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
| Notebooks and rituals One thing an ABC of Writing a Book does very well is talk of markets, audiences and that chimera for creative writing money. However, since writing creatively does not always bring much financial comfort, one of its underrated merits for the beginner is that it is relatively inexpensive compared to other art forms. Later stages of a writer’s career are more demanding, especially if research is necessary. The beginner’s equipment is a notebook and a pen or pencil, and access to a computer. A familiar question asked of writers at public readings concerns their choice of pen, pencil or keyboard. This is a disguised inquiry. It has more to do with whether the writer possesses some key to the writing process, and whether the thing with which you choose to write has some talismanic power. The secret knowledge they may find problematical to hear is that the difference between becoming a writer and not becoming a writer usually comes down to whether you carry a notebook are prepared to work in it actively and regularly and are willing to sit for hours typing and rewriting. However, as you shall seethe talismanic power of objects is psychologically real for some writers. Recording and practice If you have not done so already, buy yourself a notebook. Date it, and replace it when it is completed, but ensure you keep all of them safely. The notebook 100 Creative writing is a movable workplace. It maybe paper-bound, or a handheld computer. Whatever form, it must be practical, comfortable and portable. It must suit the way you conduct yourself as a writer. As the poet James Schuyler said, The first use of drawings fora painter is the same as that of notebooks, diaries and letters fora writer keeping your hand in The pressure, the responsibility, to make a record of life instigates much writing and, if you ignore this primal mnemonic need, you must either possess a sponge-like memory or be content with a passive reading of your world. If you are carrying a notebook and do not use it, then you are not even taking part you become background. A notebook will make the difference between a book being born and one that never achieves conception. A notebook is an active tool but it is an error to believe that by carrying this spear onto the stage of writing you become a player. You use it for writing regularly, but the main uses will be to record ideas for sentences while you are actively thinking about one hundred other matters to take down interesting material while travelling or to record sentences and dialogue you hear, or overhear. You will also use it as a scrapbook of sorts. A writer’s notebook functions as what used to be called a commonplace book, in which you record sentences, lines of poetry, images and paragraphs by other writers that you find especially intriguing for one reason or another. In this way, you create a personal anthology, one that you can reread for ideas, encouragement and illumination of problems in your own writing. Dreams A notebook travels with you, even to your bedside. One of the most common times for ideas and images to arrive (gallingly) is during the period between trying to sleep and sleep itself. You may experience fascinating reveries when the conscious mind shuts down and dream or fantasy surprise you back into waking. These are forms of active dreaming. If that happens, however tired you are, make note of any images that have arisen, or the phrases that have come to you. Do not fool yourself into thinking you will remember it next day, even though not everything is going to be of use to you, and some of it will seem asinine. Like giving yourself the permission to write badly, you need to give yourself consent to record freely and without self-censor. Buy yourself a handheld voice-recording device and make your notes orally. This period before sleep is an especially receptive one when you are engaged in a book, poem or article whose process absorbs your daylight hours. You have seemingly finished your day’s work, but your mental processes will still be Composition and creative writing 101 flickering on their reel. The reservoir of your creative thinking needs time to fill up – let your unconscious mind do all that filling and working. So, rather than holding a nightlong vigil over your notebook, write enough to be satisfied that you have netted what is most important. It is like making a list of tasks ready for the next day. The point is not to get lost in them, or to lose them, but to put them on ice, while also keeping them breathing. Fieldwork for writers Your notebook is a fine-meshed net inconstant trawl, collecting far more detritus than it does material you may later find useful. And, one of the tricks of being able to read any net is to know what that detritus might yield. Pretty well anything has some possibility and some beauty fora writer, given enough scrutiny. That which appears at first to be obsolescent, boring or ugly may prove to be ideal. Everything is quarry, everyone is material, and everywhere is fieldwork. One of the most fascinating places to collect the noise of speech, and the speech of human behaviour, is anywhere in which a large number of people gather, usually to make a journey. Such places – airports, bus and train stations have the effect of making everyday human concerns provisional, unstable and transitory. The heart is not here, far from home. Heightened emotions such as fear, suspicion and anticipation not only underlie how many people speak but how they then behave to each other. People try to hide, or group. The transitory passage of people can also challenge inhibitions people often speak more freely about themselves on the understanding that they are unlikely to see this person again, or they go into role pretending they are something they are not. It is not so much that you are observing what people are saying, but how they say it and why they say it that way. It is a parade of styles. You are an ethologist – you study behaviour. I am not saying you stakeout such places, making notes parasitically or with a sociologist’s eye for mass observation. I am saying you should view wide, indiscriminate human contact as a form of research for writing, and make this your ritual. If you are shy of contact, then you must work undercover, and you should then write up what you remember as soon as you can, in a quiet spot such as a cafe. In such open situations, the notebook is far less obvious, affected or threatening than an audio-recording device or a camera. It does not invite questions. You should take your notebook everywhere and have it with you all the time. You should not, as some apprentice-writers do, limit your notebook work to places and times you think inherently inspirational and beautiful’. 102 Creative writing To do so is merely to experience secondhand or custom-bound notions of aesthetic experience. Notebooks are rougher and readier than a Claude glass. How you organize your notebook is important, but do not use the organization of notebooks and files as a displacement activity for not writing. It is the equivalent of tidying your home before settling to work. A simple form of organisation is to possess two notebooks one for recording and collecting, and one for writing and drafting. Download 2.89 Mb. Share with your friends:
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