The Cambridge introduction to creative writing
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Harry G. Broadman - Africa\'s Silk Road China and India\'s New Economic Frontier (2007, World Bank Publications) - libgen.li
| Reading across time We learn by example. The problem is that contemporary examples prove impermanent. They might not survive the next critical twist or sally. Even without those artificial eclipses, writing can wither on the bough. It can seem dated because its concerns, style, its references, are too redolent of a fixed time or a particular style of mind of that time. It cannot be helped also that fashion shadows our perception of writing (as it does with criticism or literary theory. Reappraisals rot into neglect favouritisms deform into denunciations. More innocent, but as destructive to reputation or posterity, cultural amnesia consigns most writing to oblivion: The name of the author is the first to go followed obediently by the title, the plot, the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of. Billy Collins, Forgetfulness (NA 3030) 30 Creative writing Style is eternal fashion is temporal. One of the gracious aspects of the academic study of literature is that it can restore or refresh the reputation of neglected or forgotten authors. It also decolonises writing it creates many countries of literature. In that sense, academia can be a very healthy place for writers and apprentice-writers. The writer-as-reader finds themselves in an orchard of all seasons. Unfortunately, fashion strips the leaves even there. Literary quality outlasts cultural or academic fashion but, as Arthur Koestler said, A writer’s ambition should be to trade one hundred contemporary readers for ten readers in ten years time and for one in one hundred years Posthumous luck is unreliable a writer’s work requires advocacy to endure, and this needs to happen within a writer’s life also. Recognition in life is vital if a writer’s heart is not to become stone, or voice to fall silent. Few of us possess the stamina for the solitude and shadow-life of Emily Dickinson: Publication – is the Auction Of the Mind of Man Poverty – be justifying For so foul a thing Possibly – but We – would rather From Our Garret go White – unto the White Creator Than invest – Our snow NP If you are writing against the current ideologies, mores or fashions of your time and place, then you must be prepared to resist pressures to conform to them if this is the artistically honest path for your work. To do otherwise would be to face creative death. The same goes for reading do not fossick only in the present day, obeying the market’s mood for what is deemed acceptable or applicable to the auction of your time. We have to live and work within the auction, but become aware that market forces area suffocating and manipulative force on writers, almost as much as a government or society that does not value freedom of speech. That attrition applies to both the literary text and bestseller. As Carlos Fuentes commented, The bestseller lists . . . are, with a few lively exceptions, a sombre graveyard of dead books Like an actor, the writer is only as good as their last performance. Reading across taste Reading is about your individual appetite and ability. Many students come to creative writing because they are genuinely excited by what they have Introducing creative writing 31 experienced as readers. A powerful narrative, for example, a tale shot through with some moral dimension and fleshed out by strong characters, may shape not only the way a reader reads and reacts to that book in the quiet of their mind, but the messages and examples then leach into their own lives to the extent that it alters and guides them as individuals. If you are going to read as a writer, you need to read competitively around the curriculum of your time, a dance for your mind – around . . . and backwards, sideways and in many languages or translations of those languages. Your choice of reading says a great deal about your individual character. You might begin to develop ideas about what might come next, what might go forwards. To choose otherwise is to write in a creative vacuum. Follow the advice of Henry Thoreau Read the best books first, or you may not have had a chance to read them all However, do not be such a snob that you imagine yourself above reading what is fashionable or popular. Read backwards in time, and slide your eye sideways across genres, across literatures in translation, and even across disciplines. Your hunger for reading marks you out as a writer. Feed it, but you will always find you wake hungrier. Download 2.89 Mb. Share with your friends:
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