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There Is No Handbook for Being a Writer

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Re: There Is No Handbook for Being a Writer

#61

Post by kampsduac »

AndreyErmakov wrote: post #38

It's interesting that the author pursued a degree in literature and that's what ultimately pushed her away from that career path. It seems to be a common theme where a formal education in creative arts makes people want to do something else in life, anything else. I've had acquaintances with a musical background and eventually they went to do something else, including IT. From what an old buddy told me once, most gra…

I was an engineering major and switched to Creative Writing because of noted 'creative draw'. Loved the courses. Useless degree. Now I am a software engineer wish I had only minored in a creative field.

After all, college is just a place to pay for a degree, right? Might as well pay for something that will get you past HR.

Re: There Is No Handbook for Being a Writer

#62

Post by scholia »

m52go wrote: post #21
jacobolus wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This idea is cute, but it’s a poor substitute for a real writing tutor/coach/teacher. It repeatedly returns: “Your response seems incomplete, so we set your score to the length of the original sentence. If we're mistaken, please drop us a line with a screenshot of this screen”, without any indication of how to fix the solution to be acceptable. I suppose it’s fishing for some specific keywords? It doesn’t seem to hav…

Thanks for the feedback. You're right that it's crude, lame even. That's why I dragged my feet on releasing it for weeks. But if you're getting the incomplete message, chances are your response is actually incomplete. We've had over 7,000 submissions and only 2 issues so far. Feel free to send me an example at steve at writeonpar dot com...I'm curious why you keep seeing that. Writing is subjective. Your idea of eleg…

> Writing is subjective. Your idea of elegant prose is different from mine, especially when context isn't specified.

Yes, the context being the important thing.

Creative writing is somewhat subjective, but other fields have more established conventions. The style Joyce uses for the Ulysses' final chapter would not be appropriate in an instruction manual. Even if we don't deal in absolute rights and wrongs, we certainly have established conventions for things that are right and wrong in defined contexts.

I taught an English 150 course, Technical Writing for Engineers, and can testify that the conventions can be taught and learned. Also, some students can understand and execute the principles better than others!

Re: There Is No Handbook for Being a Writer

#63

Post by maldusiecle »

Mendenhall wrote: post #30

Him sitting next to author reminded me how I always think you are a writer when you pay your bills through writing, same with art etc. I find so many that say they are an "artist" yet thats not how they pay their bills. Sure you may make fantastic art but you are not an artist. You never here someone say I am a basketball player just because they play basketball as a hobby. Doing something that pays your bills is tot…

William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens are good examples of brilliant authors who couldn't support themselves with their work alone. (In fact, economically, almost no poets can support themselves by book sales alone. They tend to go for grants or teaching gigs.) They were better artists than the vast majority of those who put out writing which can support them.

Re: There Is No Handbook for Being a Writer

#64

Post by curiousess »

WalterSear wrote: post #14
nxzero wrote: post #12

Use "The Elements Style" by Strunk & White.

http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/LandOfTheFree.pdf http://chronicle.com/article/50-Years-of-Stupid-Grammar/2549...

That article for the Chronicle of Higher Education is so wrongheaded it's hilarious.

""Keep related words together" is further explained in these terms: "The subject of a sentence and the principal verb should not, as a rule, be separated by a phrase or clause that can be transferred to the beginning." That is a negative passive, containing an adjective, with the subject separated from the principal verb by a phrase ("as a rule") that could easily have been transferred to the beginning."

Yes. That's the joke, dear Geoffrey. They are showing the violation to demonstrate its effect on a sentence. You have to be truly humorless if not willfully obtuse to read this as Strunk & White having no idea what they're talking about.

Strunk & White is self-critiquing, which is part of what makes it great—it's not nearly so prescriptive as the author seems to think.

Re: There Is No Handbook for Being a Writer

#65

Post by adregan »

AndreyErmakov wrote: post #38

It's interesting that the author pursued a degree in literature and that's what ultimately pushed her away from that career path. It seems to be a common theme where a formal education in creative arts makes people want to do something else in life, anything else. I've had acquaintances with a musical background and eventually they went to do something else, including IT. From what an old buddy told me once, most gra…

> It's interesting that the author pursued a degree in literature and that's what ultimately pushed her away from that career path. It seems to be a common theme where a formal education in creative arts makes people want to do something else in life, anything else.

I can only speak for myself, but I have a MA in literature (creative writing and poetry specifically) and am now a developer. The career path for that type of degree is often teaching and I wanted to be creative. Developing allows me to remain creative day to day. So while it may seem like I've moved away from my original field, I actually feel much closer to it compared to when I was teaching.

Re: There Is No Handbook for Being a Writer

#66

Post by Declanomous »

kampsduac wrote: post #61
AndreyErmakov wrote: post #38

It's interesting that the author pursued a degree in literature and that's what ultimately pushed her away from that career path. It seems to be a common theme where a formal education in creative arts makes people want to do something else in life, anything else. I've had acquaintances with a musical background and eventually they went to do something else, including IT. From what an old buddy told me once, most gra…

I was an engineering major and switched to Creative Writing because of noted 'creative draw'. Loved the courses. Useless degree. Now I am a software engineer wish I had only minored in a creative field. After all, college is just a place to pay for a degree, right? Might as well pay for something that will get you past HR.

