Some people have asked me what happened to my CRW101 posts on this site. The answer is that I stopped writing them, because after we read Cymbeline, the nature of the class shifted and we went into workshop mode. Since we’re now reading student work and not publicly available work, it doesn’t leave me with a whole lot to share. But, before that change happened–or rather, I guess, on the cusp of it–I did something I almost never do in any class I teach: I prepared a lecture and then I delivered it. The lecture was on the nature of revision, and was helpfully entitled “Revision: An Almost Obscenely Brief Overview.” Increasingly I wonder about the necessity of that qualifier, “almost,” but as we approach the end of the semester, and the due date of their final, some of my students have asked if I would make the lecture available (possibly because I promised to do it at the time, then forgot to) and so I’ve decided to post it here. The “lecture,” such as it is, runs just about 2000 words, and it doesn’t attempt to be in any sense comprehensive. It is intended for an audience of beginning writing students, some of whom may be encountering the concepts of editing and revision for the first time. It is divided into two parts. The first part discusses how–and if–to develop material from in-class exercises (and/or free-writes) into workable and work-with-able drafts. The second part outlines two basic principles of editing–adding stuff, taking stuff away–and the advantages of reading your work aloud and editing by ear. The whole thing demonstrates a clear bias towards realist prose fiction–especially in its examples–but the attempt was made to be inclusive, and most of these notions should be adaptable for use by anyone.
Creative Writing 101: Revision
Mairéad Byrne has been in a bit of a blorgic frenzy over at Heaven. Get it while the getting is good. Seriously funny wowzas.
Sommelier Says: Reynard Seifert
In a recent tussle betwixt Jereme Dean, in which Reynard passive aggressively “bracket-belches” (i.e. [belch]) in response to the prospects of the former commenting more, Jereme, in his response to that, unfortunately misuses the apostrophe in “belch’s,” leading Reynard to say:
& an apostrophe does not denote the plural
Sommelier Says: It’s wonderful how the ampersand resembles, and operates as, the treble clef — cuing the melodic brassy notes to come. (One imagines a rusty trombone.) Seifert’s eloquent bouquet of alliterated “o”s in “does not denote” opens an olfactory opulence for, oh, I don’t know. The quick jab at someone’s grammar to demonstrate one’s superior education and/or anal retentiveness has prominent notes of douchebag and raspberry. Such syntactical severity gets better with age, so just keep him in a dark cellar for five years, and those who believe “nutty flavors” involve teabags will wish to try it out on Mr. Seifert the next time he opens his mouth.
Cultural Optometry Lesson
I hate eyewear ads where models who don’t need glasses wear glasses — just seems so fake, and makes me resent the models more for having better genes than me. (Would you have a leg amputee model shoes? — I think not.) I also get annoyed at legally-blind intellectuals who feel they are above Lasik surgery, or think that contacts are a cosmetic option. Chomsky said “From the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.” I think what he meant was: people are made to feel like they need to buy stuff to feel better. No conspiracy Noam, it’s called a shopping mall. Speaking of feeling better, I think I would feel better if Noam bought new glasses, maybe even the more expensive “featherweight” lenses. In short, glasses ought to be real, but not too thick. Everyone is either shallow or too deep; just give me a kiddie pool to drown in. Thank you for accepting the truth, and for being able to see this.
It’s okay to talk about anything you want, including talking about not wanting to hear certain people talk. I mean, I’m okay with all of that. Imagine sometimes someone is just seeing whatup. I don’t like the word ethos. Dead Prez.
dead horse. sorry. i cant help it.
As some of you may already know, this author mailed a submission to The Laurel Review on Wednesday December 27th 2006. What you don’t know is she then took a picture of herself every day for three years while she waited for a response. True story, everyone!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55YYaJIrmzo
November 19th, 2009 / 10:21 pm
Should I ban the commenter ‘Mather Schneider’? Is it worthwhile to have all venues open for commenting, or is sometimes enough enough? Is it possible to be so dense or ‘dense acting’ that you turn discussions in circles simply by continuing to stick snarky comments in every possible hole that you can fill? Is the argument good for a community, or is it sometimes just time to rub out the blah blah? Your thoughts are appreciated.
New Feature: Q & A
Writers (both novice and experienced) often have questions about writing, publishing, etiquette and more. We’d like to try and help. If you have questions, leave a comment with your question(s) in this post or send me an e-mail. Anonymous questions are fine. Over time, we’ll post answers to your queries with insight from some of the HTML Giant contributors and hopefully offer a small bit of sanity to the craziness that is publishing.
Ask away!
Don’t name names.
Sometimes I’ll read through a post here and read the comments, and someone will tell a story about an unnamed authors weird/bad/inappropriate behavior and I’ll think, “Man, who the hell did that?” And I’ll want the commenter or poster to name names. Tell me who did that weird/bad/inappropriate thing.
But names won’t be named. And I’ll think, “Aw, c’mon. Why not? What are you afraid of? Go on. Name the name!”
Someone else will ask for names to be named. Someone will say, “C’mon. Be honest. Just tell us who did that thing. It’s in the interest of open communication!”
And that’s about the time when I realize: bullshit. My desire to have a name named has nothing to do with open communication. It has nothing to do with honesty. I have one—and only one—motivation. I may come up with justifications after the fact, but I have one motivation.
I like gossip. That’s it. And everyone else does, too. We can mask our desire for names to be named in all sorts of higher-seeming justifications. But we just want to gossip.
So, fuck it. Don’t name names. We don’t really have any good reason to want them. And when we pressure you, cajole you, or try to make you feel like a coward for not naming names, remember that we’re completely full of shit. Don’t fall for it.
(Apologies for feeding the troll. Happens often enough, though.)