Category: School (page 2 of 3)

A conversation with the dead

Two weeks ago I went with a friend to the release party for UWG’s literary magazine, Eclectic. It felt a little awkward to be the sole history major in a sea of hipsters English majors, but I had a good time; a lot of the work in this year’s magazine was top-notch, and the readings were quite enjoyable. The biggest draw of the party, though, probably wasn’t the magazine itself, but the fact that Edward Hirsch was present.

Here, I guess, is where my history-majorness shines forth. I had no idea who Edward Hirsch was. Apparently he is a poet. And also president of the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. All in all, he seems pretty legit.

After the various singings and readings and award-givings, he spoke. Most of it had to do with poetry, understandably, but a lot of it had to do with writing in general-and a lot of what he said about poetry could be extrapolated to apply to writing in general.

One thing in particular stuck with me: writing can’t only be self-conscious and introspective. A writer should always write with the awareness that his writing is a dialogue with everything that has already been written. Writing, poetry or otherwise, is “a conversation with the dead.”

He gave an illustration: his earliest attempts at poetry were good, solid attempts. But his poetry wasn’t great until he consciously engaged the work of other poets, picking through style and theme to discern just what had made those earlier writers so great (or not). It isn’t enough just to dismiss the existing body of work and go one’s own way. For writing to be transcendent and lasting, it needs to have that consciousness.

The point of writing, according to Hirsch, is to transcend “the muck and mire” to make something last through language. But writing isn’t self-reliant. If it is to last, it has to build on the existing foundation.

Which is why I think reading is such an important thing for writers. And reading widely-not only in your genre, but across the spectrum, because in the end a lot of it is the same story. Knowing what’s already been said, and how it’s been said, and why it’s been said, is an important part of making sure your writing has something to add to the conversation.

Guess I need to go read some Edward Hirsch now…

Writing and college

When I started drafting this post in my head, I was thinking I would come up with some Practical and Helpful Advice on how to balance writing and college, since I know I’m not the only young writer out there trying to juggle the two. Then I realized I had nothing really helpful to say about the topic. At least, there was nothing I could say without exposing myself as a hypocrite. I don’t manage my time that well, for starters. I procrastinate like nobody’s business. I stress myself out, and I don’t sleep long enough or eat well enough. So if you’re a Dapper Young Writer looking for advice on how best to come through college with your sanity and overall well-being still intact, I’m probably not the person you should be talking to.

I will say this, though: if you’re really passionate about writing and learning, you’ll find the time to do both. And if you’re sneaky and clever as well as passionate, you’ll figure out how to combine the two and save yourself some time and stress!

Anything-any course of study, any class-can inform your writing, if you let it. English and literature classes, obviously, can be of great benefit for writers; reading widely-and thinking critically about what you’re reading-is such an integral part of being a writer. As a history major and a writer of historical fiction (or historically-based fantasy, at least), I also try, as much as possible, to make my research for term papers double as research for my works-in-progress; the same for my political science coursework. The geology lab course I took this past semester helped me tidy up some of my fictional world’s topographical details. And don’t forget the bevy of resources available to writers on a college campus. A college library is an invaluable thing. So is a campus coffeeshop-thank goodness West Georgia has a Starbucks now!

In short, look at college as an opportunity for you as a writer, not as a hindrance. That doesn’t mean there won’t be stressful days, or weeks, or months (November, in particular), when you’d so much rather be working on your manuscript than writing your fifteen-page research paper or preparing your COMM presentation. The key is learning how to apply it all to your writing. Let all that research pay off in your worldbuilding. And hey, if nothing else, you now know how your character feels when she’s got to give a presentation to her boss (or maybe when he’s got to stand up and give a rallying speech before the battle, in my case).

What I’m reading

My current reading list is dreadfully academic in nature, I’m afraid. There’s the stuff I’m reading for class, obviously-Hobbes’ Leviathan, Locke’s Two Treatises of Government. But for pleasure I’m reading Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (excellent so far-I’d recommend it to anyone, not only because it’s extremely important material but because Snyder has a terse, efficient way of writing that makes a 400-page book seem very approachable) and, off and on, Francis Fukuyama’s Origins of Political Order. Somewhere off on the back-burner Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go has been lingering for a while.

I submitted a query letter, via online form, to a literary agency yesterday. A couple of the fields on the form gave me pause-one asked which book I was currently reading, another asked which author had influenced me the most. I thought it was a nice, neat way for the agency to get a feel for prospective clients’ tastes. So I put my answers: Bloodlands in the first field, Ernest Hemingway in the second. But it got me thinking. Here I am trying to break into the fantasy market, and yet I have not read a fantasy book for-well, for a long time. In fact, the last recent fantasy book I read was probably one of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series-and one of the earlier ones, at that.

I’ve become something of a snob when it comes to the fantasy genre. I’ve prided myself on avoiding the ubiquitous Game of Thrones craze-I haven’t watched the HBO show at all, and I only managed to get a few chapters into A Game of Thrones when I started it a couple years ago, despite having it repeatedly and enthusiastically recommended to me. I’ve prided myself, likewise, on avoiding the Hunger Games craze. And pretty much every other fantasy craze to come along in recent years.

In short, I’ve gotten out of touch with the genre. Pretty much since I started college I’ve given all my reading time and attention to Hemingway and Orwell, Fitzgerald and Huxley. Which is all well and good, right? These authors wrote literature. Literature with a capital L, guys.

The only recent popular fiction I’ve read at all is the unfinished Ishiguro I mentioned above. I’ve thumbed my nose at recent fiction and contented myself with reading books by guys who’ve been dead for at least fifty years.

And yet here I am trying to market a fantasy novel.

This is problematic, I think. I don’t think I should eschew my Hemingway and Orwell to read every new Sookie Stackhouse that comes out-I’m not saying that. And I don’t want to compromise and change my vision or style simply to fit a quickly passing trend (I’ve heard dystopian is already on its way out, guys). But if I’m serious about getting published-and I am-I need at least to have a feel for the market, right? I need to know what readers expect and I should make room on my reading list accordingly.

What do you guys think?

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