Regarding Class & Crit Groups

Last night was the final class of my picture book writing course, which is always a little bittersweet. You get attached to people’s stories and the personalities who created them. The final night always feels like my last opportunity to equip them with all they’ll need as they step from the safety of the class environment into the wider world of publishing. We talked about interpreting rejection letters and how to deal with their sting, and we watched the interview with Kate diCamillo embedded in my Rejection blog post.

This year, the course went from 8 weeks to 12, which pleased me to no end. I was thrilled to spend not just one but three weeks delving deeper into narrative structure—very well-spent time laying a solid foundation for a strong manuscript. Extra weeks also allowed me to try a number of new activities and exercises, which was great fun for me and, I hope, beneficial for them.

It was also quite wonderful to spend extra time with such an engaged, supportive, talented, and lovely group with a wide variety of stories. I will miss it. We also discussed things they felt they’d miss about the class environment, which we developed into a list of qualities we think are important in a critique group:

Most of those are likely self-explanatory, but “awareness of wider stuff” means learning more about the world and ourselves by exploring each other’s work, which is just what we set out to help children do, isn’t it? It was a really thoughtful addition to our list.

And “sharing the crazy”? Well, maybe that’s the most important part. It is for me, anyway. Having real friends and a support team who truly understand why we started—and then continue—this inspiring, maddening, manic, rejection-filled, brilliant journey without us ever having to explain it or plead its case. Kindred folk who “get” it. Our people.

Did we miss anything from our list? What would you add or highlight?

I want to end by saying to my latest batch of Rizzies, thank you, it’s been such a pleasure. 

The Path to Publication

Recently, a writer asked me to be honest about whether he should continue to pursue writing or not. It’s not the first time I’ve been asked that question. It always catches me very off-guard, but it does make me want to say what follows:

I’m really not the one you should be asking. 

It would be the height of arrogance and stupidity for me—or anyone else—to suggest someone not pursue writing. We all start somewhere, and we all have quite a learning curve. Everybody. If we write, it’s because we are writers. And so we must write (or paint or sculpt or garden or whatever) or shrivel up and die a bitter, strangled creative/spiritual death.

But should we ‘pursue’ it…which I assume really means ‘pursue publication’?

When I was a younger, less experienced editor (and probably thought I knew more than I did, as is natural), I worked with a gentleman who was determined to be an author. He was incredibly eager, earnest, and gung-ho, but he just seemed to be starting in a difficult place. His work seemed a bit… well, unpublishable. But he just wanted to keep trying, no matter what the critique.

And so he did.

We kept working together, multiple drafts of first one book  and then another, both of us learning much along the way. Beneath the unpublishable veneer of what he was doing, there was something wonderful and inspired and rich in what he thought and felt and cared about. But it was just all coming out in ways that were not working at all. In truth, I didn’t think his chances of ever getting published were very good. I was almost certain he wouldn’t, in fact, even though I wanted it for him. But he loved it and wanted it for himself, and that’s all he saw in front of him (or so it seemed to me). So no matter what, he just kept on.

I don’t know what ups and downs he went through on his private journey as a writer, but I guess they’re the ups and downs we all go through. The self-doubt and the frustration, the elation and late nights. All I saw was his consistent drive, the revising, the eagerness, the upbeat attitude, the desire, the focus, and the pleasant, grateful willingness to listen intently, to learn every single thing he could. When he was ready he let go of ideas he’d tried and which he now understood weren't working. He tried new things that incorporated new knowledge. He was willing and ego-free and hardworking.

And he quickly proved me wrong. He grew. His work became good, then really good (in my humble opinion). It was amazing and wonderful to watch. He soon did what I had not managed to do at that point: he found a publisher who wanted his book, signed the contract, and produced a very saleable story with a lovely heart and appealing vehicle. I’ve never seen a writer with such a short journey to (traditional) publication. (Sure, it took years, but not even close to double digits like most of us.) 

He might well have wondered if he’d ever be a published writer. He never discussed that with me. Yet he knew he would, no matter how long or how hard the journey. He was the only one he needed to ask. 

Permission

As an often-blocked writer and writing teacher, I think a great deal about process and the conditions required for us to write, keep writing, and write well. So much of writing (or perhaps any creative endeavor) is about ignoring, overcoming, or otherwise harnessing one’s basic personality flaws and/or neuroses.

For me, like many writers, it’s a fear of my stuff never being as good as I want it to be that sometimes stops me not long after I’ve begun. But as the inimitable Katherine Paterson said in her keynote address at the SCBWI winter conference a few years ago:

"I knew that if I didn't dare failure, or worse, mediocrity, I would never be a writer at all."

These words will stay with me always. But becoming a writer is not just about daring mediocrity. And it’s not just about hard work.

What it might really all boil down to is permission, the permission we give ourselves to:

  • Make a space (physical, emotional, time) that is reserved for writing and creating.
  • Request our loved ones respect that space.
  • Ignore the growing pile of dishes in the sink and the dusky hue of the usually pale kitchen floor.
  • Spend the money on the tools/equipment/memberships/conferences needed.
  • Pull over on the road when our characters begin to whisper, pull out our notebooks in the supermarket’s dairy aisle, stop and listen and take notes.
  • Go for a run or a walk or a drive or a shower if that’s what it takes to get them whispering.
  • Unplug the router, to turn off the phone/TV,  give the social media a rest.
  • Put the eternal research aside in favor of the writing.
  • Go to crit group and share.
  • March to the beat of your own drum.
  • Fail.
  • Try again and again and again.
  • Succeed.
  • Enjoy it all.

At some point in a writing career, the permission of others (agents, publishers, buying audience, etc.) becomes important too, but well before that it’s our own permission that matters. When you’re a person with a career and family responsibilities and all the things a modern person has to deal with, giving oneself permission can be extremely difficult. But really, aren’t we the only ones accountable to ourselves for the choices we make?

So if we don’t give ourselves full permission to be happy, successful writers and to undertake all that journey entails, it’s unlikely we’ll ever get anywhere.

How do you give yourself permission to write/create? How do you deny yourself permission?