Recent Posts For Creative Writers: Your Sanity and Mine

Posts at the Sanity Blog, located at Catherine's home, BookEval.com

Workshop Advice That Will Ruin Personal Essays

Bored with Death
Don't write about your uncle's cancer and death. Write about his life.

Pumping Up Prose Style
Competence is not enough anymore.

And I hope you read:

Coffee Makes You FaT

A Writer with $10

11 Lessons from National Novel Writing Month
("the fourth dimension of any novel is its moral dimension")

Interview with First-Time Novelist Peter Leach
(while he waited, he wrote 16 more novels)

Latest Posts in the Sanity Bubble

Mental Health for Writers has moved here to the Sanity Blog. New posts worth your while include:

On Giving Up My Land Line (July 15)
I've Had Enough of "You" (Second Person Plural) in Poetry (June 16) (gosh; this one's really popular!)
Two "Things" That Will Improve Your Poems (June 9)
What's "A Rhetorical Poem"? and Why Nobody Tells You About Them (June 7)
A Rare Look Inside the Writer's Cabin (June 4)
"Blue" Material (May 29)

Catching Up with the Sanity Bubble

I apologize for having been inactive. Some relatively recent entries worth reading are:

Applying Online for an Official U.S. Copyright (Oct. 16)
Hating the Teacher (Dec. 13)
Not Compromising on Candor (January 1)
Best Yahoo Group for Writers: CRWROPPS-B (January 4)
I Have a Dream for Writers (Feb. 18; scroll down on this page)
The Surprise Package of Life ( March 5)
Ten Reasons to Sleep with a Poet (March 13)
A. Rich vs. The Literary Equivalent of Boned, Skinned, Chicken Breasts (April 2)
Poems About the Past (April 3)

There are other entries, too.

Latest Posts in the Sanity Bubble

The dog days are over and the blog is back:

Sic Transit Gloria (11 October)
The Oddity of One's Own New Book (9 October)
'Tis the Season to Rip Off New Authors (8 October)
The Joy of Printing (4 October)
The Writer's Hangover (29 September)
Making $ on the HubPages "Content Farm" (29 September)
The Bar-Code Scandal (10 September)
Walrus Publishing Interviews Me (2 September)
Veblen's Vacation Home (24 August)

New Posts in the Sanity Bubble

Click here to visit and read the current month of Sanity Bubble (formerly Mental Health for Writers) blog entries:

More About the Experiment with Voices and Chance (July 24)
Talking With: Dwight Bitikofer (July 18)
An Experiment with Voices and Chance (July 18)
Why Housepets Are Not a Good Subject for a Book (July 13)
Never Do Anything Out of Desperation (July 7)
The 32 Drawings (July 3)
How Not to Begin Your Meditative Essay (July 1)
Screening Test: Is the Applicant a "Writer"? (June 28)

Recent Blog Posts in the Sanity Bubble

• How to Destroy a Writer's Conference (May 20)
• E-Books Outsell Paperbacks for the First Time (May 13)
• How Do I Get My Book Reviewed? (May 12)
• My Mom For President (May 8)
• Good Books with Not-So-Good Covers (May 8)
• Choosing a Book Cover: A Matter of Self-Respect (May 8)
• Anxious Authors (May 5)
• Deconstructing Online Dating Profiles (May 3)
• Meet Us May 7 at Left Bank Books (April 30)
• A Battle in the Pay-the-Writer War (April 25)
  

Please change your bookmark to http://www.bookeval.com/sanity-bubble

New Blog Posts

Recent posts in the Sanity Bubble; comments welcome:

• Literary Lies (April 19)
• Why the Agent Stops Reading at Page 2 (April 15)
• Talking With: Alice Azure, Native American Author (April 14)
• Here's a Rejection I Like (April 12)
• The Myth of the Lone Writer (April 11)
• Time Trick That Works (April 8)
• Turning Away from Toxic Friends (April 5)
• Why Katie Couric Didn't Wash (April 3)
• Writing an Author a Fan Letter (April 2)
• They Don't Want You to Write (March 28)
• Scary Me: I Get a Clue (March 27)
• I Want to Be Another Poet (March 26)
  

Blog Has Moved - and Been Renamed - Go There!

