Summary Slide

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Summary Slide

• Week 1- Getting Started

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Week 1- Getting Started

• By now, you should have completed three tasks:

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• Attending the orientation, where you have met me and your peers, obtained your password for the course and familiarized yourself with WebCT, the vehicle WVC uses to implement on-line courses.

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• Reading the syllabus to understand the course objectives, expectations and schedule.

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• Reading the first chapter of the text, Writing Fiction by Janet Burroway. This should indicate the goals of this week, which is simply to get started.

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• Some of you, but perhaps not all, have taken creative writing courses before.

• Some of you, but not all, already consider yourself to to be writers.

• But all of you, regardless of your level of experience, at some time or another, will need help getting started.

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• Chapter One suggests several methods for you to begin: free writing, clustering and journaling.

• I’d suggest that you use all three.

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• As I prepare this course for you, I am also in the process of completing my novel; so that while I am writing these lectures, I will be sharing with you the challenges that I face daily and the methods I use to overcome them.

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Week 1- Using A Journal

• As a writer, I keep several journals – one for personal writing which I write in daily.

• Another for each project (yes, each project) that I am working on regardless of the stage that it’s in. In it, I write down ideas for characters, plot, setting, dialog, book references and various ideas for research.

• In addition, I keep a journal for poetry. I am awful poet but it’s good creative exercise for me.

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Week 1- Keeping A Journal

• I INSIST that you keep a journal for the purposes of this course, if you do not already keep one.

• This is the place where your ideas are born, allowed to gestate and to be nurtured.

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Week 1 – Keeping a Journal

• No, you will not be graded on this and I will not be asking to read it.

• The journal is between you and your muse. Often you will find your inspiration there – the ideas that fascinate, terrorize and tease you.

• Write whatever you like. It is a particularly useful place to do your writing exercises.

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Week 1 – Using Free Writing

• I often use free writing when I get stuck. • When I’ve gotten an idea; but I’m not sure what to

do with it.• Free writing allows me to explore several ideas

without really committing to one.• I think of it as causal dating. I’m checking out

options, seeing whether I like them or not. • I don’t have to commit to any one.• If I see one I like, then I can develop it fully.

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Week 1- Using Clustering

• I happened to use the clustering method this week when I found that I had difficulty writing a scene.

• I found I didn’t understand my characters’ motivations and as a result, couldn’t write dialog that was honest and real.

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Week 1- Using Clustering

• I used the method as described on p. 7 to try to understand why my characters were making the the choices they were making.

• It helped me to focus my attention and get to the center of the scene.

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Week 1- What I Learned

• It’s important to allow yourself the opportunity to create.

• All of these methods, including those not discussed in the book, serve only one purpose and that’s to get what’s in your head onto paper.

• Writing is a courageous act, if it is done honestly. That is what makes it a challenge.

• These methods are simply ways of overcoming our fears of revealing ourselves.

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Week 1 – Choosing A Subject

• I believe that writer’s block is simply a form of fear and that even ‘not knowing’ what to write about is a form of fear.

• This isn’t a criticism; it’s the voice of experience.

• I’ve been ‘blocked;’and I know now that I was really just afraid of what other people would think.

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Week 1- Choosing a Subject

• I am going to suggest that we use the anonymity of our course to our advantage.

• Let us write the things we wouldn’t have to courage to write if we could see the face of our audience.

• Let us write as if we are in the dark and our pens are the only light.

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• In Chapter One, Burroway offers several suggestions about subjects.

• One of the most important things that she reminds of us of – is that writing is about getting the truth.

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• Regardless of your genre – literary, sci-fi, memoir, romance or suspense – your one obligation is to the truth that is the spine of your story.

• Poets already known this.

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• I will be giving you many prompts during the course of the semester. To these, I will expect you to respond.

• I want you to view these prompts as a beginning.

• In each and every prompt, there is an opportunity for you to explore the urgings of your imagination.

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• It is vital that you find a way to write what you are passionate about.

• That is still possible when you are writing an assignment for a class.

• However, that should not discourage you from exploring other subjects or expanding and developing ideas as we go.

• Remember your journal!

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Week 1- Other Suggestions

1. Set aside an area to write. It doesn’t matter where. I am currently using my laptop on a cardboard box because I just moved. Just do it.

2. Act like a writer. Give yourself permission to write. Make time for it.

3. Collect the tools of a writer: dictionary, thesaurus, magazines, writing partners, etc.

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Week 1- Other Suggestions

4. Read as much as possible, both to enjoy and to learn the craft.

5. Write every day.6. Think small. You don’t have to write a

novel in a day or even 6 months. A paragraph or two every day will add up.

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Week 1- Let’s Start

• Journal Suggestion: As I stated, you should write in your journal every day, but sometimes we all need a little push.

• This week you might try the Writing Exercise on p. 28 of Writing Fiction.

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• Please go to Assignment for your first prompt.

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• I’ve also posted a discussion question that you are expected to respond to before the end of the week for credit.

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• I’ve also posted some personal comments on the reading under Lenore’s Reading Journal.

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• Have a great week. Please contact me if you have questions. end

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