I have never, really, taken a creative writing class.
When I talk to people about writing, I think people always assume that I studied creative writing, or that the whole graduate school thing was about writing programs or some such.
And while I respect and a number of people who are involved in the discipline of “creative writing,” I am not terribly enticed either by the possibilities of the field as a dialogue, or by the utility of the training for myself.
This might be a personal short coming, as I have always (since I was a teenager) been pretty resistant to “formal writing education,” and it might be a genre thing (science fiction doesn’t fare terribly well in CW programs on the whole, often relegated to “children’s and popular literature” tracks, if not totally spurned.) In any case this was highlighted by an article I read last week that suggested, what I thought was an utterly flawed writing methodology.
The basic idea was that as a general practice, you rewrite everything, on the theory that you basically can never get something right the first time, no matter how much time and effort you spend on it, and that the second time you sit down with a piece that you’ve written, only then can you really get it right.
Now, the technicality is that she’s probably right on some level. Ground up rewrite’s shouldn’t be feared, and there are a lot of times when this can fix something that’s “stuck.” For example, I’m told that Tolkein sat down and wrote the Lord of the Rings, (the whole thing, not just specific books) until he got stuck. And then he started over from the beginning. The entire trilogy, every time he got stuck, until finally Frodo et al got to sail into the sunset. That might be extreme.
The problem is, I think, that we are incredibly inaccurate judges of our own work. This is why we have editors and readers, and that interaction is so valuable. So yeah, if someone says “this doesn’t work,” sure, rewrite rather than try and salvage, if that’s your speed. But as a rule? I’m suspicious of such unequivocal methodological imperatives.
I’ve heard Cory Doctorow say something to the effect of, “some days you write and it feels divinely inspired and the words just flow out, and other days it’s like pulling elephant teeth, but two weeks later, when you’re reading over the back you can’t tell the difference.” This is, I think why editors of all sorts are so valuable. And, since on the day-to-day level it’s probably crap shoot anyway, the key is to try and try often. If you think that first drafts are always to be thrown out, even after editing them as the article suggests you may do, then–time being finite–you write less, but I doubt that you write twice as well. And I am unabashedly of the mind that practicing productivity and developing good habits and experiences is more important than developing perfectionism. Your milage might vary.
And then it struck me–after the outrage passed–that this came from a writer. Someone who is professionally obligated to be invested more in the precession of words on the page than of the ideas that they represent.1 Which is, the core, I guess, of my personal unease with creative writing: I’m way more interested in studying the ideas, the people, the history of what I write about than the words on the page, again this arcs back to what ira said the way to get good at something is to do it, and do it often, and not always “getting it right.” And maybe if an academic program is the way to motivate you to write a lot, then that’s great2 but having a blog might achieve a similar goal.
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tagged: science fiction • writing
I’m sorry for not posting when I got home or twittering from the road, but I seem to have survived the ordeal of the drive. I did the drive, which is about 520 miles, in almost exactly eight hours. Which means I averaged did the speed limit 
In any case, I think that was pretty good. In any case, by the time I got home, I was in no shape to do anything except sleep and knit. So I didn’t get an entry posted yesterday.
I seem to have gotten unstuck in my knitting by the weekend. Latvian Dreaming has progressed into the gussets, and I expect to start the armholes by this weekend. I hope to post instructions for starting the armholes next week, and the neck shaping options somewhat after that. Also, pictures?
I bought some yarn at camp, mostly schoolhouse press‘ “Quebecois,” enough for two sweaters (in charcoal and navy), and most of the yarn needed for a handdyed and black pullover from Jocelyn’s Fiber Farm. Counting my handspun, I do believe that I have what might be known as a stash, at the moment.
I also must confess to having three sweaters in progress/need of finishing. I have the fingering weight grey sweater that I’ve been working on for years that needs a collar and sleeves (I knit the last saddle/strap at camp), I have the latvian sweater mentioned above, and I have this raglan yoke sweater that I started to knit at camp (but didn’t). And five sweaters worth of yarn stashed. I need to keep knitting.
I also got a lot of (friendly) encouragement to work on knitting designing at camp. While I’m wary of this, I’m not going to start another project until I get (more) settled in the routine of daily blogging and regular fiction production for Critical Futures. I sort of thought that the next thing would be a podcast, but maybe it’ll be working up and publishing a couple of knitting patterns instead. In any case, I’m not going to add any new commitments before, say Labor day.