Hello. My new online home including the blog (now renamed "Sanity Bubble") is BookEval.com. You can leave comments on the entries as usual. I will eventually move all 300 blog entries onto that site. Come see my amazing new space! Thank you so much.

Meet Me: Preview the Book

My book Meet Me: Writers in St. Louis, is in production, and here's a PDF peek at what it will look like inside. I include the whole interview with poet Tess Gallagher, then in St. Louis promoting her books of poems Moon Crossing Bridge and Portable Kisses. That was in 1992, back when publishers actually sent poets on promotional tours. Tess was once my teacher, as I say in the headnote. Enjoy it -- the book has 12 more interviews: Carl Phillips, Ntozake Shange, Harper Barnes, Eddy L. Harris, Eric Pankey, more...Meet Me is now due to be published by Penultimate Press in December. Pardon me for my pride in it! You can pre-order by clicking here.

Hast Seen the Galleys

Visited my publisher's office Friday. Here's where experience in designing my own self-published books comes in very handy. I saw 12 potential covers for Meet Me: Writers in St. Louis. They all featured charming St. Louis doorways and porches with chairs & wicker, with tile, with ceiling fans, with painted doors, porticos, redbud branches visible...lovely. I asked that the title be changed from script type to sans serif, because script type is famously hard to read; the designer should have known better. The title said "Meet Me" but in script it looked like, "Seet Me," or "Geet Me" -- honest! It has pretty much been decided that the book will have a darkish cover with two comfortable chairs on a porch. The scene seems to say "Meet me," or "We met and talked here."

Then today I saw the interior layout and wished to change everything about it, for my own very good reasons. I'll let you know if I win any of these rounds.

New Bookstore, Red Lipstick

There's a new independent bookstore in St. Louis and someone who's been there told me it's very professional and totally hot, kind of like you and me in red lipstick. It's Pudd'n'head Books at 37 S. Old Orchard Ave. in Webster Groves, near the Ben Franklin.

National Poetry Month has kept you and me hopping to and from workshops and readings all April and I'll be on the bill at Pudd'n'head on April 28, readings starting at 7:30. After the featured poets do 10-15 minutes each, the mike is open.

Find Wall; Bang Head Repeatedly

A month after I began work on finding a book title, this week I really poured it on, going so far as to consult the Band Name Generator (using an appropriate variable word such as "writer," "author," "interview," "river," "central," etc.). Everyone I asked offered help; thank you kindly! I will do the same for you. And finally I think I've got it. I'll sleep on it and then tell you that I want to call it A Fine Line, subtitle Talks with Authors in St. Louis, or something like that. Do you like it?

Other titles considered: Flyover, Flyway (love the word, but it's too much like "flyweight)," Desktop Paradise, Desktop Haven, Garden of Intelligence, River Haven, St. Louis Calling, Creatives, About the Writer, Second-Floor Sunroom. . . (an architectural detail that's so very St. Louis!), Velvet Minds, many hundreds more.

The Library Secret

Secret is out; someone made me admit that all my life I have visited the space my books would occupy on library shelves. For about 25 years I pined over the 811 shelves (Dewey) and the PS books, subset 20th century (Library of Congress system), with the books of Sylvia Plath and Philip Roth so near I could feel and almost see them breathing . Ultimately my books manifested (between poet Claudia Rankine on my left, and always a different author on my right) in the 21st century. They are titled Fierce Consent and Island Universe; two pleasing names.

Now at libraries I often visit my books. One of them may be out on the town. The satisfaction is immense. It'll happen again and again, as long as I live, and even longer.

Tip: Ask your relatives and friends in other counties and states to contact the acquisitions librarians at their local public and college libraries, suggesting they acquire your book. This can often be done by filling out an online form.

