@obsidian_cicatrix: I always feel that patients tend to intuitively know what is the best solution for them but you are right, with mental illness, judgement and insight being impaired, can be misleading. But I'm really glad things worked out well for you! With psychiatric medications, and even diagnosis itself, there's a lot of uncertainty. And long term side effects are quite severe. So it's always weighing risks and benefits. But there aren't any hard and fast rules and things tend to ease with time also. I love classical guitar! I tried to learn it, but I was too old (15) and I'm a bit dyslexic for reading music, which is why I found singing a lot easier. If I hear the melody once, I can replicate it perfectly. Not so much with sheet music and guitar though @Duchess-Yukine-Suoh: Don't rush with diagnosing yourself. Most people regularly experience things that are associated with mental illness. We all sometimes get euphoric, down, obsessive about something, anxious, we lose control of our emotions, we even experience psychosis when we are so tired we can't comprehend something that's happening, or when we have bizarre dreams. Hallucinations in pre and post hypnotic states (as we fall asleep,or wake up) are not uncommon. It only becomes an illness when it occurs in a prolonged and sustained fashion and negatively impacts a person's ability to function and carry out daily tasks.
@jazzabel You have no idea how refreshing it is to see a doctor say that. It's a horrible feeling to have one's own opinions discounted. I realise that docs are aware that the patient's viewpoint may be skewed, but we do still have periods of lucidity. The proof is in the pudding as they say. I have no doubt, I did the right thing. Never too old. Tablature is great, if one doesn't want to go the formal route, and it is much easier to read, basically being a diagram of where to place the fingers. Then it's just down to the player to render the piece as their own ear dictates. And, if you have a good ear already, that's half the battle. I love learning new things, but time is always a factor, especially as one gets older, as already established interests tend to take priority.
This is entirely off-topic, but I find it funny that you use that expression because I was just looking up what it means. I know what it means but where did it come from? How did it get it's meaning. as it happens, the original saying was "The proof of the pudding is is the eating," which just an old adage for "don't judge a book by it's cover" or "you never know until you try." I just found that interesting.
Best way to think of it is as a spectrum... everyone falls into place on the spectrum somewhere. Just like @jazzabel says, it only becomes a problem when it becomes sustained, and has a negative effect on the ability to function normally. We all have our little quirks, so don't let them get you down, or make you feel that something is inherently wrong.
The first is not a meaning I would apply to it, Andrae. To me it means you can only judge the outcome after the fact. In my case the proof of my decision is demonstrated by the fact I'm living my life in a way that suits me better. Edit: Etymology This proverb dates back at least to the 14th century as "Jt is ywrite that euery thing Hymself sheweth in the tastyng", and William Camden stated it in 1605 in Remaines of a Greater Worke, Concerning Britaine as "All the proofe of a pudding, is in the eating", per Rogers' Dictionary of Cliche and the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.[1]
@obsidian_cicatrix: It really boils down to paternalism versus patient autonomy. By the time I went to uni, medical community was confident that autonomy was the way to go, but a lot of older colleagues who practiced in paternalistic manner, are finding the adjustment difficult. It also depends on where you practice. In India, a doctor is expected to be brief, to order treatment and offer minimal or no explanation or discussion. Any deviation from this norm is seen as the doctor lacking in confidence or knowledge. I had a few Indian doctor friends who were utterly anguished when they came to work in the UK. They wanted to accommodate the different approach, but they feared they'll come across as incompetent. On the other hand, in parts of China it is normal to discuss illness and treatment with patient's family, not the patient. It's all really fascinating. There's a really good book called 'Illness Narratives' by Arthur Kleinmann, it discusses a lot of these issues. Eh, that pesky time problem. I can concentrate on one artistic pursuit at a time, and the list keeps growing
@jazzabel. Thanks for that. I'll see if I can order myself a copy. It's a subject I find interesting. And, I can understand why, especially in those circumstances. I never forget... doctors are people too.
