Twitter is a waste of time, a pointless social media site designed for people who actually think the world cares what they do all day. Go to Twitter and click on any trending topic. These people use Twitter, yes, but these are not the people that Twitter was designed for.

I tweet mainly about topics related to reading and writing, though I also discuss topics related to politics, feminism, design, technology, and MSU sports. And yes, very occasionally I will sink to the level of what I did that day. But mostly I stay within my niche, knowing full well that my followers expect a certain thing from me. I post links to articles, blog posts (mine and others’), and news stories. I retweet (repost) other people’s tweets that I feel are important or insightful. And I of course produce original content with insights of my own. Read more »

Okay, so the title hints at my feelings on the issue. What are yours?

Here are some fun article quotes:

To find writers, Mr. Frey trolls writing classes and other writers’ gathering places. Writers contracted with Full Fathom Five earn no salary and make almost no money up front (they get $250 upon signing and another $250 upon completion of a book—”Chinese-food money,” one author called it).

Sounds to me like another way of saying “writers who don’t yet understand the legal business behind publishing.

When Eric Simonoff, Mr. Frey’s agent at WME, first shopped “I Am Number Four” in 2009, several publishers that had considered the manuscript took a pass, including HarperCollins. Then Mr. Simonoff and his colleagues sent the manuscript to some Hollywood clients and there was immediate interest, with DreamWorks acquiring film rights.

In case you missed that, it’s Frey’s agent shopping the work done by other authors. I don’t quite get how this works (I assume it has to do with some horrible thing the authors are asked to sign in their original contracts), but it screams SHADY to me.

Also, the article hints several times that the books are written with the film makers’ wants in mind, which makes me wonder why they aren’t just writing scripts to begin with.

It’s that time of year again, and if you’re thinking of yet again falling back on the tired old holiday gift ideas, here are a few ideas—at least for those writers and bibliophiles in your life (and for all those people you maybe want to prod a bit more in that literary or artsy direction).

The not-so-original ideas

• books (from an independent bookseller, of course)
• pens/pencils (recent grads may remember these as the pens I marked up every workshop piece with for two years; or how about a cool paperclip holder, or some awesome post-it note type thing
• gift cards for books, writing supplies, food, movies
• journals (small enough to take on the go)
• personalized bookmarks (bonus if you design and print your own)
• book lamps
• web hosting package for that digital portfolio

Slightly more original ideas

• gift cards for more exciting things (printing services to design your own business cards, or something involving wine)
• Inkgirl’s writing cartoons (I won one off her website in a holiday promotion a few years ago)
• subscription to a journal or professional organization
• flavored hot chocolates (or teas, or coffees, such as the gift receiver’s preference)
• have a Mac lover on your list? how about  decals or a case
• book art
• one of these amazing book purses

Now it’s your turn to add your own ideas. As for me, since I’m fairly sure no one who is shopping for me can afford one of those book purses, I’m hoping for a pair of reindeer antlers sized for a nine-pound dog, because I have an admittedly unhealthy fascination with putting hats on animals. And besides, she looks more like a deer than Max did. Observe:

I bought Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life before ever seeing a piece of publicity for it. I saw it in an independent bookstore and liked the cover. I picked it up, and read this on the back:

Book, standing in the bookstore holding a

If I am standing there with the book in my hand, one of three things has already happened: Friend recommended it. Read a good review. Cover caught my eye.

I can appreciate a cool cover. But it’s like the extra credit part of a test—it only enhances an already solid grade. Getting it right won’t help if most everything else is wrong. And getting it wrong won’t hurt if most everything else is right. (There are countless books I cherish whose covers I don’t like too much, or cannot even now recall.) The interior of the book—the terrain of its pages, where all those words took me, the tiny but very real spot it ultimately occupies in my mind—that becomes the book.

[...]

To get a true sense of the book, I have to spend a minute inside. I’ll glance at the first couple pages, then flip to the middle, see if the language matches me somehow. It’s like dating, only with sentences. Some sentences, no matter how well-dressed or nice, just don’t do it for me. Others I click with instantly. It could be something as simple yet weirdly potent as a single word choice (tangerine). We’re meant to be, that sentence and me. And when it happens, you just know.

And that was it. I had to have it, because standing there in the bookstore, I was doing pretty much the same thing. I took the book home, read it, loved it. At the time I was playing a lot with form and was completely enamored at the idea of a memoir written in the form of an encyclopedia. (Look inside here.)

But the form of the book wasn’t all that set it apart. Amy (because, after reading her book, I found it impossible to think of her by the much more formal and distant last name) invites her readers to take part in the book beyond the act of reading it. She invites readers, for example, to send in their “purple flower” moments, which she then posts on her websites (mine went up a few years back and I can’t find the direct link anymore), and sent the 100th responder a homemade pie.

