The Cambridge introduction to creative writing
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| Writing Game T H E ICEMAN COMET H Think about how you and members of your workshop portray yourselves to each other when you are reading and commenting on work. Who plays the clown or the iceman Who is the intellectual snob or noble savage Who is the artiste or wallflower Make a list of as many archetypes as you can, and decide to swap some of these roles around at subsequent meetings. A I M We relax into self-defined roles and our ability to think defaults from the character chosen. Changing roles will shakeup a workshop’s dynamics it will lead to its participants finding a voice for their critical minds. Recommended reading Rulebooks for writers risk being dull or disingenuous, but Ezra Pound’s didactic ABC of Reading (New Directions) remains lively, controversial and self-mocking, and strikes home on choices of language. There are dozens of books containing workshop exercises, as well as guides to using and enjoying writing workshops. The most helpful of these are by writers who are also teachers of writing. Candace Schaefer and Rick Diamond offer inventive guidance for writing poetry, literary creative nonfiction, fiction and drama in their Creative Writing Guide (Addison-Wesley 1998 ), as does Paul Mills in The Rout- ledge Creative Writing Coursebook (Routledge, 2006 ) and Janet Burroway in Imaginative Writing (Longman, 2006 ). Highly innovative class and solo exercises can be found in Metro: Journeys in Writing Creatively (Addison-Wesley, 124 Creative writing 2001 ) by Hans Ostrom et al. For fiction specialists, I recommend What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers (Quill, 1991 ) by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter. A thorough introduction to workshop culture and practice can be found in Josip Novakovich’s Fiction Writer’s Workshop (Story Press) and Carol Bly’s Beyond the Writers Workshop (Anchor, 2001 ). Poets seeking first- rate poetry workshop games should consult The Practice of Poetry Writing Exercises from Poets who Teach (HarperResource, 1992 ), edited by Robin Behn and Chase Twichell, and Writing Poems (Longman Pearson) by Michelle Boisseau and Robert Wallace. Taken together, these volumes contain thousands of inventive generative workshop exercises by experienced writers for new writers. Chapter 5 Processes of creative writing As to the poetical character . . . it is not itself – it has no self – it is everything and nothing – It has no character – it enjoys light and shade it lives in gusto, be it foul or fair, high or low, rich or poor, mean or elevated – It has as much delight in conceiving an Iago as an Imogen . . A poet is the most unpoetical of anything in existence, because he has no Identity – he is continually in for and filling some other Body – The Sun, the Moon, the Sea and Men and Women, who are creatures of impulse, are poetical, and have about them an unchangeable attribute; the poet has none . . . If then he has no self, and if I am a Poet, where is the Wonder that I should say I would write no more? j oh n k eats, Letter to Richard Woodhouse (Allen Focus a clear eye on yourself to ensure you plant the natural stages of the writing process into your daily discipline. Creative writing courses mimic these stages, especially long-term or residential courses where the focus is solely on writing, and you are not studying other subjects. If you are not on such a course formally, then you must try to make your life imitate one, but one of your own devising. Your life is a course to which writing lends cause. Download 2.89 Mb. Share with your friends:
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