I hope I'm not beating a dead horse, but this is a bit of a hot button issue with me. How can you practice what you don't know? The act of writing won't teach you anything about what editors are apt to say yes to, or what's looked at as professional writing in the acquiring editor's mind. Most people come to writing with a high school education and perhaps an undergrad CW course. But we leave high school with only general skills, and our compositional skills are those of the nonfiction writer, fact-based and author-centric. It's a skill meant to inform, as might be expected, given the goal of public schooling. Greater than ninety percent of what I see posted in the various online writers sites fits into that category. And that ratio held so far as submissions to my manuscript critiquing service. It's to be expected because in school our teachers never told us they were training us in the skills employers require, not those of the profession of fiction writer. So given that, where do we learn better? How do we acquire professional skill and knowledge? Talking to people who know no more than ourselves? Seems like less then the most effective way to become a professional. It might be nice if reading fiction taught us the skills of the writer, but we see the finished product, not the process, so we know nothing of the decisions made, and why one choice was made and another rejected. Watching films and TV didn't make us competent screenwriters, and we wouldn't become one by sitting down and banging out scripts. There are techniques unique to each medium. And if they were obvious they wouldn't offer four year majors in professional fiction writing. Sorry to have come on so strong. I'm not trying to start an argument, or trample on people, but I've talked to editors, agents, and writers over the years, and not one of them would agree that you can simply sit at the keyboard and bootstrap your writing to professional level without outside, professional, input. It might pay to read this excerpt from Don't Murder Your Mystery. He touches on some important points on how publishers and agents look at the process of becoming writers. I can't speak to his book because I've not read it, and I favor Dwight Swain's, Techniques of the Selling writer over pretty much everything else. But what he says in this excerpt should be required reading for anyone hoping to become a writer. In the excerpt the quotes from agents and publishers are priceless, and an education in and of themselves.
@JayG Don't apologize to me, you haven't changed my mind. I made my point and I'm sticking with it. I'm no authority, but I know there is more than one way to learn what you need. I've said twice now, I'm not against formal education, and that one must--invariably--learn the craft and trade of fiction writing (as distinct as it is from informative nonfiction). But as to how one learns and trains is a matter entirely dependent on the person's time, resources, and preferred learning style. Anyone can learn and anything can be their teacher. I'm glad you have your own view, and I'm glad you know what editors want and look for, but those aren't things you need a 4 year degree to learn. Publishers may look for credentials before deciding to take on a book, but that's their loss if the skip a good book because of it. Good writing is good writing no matter how you learn. That's really all I have to say on the matter. Edit: That is not to be blatantly rude. You're a nice guy and you mean well. I just disagree.
I'm sticking to my point as well. I'm a multi-award winning scale model builder who learned my trade through nothing more than practice/trial and error. I believe the same applies to writing where one most certainly does not need an expensive degree to become "good." Personally, I don't give a rats a** what publishers/big business editors are looking for in my writing, since I write purely to tell a story, not to cash in and if other writers think less of me for that, than so be it.
I think you make some good points about the benefits of learning from experts, but this is not the ONLY way people can learn to write. If so, there would have been no writers in the past—writers who lived before the days of 'creative writing courses' appeared online or otherwise. We'd have no Dickens, Austen, Twain, Milton, Shakespeare, etc. Breaking out of the expository-writing straightjacket imposed by schooling can certainly take effort and time. There is another school-imposed straightjacket you might want to consider breaking out of as well. That's the idea that the only way to learn things is through academia. You CAN learn by observing, and deliberately analysing how something works or doesn't. You don't need a mentor to point things out to you. A mentor can help, of course (if they're any good at it) but you can certainly do this on your own. Read authors you enjoy and deliberately study their structure. Look at passages of dialogue and description and figure out how they've done it. You can also read books on creative writing (and editing, publishing, getting an agent, etc) and apply the principles to your own writing. Or ...you can just sit down and bang out a story. Get other people to read it. Listen to what they tell you. Make changes accordingly. Work your way into the craft. I'd say learning is the key ...HOW you learn is up to you.
I'm somewhat undecided on the issue - I've took a single creative writing course a decade ago, and I pretty much disagreed with my mentor on pretty much everything, so I left in the middle of it never to turn back. This doesn't mean, of course, that there aren't a lot of very good, and very creative creative writing courses out there - I was just not lucky enough to meet the right people. In the meantime, I've got myself a formal education in what my colleagues often refer to as "creative reading" - which was fun enough and made me a strong proponent of any kind of academic education. There are some things you just can't learn from wikipedia - you need to read books and texts and references only available in academic libraries (even accessing JSTOR is free and unlimited when using an institution login). On the other side, this made me into a cynical bastard who find most How-to books dull and not serios enough (a book without footnotes is for primary schools) However, I know that academic education is neither free nor widely available in most of the world. Tuitions are over the top, academies offer low quality courses and unexperienced teachers, and it all starts to look like elitism and/or waste of time (especially if you lived in a former socialist country where higher education was, for most parts, free or cheap). Now, when it comes to writing, I consider it an art - on par with visual arts, music, etc. This goes both for narrative writing and for poetry ("pure art of letters", if you like). Thus, while some knowledge is recomended and needed (it is a "craft" after all), practice is far more important. A healthy balance between the two, I believe, is very much needed. But there is a common misconception, methinks, about "creative writing" (in academic sense) being necessary, as well as a (equally) common misconception that no theoretic knowledge is of any use.