But that was all part of the book’s appeal to those who had already purchased it, and since 2006 Amy has gone above and beyond, keeping her book in the public eye—for both those who already own (and love) it, and for those who still need to buy a copy. Read more »

Next Monday kicks off the 2010 National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo, or NaNo, if you want to get even shorter about it), and after a three-year hiatus (one for grad school apps and two for grad school itself), I’ll be participating in my fifth year of frantic November writing.

First, a little background. NaNoWriMo is an annual competition of sorts in which the goal is to write 50,000 words of an original novel in the 30 days of November. You compete only against yourself, and the goal of the project is to get people to write. The idea is that set parameters (the thirty-day time frame) and a supportive community (without looking up the numbers, I believe there are hundreds of thousands of participants from all over the world) helps people accomplish things they wouldn’t otherwise do. Also, having only 30 days turns off your internal editor and lets the creative juices flow (which is why many people have declared the rest of the year, but specifically December, editing time). There’s more information on the website, of course, but that’s a general summary.

I’ve been planning this post for a few weeks, but to be honest, I’ve been a bit nervous about writing it, because quite often events such as these don’t find a welcome home in the literary world, among “real” writers (quick, someone give me the definition of a real writer). I see “Why I hate NaNoWriMo” posts and tweets all over the web at this time of year. (I Googled a quick selection here, here, and here.) And really, I can’t understand why writers, of all people, would have so much anger toward people that want to…write.

My own involvement started in 2003, as a college sophomore, when I was still a chemical engineering major, when writing was still a hobby and not a legitimate career choice. For two days I stayed on track with the daily goal of 1,667 words and then my computer crashed, I lost my work, had a panic attack, declared I couldn’t possibly win now, and quit. I tried again in 2004, however, and though I’d just switched into professional writing, I still didn’t really understand a lot about writing. I had this sort of “what if” scenario in my head, but it sustained my piece for about 20 pages. I don’t remember what I did for the next 155 pages, but I remember recognizing even at the time that it was bad, but the feeling on November 30 when I hit the word count and saw that I’d passed 50,000 was pretty cool. I ended up revising the first 20 pages, but I’ve never touched the rest; there’s just nothing there.

By 2005 I was doing more writing than just in November, and for that year’s NaNo, I contacted the people that run the event and volunteered to start up an official subgroup in Lansing, which I would run for the next two years—one of which I won, and one I didn’t. During these two years, though, I met a lot of different writers. Some were completely casual and were writing for fun, because they’d always sort of wondered about writing, but never really thought they’d be able to. Others had ambitions of publishing. Lots of people didn’t finish, but quite a few did. But we all had moments that writers of all calibers can relate to: success, frustration, achievement, despair, failure. And we were all writers, even if for just those thirty days (or twenty days, or five, or ten, or however many days we lasted before giving up).

Because writing is hard, but we’re all writers when we’re writing. And that’s what NaNoWriMo does. And if it gives some people false hope, so be it, because it shows others skills they didn’t know they had. So give it a try, or don’t, but don’t knock on the people that do, because ultimately, they’re respecting the work we do by recognizing it as something worth spending time on. Because really, 50,000 words don’t come quickly, or easily.

If you are participating, look me up. Just remember, this is for fun.

My apologies for getting this post up so late. I’ve got no excuse and, unfortunately, no real ideas for this week. Instead, here’s the video to the first of part of a multi-part interview JK Rowling, the famously reclusive billionaire author of the Harry Potter books, granted Oprah. It’s an interesting interview for fans and non-fans alike. Rowling discusses, among other things, some of her writing process, how she has reacted to the fame she has received (which is of the kind usually reserved for top musicians and movie stars), and how events in life affect what comes out in the story. Take a look, and if you’re interested, go ahead and click through for the rest of the segments; I’m pretty sure the Oprah Show might frown on me reposting the entire segment here in one spot.

Dean Wesley Smith has got something against the publishing world, and so he’s writing a book about it, Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing.

Smith, known primarily for his book adaptations of television shows, movies, etc., has identified over twenty-five of what he says are writing and publishing myths, and has been ever so kind as to set writers straight with a series of book chapters on his website (which, if you enjoy, you are invited to donate toward). But what Smith seems to have forgotten is that the entire writing/editing/publishing/agenting/reading world is subjective, and that his opinion does not make something fact.

To be sure, there are some gems up there, and some pretty unarguable statements: writing slowly does not mean writing well, and writing quickly does not mean writing poorly; all writers are different, have different habits and strengths and weaknesses; writing requires practice. Most (though not all) of what I agreed with had to do with writing advice—which is unsurprising given that Smith has published over ninety books (even if he did have a pre-established base for many of them, such as character and world).

What he really seems to hate, though, are agents*. He is quick to mention the 17-year relationship with his own agent and that he is friends with a few agents, but it is all but impossible to miss his disdain for their usefulness, unless they are top tier, and especially for new writers.

Read more »

It’s not that big of a surprise that there’s no single writer all we other writers can agree on as being great. But can we all agree on someone at least being not bad? Here’s 50 of the best author insults–all from other authors.