I've been writing almost since I can remember. My earliest productions, which consisted mostly of drawings of elaborate underground cities, and the myths and legends of the people who dwelt in them, would of course seem quite ridiculous today; they were animations of the moment: written, delighted in, and discarded almost as quickly as my pen could fly. Later, under the influence of Tolkien, I invented more elaborate and persistent worlds, with imaginary people and imaginary languages (Edglash, Bwfyr, and Khyruim among them). Still later, having temporarily given over hobbits for the poetry of Carl Sandburg, I filled sheet after sheet with poems, self-publishing some of them as I went -- let the curious search the Library of Congress, and discover whether these mimeographed musings are still there, tattered and (probably) unread. It wasn't until my early twenties that I began to write fiction in earnest, and not until my thirties that I thought I produced something that was truly ready to venture out, as novels must, without the accompaniment or protection of the Author -- and as it happened, my fiction wasn't published until I was in my fifties.
In all of my writing, my tutors were simply other books, along with the chance observations of the people around me, and the denser matter of historical narratives and documents, with which I was (and remain) fascinated.
But all this time, another sort of initiation into writing, that conferred by creative writing professors, was growing in scope and size: first as an undergraduate major, then into M.F.A. programs, and more recently even into Ph.D.'s in creative writing. Of course I assume those who have been drawn to these programs also, much like myself, had found that writing was the one thing that mattered to them, the thing they wished to forge in the smithy of their souls. But the method, once one arrived in these programs, was one that -- even to hear of -- made my soul tremble: the workshop.
In these strange gatherings, I am reliably informed, writers get together and read from one or another 'work in progress,' soliciting, by their very presence, the comments and criticisms of others. Work that survives this process is regarded as well-annealed and armored for the difficult journey into publication; work that does not is to be expunged and condemned to the proverbial "circular file." Of course there is another, even more dreaded outcome: one's writing might become, after too many times through this process, so jumbled and over-emended that it became a thing worse than bad: it became "workshoppy."
For myself, I can't think of anything more awful than a workshop, unless perhaps it would be one of those nightmare scenarios in which one dreams one is teaching a class, but has forgotten one's clothes. I share my writing, chiefly, with only one person: myself. With a very few others, whom I've known and trusted for many years, I do enjoy an evening of reading, and of hearing their work read. But I'm not looking for criticism. I know, of course, that if my work has really gone off the rails, my friends will tell me gently, and for that I'm enormously grateful. But I don't want my work workshopped; I don't want it combed over for peccadilloes, or put through the wringers of technique and approach. These are choices I have already made, and am not planning to reconsider; these are the choices of art, and they really do have to be made alone. If I have made mistakes, so be it; if the result is strange or puzzles many of its readers, I'm fine with that. When something of mine is published, my wish is to say, as Mary Shelley said of Frankenstein: I bid my hideous progeny go forth!
One ancillary result of my experience and outlook is that I really do not like to chatter about, or hear about, 'craft.' Surely there is such a thing, but craft alone won't make a story or a novel interesting to me, or even tolerable. Surely some aspects of writing can be taught, and the simple mutual affirmation of being recognized as a writer in a writing program is something that, for many, is absolutely vital and could have come from no other quarter. But to my mind, what makes truly wondrous writing, whether it is mine or someone else's, can't be reduced to craft, and may well even survive the fact that, from a craft perspective, some of its joinery and mortar are amateurishly applied. Writing may, I admit, be taught, but the art that must underlie any writing of worth comes from a far, far deeper and lonelier place.
In all of my writing, my tutors were simply other books, along with the chance observations of the people around me, and the denser matter of historical narratives and documents, with which I was (and remain) fascinated.
But all this time, another sort of initiation into writing, that conferred by creative writing professors, was growing in scope and size: first as an undergraduate major, then into M.F.A. programs, and more recently even into Ph.D.'s in creative writing. Of course I assume those who have been drawn to these programs also, much like myself, had found that writing was the one thing that mattered to them, the thing they wished to forge in the smithy of their souls. But the method, once one arrived in these programs, was one that -- even to hear of -- made my soul tremble: the workshop.
In these strange gatherings, I am reliably informed, writers get together and read from one or another 'work in progress,' soliciting, by their very presence, the comments and criticisms of others. Work that survives this process is regarded as well-annealed and armored for the difficult journey into publication; work that does not is to be expunged and condemned to the proverbial "circular file." Of course there is another, even more dreaded outcome: one's writing might become, after too many times through this process, so jumbled and over-emended that it became a thing worse than bad: it became "workshoppy."
For myself, I can't think of anything more awful than a workshop, unless perhaps it would be one of those nightmare scenarios in which one dreams one is teaching a class, but has forgotten one's clothes. I share my writing, chiefly, with only one person: myself. With a very few others, whom I've known and trusted for many years, I do enjoy an evening of reading, and of hearing their work read. But I'm not looking for criticism. I know, of course, that if my work has really gone off the rails, my friends will tell me gently, and for that I'm enormously grateful. But I don't want my work workshopped; I don't want it combed over for peccadilloes, or put through the wringers of technique and approach. These are choices I have already made, and am not planning to reconsider; these are the choices of art, and they really do have to be made alone. If I have made mistakes, so be it; if the result is strange or puzzles many of its readers, I'm fine with that. When something of mine is published, my wish is to say, as Mary Shelley said of Frankenstein: I bid my hideous progeny go forth!
One ancillary result of my experience and outlook is that I really do not like to chatter about, or hear about, 'craft.' Surely there is such a thing, but craft alone won't make a story or a novel interesting to me, or even tolerable. Surely some aspects of writing can be taught, and the simple mutual affirmation of being recognized as a writer in a writing program is something that, for many, is absolutely vital and could have come from no other quarter. But to my mind, what makes truly wondrous writing, whether it is mine or someone else's, can't be reduced to craft, and may well even survive the fact that, from a craft perspective, some of its joinery and mortar are amateurishly applied. Writing may, I admit, be taught, but the art that must underlie any writing of worth comes from a far, far deeper and lonelier place.
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