I think these MAs in creative writing, courses, critique services are mostly a racket to be honest. And a lot of ppl are just duped into them thinking they can become successful quickly...While I agree that you will learn techniques from them and how to books that can perhaps fast track your way to being a more marketable writer, they are certainly not essential. Look at Dickens (and he's just one) Dickens left school at 12 and was self taught. No writing courses around then. Most of the ppl couldn't read or write. IMO there is essentially 3 elements that are paramount to the writer: 1: Being an ferocious reader - everything from classics to blogs. 2: Practicing. That is knuckling to it. 3: And this is the most important IMO - it takes a certain state of mind to be a writer, a certain interesting view of the world that allows you to feel, see things the majority of ppl miss, to have things to say about the world and be able to express them. You need experience. You need insight. You need to be able to look at things closely and analyse and need to be able to see things from both sides of the story, different angles... This, I would guess, is half nurture/half nature.
@Darrell Standing You mentioning Dickens (let's say: Classic Novelists instead of just Dickens) makes me think... Being that what we nowadays call "Creative writing" in academic workshops is the child of post-WWII restructuring of academia (in anglophonic countries) - while the practice is "exported" throughout the world, it remains, in general, a very anglophone "thing". In France, I think there is but one University offering something akin to "Master of Cr.Wr" - two or three in Germany (Leipzig for sure, not certain for others). Etc. So, one might be inclined to think of a different line of thought here - a clash of cultural values, if you like. Classical continental academic thought holds that text analysis and linguistic knowledge is, more or less, what a University should offer. Anglophones might feel differently. However, the idea of making writing profitable and the idea of "learning how to sell your product" is something very American, when it comes to art. Don't get me wrong, but when the artist himself starts to look on his art as a product, and his main preocupation shifts from mastering the form to marketability - we are talking about different things. A substantially different discourse, if you like.
You learn by reading a lot and figuring out what works and what doesn't. Some people get it wrong, of course, and these people never really make it as writers. But a lot of people who are aspiring writers do know the rules of grammar, are critical readers, etc., so I would argue that they know quite a bit about writing. I would also like to add that editors aren't always looking for good writing. Since publishing is a business, they're looking for the piece of work that will make the most money. The danger with creative writing classes/programs is that they have the potential to churn out cookie-cutter writers. As I've mentioned several times on this forum, there is no authority when it comes to creative writing, so what students are getting is one teacher's opinion on how to do things. I am of the opinion that creative writing is a journey of self-discovery, and what separates the great writer from the good one is that the great writer finds a new way of looking at ordinary things, which is something that can't be taught.
No one has said anything about requiring a degree or even attendance at a university. But rejecting the information you would gain in them as unnecessary would seem to require some proof that the technique works, and creates a product that our customer, the publishers, require. And I don't mean in the abstract, by pointing to an author and saying, "S/he did it," without knowing them or their situation personally. If a technique works it should work for the one espousing it. The advice I give isn't my own, unless I place a disclaimer on it to that effect. It's what you would get were you to talk to the acquiring editor of a publishing house that pays advances, and places their money where their mouth is. It's the advice given by people who, when they went on lecture tours, filled auditoriums with hopeful writers who wanted to learn from a pro. Certainly, you can disagree with the information they dispensed. And certainly anyone can write in any stye they care to. But the advice given by men like Swain and Bickham demonstrably works, and you can see it in play in the vast majority of fiction appearing in the bookstores. From what I can see, though, the "think method," which didn't work for Professor Harold Hill, can be seen in the vast majority of the self published work out there—and is the reason it had to be self published. Have you actually looked into the subject, and read what the publishers say? You might want to follow that link I gave in my last post, because he addresses what publishers have to say. They no more care for your credentials than a director cares if the one auditioning graduated from an arts college. It's the performance that counts. They open to the first page of the manuscript and begin to read. Those who don't know their craft are obvious, and most are rejected before the end of the first paragraph. The vast majority of the rest before the end of the first page. And by vast majority I mean over 75% When your submission lands on the desk it's in competition with at least a thousand others for one publishing slot. Some of your competition has been working on their skills for a decade or more. Some have graduated with commercial fiction training. A great many have been to retreats and workshops in an attempt to pick the brains of people who have had success. Some of them have been published before. Do you really think that someone who has talked only to others who haven't been published will have somehow intuited what that editor is looking for? My point is simple: you can choose not to use a given tool. You can use a given tool in any way you care to. But you cannot use the tool when you're not aware it exists. Experience may be a stairway to success. But education is an escalator.