I majored in biology because I felt it was the field that would be the most difficult to learn on my own. It wasn't the best choice, and I initially regretted the decision after I graduated. Biology is not well-respected among HR departments -- the degree requirements for many technical jobs read something like "must have degree in math, statistics, computer-science, or one of the hard sciences." Compounding the problem, I went to a school that is very committed to the liberal-arts ideal, and as such I have a BA rather than a BS.

Now that I have had several years of experience in 'real-world', I'm glad I chose the path that I did. Biology might not be a 'hard-science' as many people define one, but it is every bit as rigorous as chemistry or physics. I actually feel like biology gave me a leg up on people in a similar role, because experimental design and rigorous analysis is vital to getting good data in biology, since your area of study is affected by so many variables, many of which are stochastic.

If there was one thing I would change, I would have taken many more electives outside of the sciences. I branched out my senior year after I capped the number of credits I could take in the biology department, and scheduling issues wouldn't let me complete my CS minor. I enrolled in classes in Russian Literature, Studio Art, Art History, Philosophy, and Film Theory. I've constantly been surprised by how often the limited exposure I had to those fields has been helpful, especially Art and Philosophy.

It's important to remember that programming is only a method of solving a problem, you need to be able to understand the problem to put it to use. Low level courses often focus on teach the language you need to communicate in a given field, which is incredibly valuable as a developer.

Re: There Is No Handbook for Being a Writer

#67

Post by iamdave »

kampsduac wrote: post #61
AndreyErmakov wrote: post #38

It's interesting that the author pursued a degree in literature and that's what ultimately pushed her away from that career path. It seems to be a common theme where a formal education in creative arts makes people want to do something else in life, anything else. I've had acquaintances with a musical background and eventually they went to do something else, including IT. From what an old buddy told me once, most gra…

I was an engineering major and switched to Creative Writing because of noted 'creative draw'. Loved the courses. Useless degree. Now I am a software engineer wish I had only minored in a creative field. After all, college is just a place to pay for a degree, right? Might as well pay for something that will get you past HR.

>Might as well pay for something that will get you past HR.

Which for a sad number of professions (lots of them in tech) is pretty much all your degree is good for-at least it feels that way-provided you have enough drive to take on and have the ability to show side projects and "portfolio" type work to the person who will actually end up hiring you.

Re: There Is No Handbook for Being a Writer

#68

Post by gglitch »

weeksie wrote: post #51
greenspot wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but you're missing out on an incredible body of thoughts and ideas that might expand your vision borders. Have to disagree here. Yes there is a lot of good stuff especially written in the past but looking at today I see high caliber English writers and books in every category I do not see in that quality and quantity in any other language. Ok I do not know how it's about Chinese but that's my perception regarding o…

Spoken like somebody who's never read Journey to The End of The Night. In my opinion (and many others') it's one of the best novels ever written. Tastes may vary but to dismiss foreign literature outright betrays a lack of experience as a reader. This is where I complain, as an old guy, about the poor state of liberal arts education. Do yourself a favor and pick up some Dostoevsky. Or Gunter Grass. Or Murakami. Or Kn…

Here's a few more: Or Homer, or Sophocles, or Ovid, or Rumi, or Rilke, or Proust, or Cicero, or Molière, ...

Re: There Is No Handbook for Being a Writer

#69

Post by m52go »

scholia wrote: post #62
m52go wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the feedback. You're right that it's crude, lame even. That's why I dragged my feet on releasing it for weeks. But if you're getting the incomplete message, chances are your response is actually incomplete. We've had over 7,000 submissions and only 2 issues so far. Feel free to send me an example at steve at writeonpar dot com...I'm curious why you keep seeing that. Writing is subjective. Your idea of eleg…

> Writing is subjective. Your idea of elegant prose is different from mine, especially when context isn't specified. Yes, the context being the important thing. Creative writing is somewhat subjective, but other fields have more established conventions. The style Joyce uses for the Ulysses' final chapter would not be appropriate in an instruction manual. Even if we don't deal in absolute rights and wrongs, we certain…

> Creative writing is somewhat subjective, but other fields have more established conventions.

Yup. I began with the goal of helping business writers (mainly marketers). Even that's subjective, but we're doing what we can.

Creative writing is a totally different beast.

Re: There Is No Handbook for Being a Writer

#70

Post by AndreyErmakov »

vonnik wrote: post #18

People mean different things when they say "writer," and it's worthwhile untangling a few different types. * Writers who make a living writing * Writers who don't (yet) * Fiction writers: Novelists and short-story writers * Poets * Journalists: reporters, war correspondents, editors * Bloggers * Corporate: Technical writers, Marketing copy writers, etc. * Academics all stripes These categories aren't mutually exclusi…

>> The best handbook of all, though is simply the study of great writers whose work you love

That is definitely the way to approach things. If you come into writing by choice then it's because you've been drawn to it. Which in its turn means you have read works of others and have been inspired by them. Use those as your handbooks then, learn from the great, imitate them and eventually discover your own path.

It's not like you've never read anything of consequence in your life and all of a sudden you decide you're going to turn into a writer. Doesn't work that way. There are no "Writing for dummies" or "Learning writing in 20 days" manuals. You just start writing because you can, when you become ready for it.

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