Creating a Title for a Book

Publisher informs me she doesn't like the working title on my book of interviews, Fame. It will have a subtitle but I worked hard to find this main title. Ideally, in my mind, a book's title should be

• unique
• memorable
• short (A big marbly mouthful can work if it's fun to say, such as Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form, or What Narcissism Means to Me. Nobody would have read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius had it been titled Generation Y Male Discovers That Life is Hard.)
• fun to say
  
• intriguing
• appealing (the sunny version of "intriguing")
• convey the gist of the book
• pleasing to the author
  

Publisher suggested calling it InterViews but that title doesn't meet my criteria.

My impulse is to keep my choice, but we'll brainstorm for something we agree on. I brainstormed and searched for my poetry book's title, Fierce Consent, for four solid months. The phrase was in the manuscript. The right title often hides out there.

Among Friends: Books Published or in Press in '08-09

Just to show it does happen, a list of recent book publications/acceptances (2008 and early 2009) by local writers I personally know and like:

• Claire Applewhite, The Wrong Side of Memphis (L&L Dreamspell), novel
• Mary Ann deGrandpre Kelly, Marlene Miller, Niki Nymark, Marilyn Probe*: Nothing Smaller than Your Elbow (Bluestem), poetry
• Mary Ruth Donnelly: Weaving the Light (Cherry Pie Press), poetry chapbook
• Pamela Garvey, Fear (Finishing Line Press), poetry chapbook
• Colleen McKee* and Amanda Stiebel, Are We Feeling Better Yet? Women Speak About Health Care in America (Penultimate), anthology
• J. Roger Nelson*, The God Whom Moses Knew (Thomas Nelson), novel
• Niki Nymark, A Stranger Here Myself (Cherry Pie Press), poetry chapbook
• Angie O’Gorman*, The Book of Sins (PlainView Press), novel.
• Catherine Rankovic: Fame: Writers in St. Louis in the 1990s (Penultimate), nonfiction
• Suzanne Rhodenbaugh, The Whole Shebang (Word Press), poetry
  

*=formerly my student!

I would LOVE to see in this list next year:

Denise Bogard (novel)
Janet Edwards* (nonfiction)
Rebecca Ellis (poetry)
Matt Freeman (poetry)
Julia Gordon-Bramer (poetry)
Susan Grigsby* (poetry)
Tim Leach (poetry)
Steven Schreiner (poetry)
-- and YOU.

Spring Course in Advanced Creative Nonfiction

If you're working on nonfiction and need a workshop, I'm teaching an evening workshop called Nonfiction Seminar at University College, Washington University, this spring. It's a 3-credit workshop course for memoir, essay, biography, travelogues, and nature writing; or narrative, as-told-to and other forms of creative nonfiction. The course emphasizes professionalism and publishability.

The course meets Tuesdays, 6:00-8:30 p.m., begins January 13 and ends May 5. I am happy
to answer any questions. Please pass the word. Thank you.

To register, go to ucollege.wustl.edu and click "Courses and Registration" The
course number is U11 313, under English Composition, and tuition is $1495.

I'm also teaching a course Thursday evenings, same place, U11 323, called The Art of the
Personal Essay.

Are We Feeling Better Yet?

Some contributing writers and the editors at the book launch today, 11/19, for the fabulous new anthology Are We Feeling Better Yet? Women Speak About Health Care in America (Penultimate Press), edited by Colleen McKee and Amanda Stiebel. Book will be on Amazon.com very soon; $19.95; click here to see and order directly from the publisher, St. Louis's only nonprofit press. The book -- 21 essays, three years in the making -- will make a great holiday gift for any woman finding herself in contact with the U.S. health care hydra. In the photo, left to right: Amanda Stiebel, Cathy Luh, Janet Edwards, Corrine McAfee, Denise Bogard, Colleen McKee, Catherine Rankovic. Penultimate Press, run by Winnie Sullivan, is a nonprofit organization. Taken at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Gigs, a.k.a. Literary Readings

To get literary "gigs" -- invitations to read one's work to an audience -- you circulate, belong to clubs and groups, know people, pass on the names of underappreciated writers, and stay active on the local literary scene, whether publishing, editing, teaching, or being in the audience. I'm preparing for three gigs: November 14 (poetry), Regional Arts Commission, across from the Pageant Theater, 7 p.m.; November 19, UMSL (prose); then another on December 13, Black Bear Bakery, 2 p.m.