Other misc. thoughts:
- I recommended John Scalzi Old Man’s War to someone at camp. I like when geek threads cross.
- A friend from camp said that he (this narrows down the field of possibility a bit) enjoyed knitting the edging of shawls more than the shawl centers. Given that I feel exactly the opposite, I’m thinking about coming up with some sort of barter agreement. Just the thought of this makes me want to get back into lace knitting, and I have two shawls in progress, and a plan for a third one. We shall see.
- I will be knitting more. This is a good thing. I have my mojo back.
That’s all that’s on my mind right now. The rest of the week’s posts won’t be as consistent as you’ve grown accustomed to, but there’ll be posts, and when things get settled everything will return to normal.
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tagged: journal • knitting
- Franklin tried on my tychoish henry viii sweater.
- I need to take such better pictures of my knitting.
- I did pretty well in the contest, I got some hemp/wool yarn. The shawl I raffled off to support camp scholarships, did pretty well, and it went to Carol Anderson of Cottage Creations who is a great deal of fun.
- There were great dirty jokes at the end of class. I think someone needs to introduce a skit night.
- I’ve actually gotten some knitting done, and no longer feel so hopeless about my project and my knitting. So I think, I’m back.
- I should expound upon this further in the coming weeks, but I’m still thinking about the various merits of knitting work and not knitting work.
- I bought long inox knitting needles. There will be gansey knitting.
That’s all for now. I have a long drive tomorrow, so there might be something that jott will transcribe for me at the end of the day, but regular posting will resume after that.
Oh, and I have a lot of knitting to do between now and then.
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tagged: journal • knitting
I don’t have a lot to report.
I knit a lot, that was really good. The party promises to be great tonight.
I got my 1000 Knitters Project portrait taken today. I’m somewhere in the 900s, and I’m within 20 of people like Meg (and Cully!) Swansen, Medrith Glover, and Emily-freaking-Ocker. How cool is that.
I’m also going to be in the project as tycho garen, rather than my real name. That felt like a big decision, but meh.
I got yarn, including an order that I put in more than a year ago. So much cool stuff to knit, I swear. I’m probably in stock with yarn for the rest of the year. And a fun year it will be indeed.
I thought that I’d be more reflective, and I’m sorry that I didn’t get this out earlier. Anyway, back to the festivities.
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tagged: journal • knitting
Knitting camp. Where to start.
This is an analogy that will only make sense to the morris dancers in the audience, but it’s sort of like an ale, with more yarn and less dancing (of course) and much less singing. It’s the lack of singing that I find most disconcerting actually.
This is the session that has history, out of all the sessions of this camp. There are a few people who have been coming for 35 years, and many people who have been coming for way more than 20 years. And that history is something that’s really important to a lot of people, and it’s cool to see that and be a part of it.
I’ve been knitting on the latvian dreaming, mostly and I have two other projects lurking around that I will probably work on today. A lot of people come to camp and start new projects and I think that I’m unlikely to do that, because I need closure on my current projects and, I don’t have fully formed ideas of what I want to do next, anyway.
I’ve tried four times to write a paragraph here and I have too much flying through my head to make sense of that so here goes a list:
- There are so many famous and amazing knitters here. I’m a little star struck, actually. And a couple of times had lengthy discussions with them before I realized that I was talking to someone who’s name I had recognized in a book. And then, somewhat after the fact I learned that cookie a was “camp newbie sitting across the table from me.” Sigh.
- On top of all the other interesting discussions last night we had an interesting conversation about social dynamics on the internet and the knitternet.
- At 9pm last night, I got a pot of hot water and had a caffeine party. It was good stuff. Unlike a Morris Dance Ale, it’s all over by midnight, which means it’s possible to get an at least passable sleep in, but I needed the extra kick to stay up for that. Because:
- The drive was intense. Not bad, but long and I really pushed pretty hard. I’ll post about the podcasts and other listening materials I went through later…
Anyway I have so much to knit. I’m going to go take a shower and then go down and get started with the day.
Onward and Upward!
(ps. Just a program note/reminder: There’s a new critical futures story today. CF, is my daily (science fiction) story blog. I’ll blog over the weekend here, and cf will return, as usual on Monday.)
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tagged: journal • knitting