Welcome to the Creative Writing Seminar!

We will begin meeting on Tuesday, September 6, in Room 204, Building 596 (the training building at MCAS Beaufort), from 1145 – 1245.  We will meet for six weeks on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Our last meeting date is Thursday, October 13.

On Tuesdays, we will hold a discussion about the craft of writing.  My comments will focus mainly on writing personal narrative. I know some of you are fiction writers and poets, but for this condensed course, I would like you to try writing nonfiction.  It has been said that fiction writers and poets often improve in their chosen genres by even brief exposure to writing personal narrative.  Keep in mind that all good writing shares common characteristics. I have drawn the material we will cover on Tuesdays from a few sources. Considering the short time we will be meeting, I have tried to synthesize the basics of good creative writing from these sources:
Writing Well by William Zinsser
The Art of Fiction by David Lodge
Word Painting by Rebecca McClanahan
Writing Life Stories by Bill Roorbach
Your Life as Story by Tristine Rainer
You do not have to read any of these books prior to our first meeting.  I will bring these books with me so that you can have a look.  If you should decide you want to read one of these books prior to our first meeting, I recommend Your Life as Story. Tristine can be a bit “newsy.” She draws on her experience as a writing coach, and she has written the book as if she were your writing coach. Sometimes it seems as if she is sitting across the room, guiding you through the writing process.  Her book is an essential guide to writing nonfiction, and it is the most complete guide I have found.

I will be reading briefly from one of these books to begin each Tuesday session:
Jarhead by Anthony Swofford (memoir)
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien (autobiographical fiction)
A Farewell to Arms by Earnest Hemingway (autobiographical fiction)
Poetry by Vietnam Veterans
The excerpts read aloud each Tuesday are examples used to emphasize that week’s topics.  If you have time, choose one of these books to read before our first meeting.  Make yourself an expert on it.  Study how the author writes, how he chooses among his experiences, and how the book is structured.  How to read other writers is one thing, perhaps the most important thing, every writer should learn.  When reading for pleasure, we seldom study the work’s mechanics, but studying successful work is the primary method of learning to write successful, publishable work.

On Thursdays, we will break into groups to critique, or workshop, each other’s works in progress. I’ve attached a workshop guide to this email.  This guide gives basic rules for productively critiquing creative writing.  You can also use this guide to alter your reading habits from reading for pleasure to reading for writing.  If you choose to read one of the books mentioned above, use this guide to form a perspective for studying the mechanics of creative writing.  

Some of you have already written a longer work.  Others of you have, perhaps, written very little, but want to write more. Some of you may have been studying writing as craft for some time; others may never have studied creative writing.  Wherever you are is okay.  One of the first things Bill Roorbach suggests for developing writers to do is to commit to a personal Generic Disclaimer.  “Make up a little card,” he writes, “or maybe a big one.”  More from Roorbach:

Write GENERIC DISCLAIMER across the top of the card, then write a paragraph or so apologizing profusely for how rough and unfinished your exercises and first and second drafts are going to be.  Talk about how little time you had, how tired you were, how ornery your computer is, how dull your pencils, how you’re not used to doing exercises, how you just couldn’t think, how you write and work and think differently than other people do.  Get it all down, all your best excuses and reasons, all your self-doubt and blaming and delusions of grandeur [you know: I am writing the next great classic; they’ll be fighting over film rights to this story, etc.].  Make it a nice card, and pull it out and have a look at it whenever you feel discouraged about your writing, whenever you feel everyone in the world is farther along than you are.  (Roorbach, pp. 25 – 26)

Here is another helpful suggestion from Donald Hall, an acclaimed poet: “Write something better than the best thing ever written. Take all the time you like.”

Understanding your writing process helps you write better stories.  During the next few days, carve yourself out a space to write—even if that is writing on a laptop in your car or on a park bench, or better yet in the Huddle House. One acquaintance of mine, the author of several novels, does all his writing on his Palm Pilot using a mini-keyboard while riding on the subway or sitting in Starbucks in New York—that is where he is comfortable.  Once you’ve decided on a writing space, use it to write at least thirty minutes a day.  Begin building a writing structure by devoting a time and place to writing.  Do the same thing with reading.  Read those books you’ve meant to read forever by devoting at least 30 minutes a day to reading.  This is how to establish a writing ritual—not too big, not too small, not too consuming, but enough to keep you writing.  Trust yourself, go easy on yourself, and don’t expect the next bestseller; let just one decent sentence be enough at first. Writing is hard work.  Allow yourself imperfection.  When it comes right down to details, writing is a process of revision—just like life.  Give yourself permission to write an awful first draft, and then begin revising it into something readable.  This is the point where having readers, those who workshop your work in progress, becomes indispensable.  Write for a reader, not to yourself; decide who your audience is and write for that audience.  In the case of the exercises you will complete during this seminar, your readers are your fellow participants and I—but don’t write assuming we will understand your topic just because we all have military experience.  Your experience is as unique as your individual perception.  Remember: What you have to say matters, your life experience is important, and you can reach readers for whom your story will become their own.