I love gigs because I write to communicate, and they give me a chance to air favorite works that for whatever reason aren't published: because they're new; because they're risky or offbeat; because I haven't a clue as to who'd publish them. A poet is a one-man band -- has to hold the audience as Aerosmith or an opera singer would hold it, without any of the instruments, props, amps or roadies. Just a voice and words on paper. This is one of the greatest challenges anyone could ever face. And one of the most rewarding to ace, whether you get money or not (mostly not). I strive to give a polished performance that offers a few twists and shocks.

You'll see and hear what I mean.

Objections to the Workshop Method

While the classic "writing workshop" peer-critique method is used widely and successfully, it has its detractors. Objections to this classic workshop model include those listed below:

Asking the writer to stay silent and listen during discussion of her work is a form of oppression.
Maybe that’s true. If you think so, try "reverse workshop" variations: Have the writer speak for 10 minutes about the work in question while everyone else listens. Or have everyone write out one question for the writer, hand the questions to the writer, and let her read aloud and answer the questions.

A workshop is really a kind of peer pressure for everyone to “dumb down” their writing and make it bland and politically correct.
Caving in to “peer pressure” is a choice. Those who will do it merely to get praise and acceptance are either overdependent on praise or are in the wrong workshop.

The group-workshop process homogenizes people’s writing styles, and/or destroys their originality.
You were born unique, and have unique things to say, but originality, like wisdom, develops over time, and once developed it cannot be destroyed. Associations among artists do not automatically lead to compromise. Take for example writer Gertrude Stein and her salon, or the works of painters such as Picasso, Kandinsky, or Klee, whose works became more original and radical as they matured. If in your workshop you aren’t being encouraged and challenged to do yourself one better, you are in the wrong group.

Writing workshops aren’t for everybody.
That’s true, especially for young writers, under age 18. They should avoid workshops unless they are held in a school and moderated by a helpful and sympathetic teacher. Young people’s creative experiments should be shielded from the remarks and reactions of careless peers, or adults who hold standards that are anti-creative or punishingly high.

A workshop is basically a bunch of bad writers sitting around reading each other’s bad writing. Therefore it can be of no help to anyone.
Let’s pretend that’s true. If so, the only thing a writer could ever get out of a workshop is seeing what other writers do badly. And that by itself is an absolutely priceless lesson for any writer. This “basically a bunch of bad writers” remark came from a celebrated writer famously incapable of editing his own writing. He sent editors manuscripts thousands of words longer than the editors had asked for or could possibly publish. The editors were forced to craft and finalize his manuscripts by cutting excesses and repetitions. Such extensive editing annoyed the writer, but he had never learned to see his work as a reader might see it, and therefore had to cede to editors the power he should have wielded over his own writing. The ability to assess and craft one’s own work is precisely the power that develops most rapidly in a workshop setting.

"Part of Being a Great Poet Is. . ."

"Part of being a great poet is having great pictures of yourself taken," Tess Gallagher told our class back in '87; and I admit to being fascinated by author photos, especially studio or "studied" photos such as these here. Such photos alone express the high drama and confidence involved in the work of writing -- never otherwise visible. Probably for the drama of it, authors are traditionally photographed only in black & white. True, I've seen some super-dramatic, off-putting, plunge-neckline jacket photos, but most writers have more taste than that.

Here's Tess (photographed in Washington State by Corbin) in 1987, about age 44, when I knew her; the picture is on her book Amplitude: New and Selected Poems. And here's Vladimir Mayakovsky as a 20-year-old art student in 1913, the year he published his collection "I" and blew some windows out of the Moscow literary establishment. I like how Mayakovsky defined himself in a poem: "I'm not a man; I'm a cloud in trousers!"

Poet Marina Tsvetayeva, Mayakovsky's contemporary, left a hint on what she thought writers should wear: "Clothes that are not beautiful in the wind are not beautiful at all."