• Shakespeare served a long and difficult apprenticeship, learning his craft. • Milton has a classic and diligent education, beginning with private tutors. Poetry would have been one of his areas of study. • Twain was a newspaperman first. He began working as such at fifteen. He had a habit of educating himself at the public library, where he would have, of course, never read anything on writing fiction. • Austen was raised in a household where she was expected to use her mind, to read, write and create. What did she read? Who did she talk to about writing? She was introduced to publishers. Did she have them comment on her work and make professional suggestions? We have no idea. So to assume she just sat down and had it magically come to her is shortsighted. • Dickens was a journalist at a time when writing for publication far more resembled journalism than it does not. They were educated, in the same way other authors in their society were educated. So thei competition, unlike yours, didn't require the specialized knowledhge and tricks a modern writer does. And they write at a time when there was no visual medium competition that forced writers to focus more on the character's POV. The term POV in regards to writing didn't exist, and stories were told more as a chronicle and overview, looking at the sweep of it rather than looking for a real-time experience. Dialog was to illustrate a point, and far more sparse than it is today. Our schooldays nonfiction writing skills would have been far more of use in writing in their style. The time required is infinite if you don't learn that you're in it, and given that our English teachers never told us they were teaching nonfiction techniques, most never do. Seems one point in favor of education. So far I've not seen anyone argue in favor of it being the only way, so that's a non-issue. But let's take it the other way. Can you think of any other profession in which the recommended approach to becoming a professional is to simply attempt to do the thing for which the profession is known, with no mentoring, and no training other then talking to other untrained people? Lets look within the writing field. How many screenwriters are successful today with their training being the TV and films they watched, plus talking to other wannabees? How many playwrights? Journalists? I used to think that too. Then I went back and looked at my old work and wondered how in the hell I could have been so dumb. So what happened to my analysis tools when I edited it? Why didn't I see that it didn't work then? If what you suggested worked we would only have to read a few novels and then have everything we need. But if we don't know what a scene goal is, and what it does, will we notice that there is one? Go look at your fiction library. Do you know, without looking, what's different about the first paragraph of each chapter in half or more of what you read. Most people don't. Some have to have it pointed out even after they're looking at it, and we see that each time we read. And if we missed something so damn obvious, how can you say that our analysis tools will tell us how something was done, good or bad? You can't look for what you don't know exists. You can see what was done, but you won't know what the author was trying to achieve. And without knowing that you won't know what you're looking at. You see the product, not the process. And creation requires a process. To test that, look at my deconstructed scene. Read it through to see if it seems to work, or not work. Then analyze it as you suggest. And finally, check with what I said I was trying to accomplish with a given line and ask yourself if you intuited the points by just reading.
Creative writing courses, in general suck. Most of them are undergrad courses, and required. That means most of the students in them aren't interested in becoming writers which drags the class down. The course is designed to give an exposure to a bit of everything, so you send a week on poetry, a week on nonfiction, etc. A waste of time. But the worst thing is that after being required to read about how to write fiction, everyone writes a story, and then the class members, who are unqualified and uneducated, critique each other, as it there was some value in it.
@JayG actually, the cr.wr. course was optional ...anyway, I understood that you advocate for workshops of that kind? Maybe you would find a more "academic" approach to narratology interesting - maybe not start with Culler, but Barthes is fun
Good point. I'm no literary snob but I have always inwardly cringed every time I see the top ten bestsellers list and this is why, because publishers and editors dictate the market, much like musical tastes are dictated to young ppl too.
This is an interesting question but assumes that there are people who are just born good writers. Although some of may have some hidden innate talent, I believe the answer to this is obvious: it is absolutely possible to become a good writer or else there would be no writers. Even the best of the best had to work long and hard to become so.
Slate.com had a really interesting series on this a few months back - about 10 articles in all. They examined the role of depression as well as some others: role of drinking/drugs, procrastination, writing style, country of birth, etc. Entertaining and information - I'd highly recommend.