Just the other day, I asked a friend for his definition of writer—he is considering writing about his experience with PTSD.  He stumbled and mumbled just a bit.  I know he admires Pat Conroy.  “Is your definition of a writer Pat Conroy?” I asked.  “Yes,” he said, “Yes it is.”  “Well how do you think Pat Conroy became a writer?” I asked.  “He knows what he’s doing.”  “No,” I said.  “He writes and he revises.  You can do that, too.”

Narrative appears in all genres; so does exposition.  Narrative takes place in time, tells a story, portrays events, shows ideas.  Exposition takes place outside time, explains things, analyzes events, and expresses ideas directly.  Personal narrative always has an “I” as its central character, an “I” that is the author’s Siamese twin.  Personal narrative is usually written using a combination of narrative and exposition techniques, or scene and summary as it is taught these days.  So think of writing personal narrative as writing a series of scenes joined by short summaries that guide the reader from beginning through middle to end of the story. The second email attachment is an excerpt from Rainer’s book.  The attachment is a guide to the nine essential elements of story.  We will talk more about these elements during our first session, and we will also discuss story timelines and outlines.

Part of our work will be completed using email. Since Thursdays will be workshop days, everyone will need to exchange their work via email so each person has time to do a close reading of the other’s work and write out a short response to the work.  Prior to our first session on 6 September, I would like each of you to write a short (no more than three pages double-spaced) personal narrative focused on one event in your life.  Hopefully, everyone can open Word documents.  If you can’t, please let me know.  All written work exchanged for critiquing should be double-spaced on a page set with 1” margins all around.  You should have a title.  Use an easy to read 12-point font such as courier, times or times new roman.  Readers should print out the work they receive (three or four pieces depending on which group you are in), read each piece through once to get the general idea, and then do a close reading, making notes on the page.  Last, write up a short response on the back of the last page.  On Thursdays, you will give this marked up, dog-eared text back to its author following your group’s discussion of the piece.  The author then has everyone’s comments to take home and digest.  I won’t deny it; sometimes these comments bruise egos—No Pain, No Gain, right?  Both as a reader and as an author try to stay open minded; what makes perfect sense to you may not make-meaning for a reader.  And always remember, these are comments by fellow writers, and not those of an all-powerful alien being.

The secret to writing shorter works is to focus on every detail of that one experience, to paint with words an image in the reader’s mind, to transport the experience from your memory into the reader’s memory.  Now this experience does not have to be life shattering.  It could be as simple as a trip to the grocery store, teaching your child to ride a bike, an hour of fishing and what you thought during that hour.  

Other ideas for this essay:
Write about the place where you slept during your last deployment and how it compares to where you sleep in the States.
Write about the distinct differences between two things that are total opposites but equally important to you; for instance Freedom and Reenlistment.
Write about the one thing you hoped and dreamed about during your last deployment and how you found that person, thing, or power changed upon your return home.  
Write about the day you joined the military, how you felt, your fears and hopes, what your family thought about your decision.
Write about your arrival at boot camp or TBS, your first impressions and how those impressions were changed by the end of the day.
Write about your earliest memory.
Write about the first time you flew.
Or choose any topic you like, but make it one you really like since we will spend this seminar revising your first draft. Just remember to focus on the details of one topic; don’t try to tell your life story in three pages.  And remember: no one expects perfection or the next best American essay; reread your Generic Disclaimer.

Your completed essay should be emailed to each person in your group and to me by Thursday, September 1.  I will send out an email contact list by August 30.  Please notify me immediately if I have used the wrong email address in addressing this email.  We will workshop your first (or tenth draft, depending on how hard you work on those three pages) draft essays on Thursday, September 8. This should give you time to read through each piece at least twice and write your responses (based on the workshop guide).  I will be reading and giving a short response via email to your work each week.  

I look forward to meeting and working with each of you.

Sincerely,
Sally

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