Bedouens: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Writing Process Podcast. I am your Professor, Bedouens Philistin. (Excited) We got a huge and I mean huge episode today. So without further adieu. Please welcome to the stage Don Murray, Mary Karr, and Anne Lamott! Woooo!
(The class applauds) Bedouens: Welcome guys, happy to see you. Diving right in, I love to right and I loved my english class. But that's because at my high school, teachers could be flexible with what they were teaching. I wasn't judged on my writing skill, I was allowed to write whatever and just learn more on how to improve. So again, I love writing. But what about those in the public school system? Don Murray: Naturally we try to use our training. It's an investment and so we teach writing as a product, focusing our critical attentions on what our students have done, as if they had passed literature into us. It isn't literature, of course. Our students know it wasn't literature when they passed it in, and our attack does little more than confirm their lack of self-respect for their work and for themselves; we are as frustrated as our students, for conscientious, doggedly responsible, repetitive autopsying doesn't give birth to live writing. The product doesn't improve, and so, blaming the student--- who else? --- we pass them along to the next teacher, who is trained, too often, the same way we were. Year after year the student shudders under a barrage of criticism, much of it brilliant, some of it stupid, and all of it irrelevant. Bedouens: The criticism is irrelevant. So what's more important in aiding us students in the process we go through? Don Murray: We have to respect the student, not for his product, not for the paper we call literature by giving it a grade, but for the search for the truth in which he is engaged. Bedouens: A lot of students don't even like to write. I don't know why though, I find writing to be fun. Mary Karr: Writing is painful--- it's "fun" only for novices, the very young. Don Murray: (Adding on) Writing is a demanding, intellectual process. Bedouens: Okay, I'll agree that there are times, there are times when writing can be stressful. There are moments when I think too much on what to write down that, nothing, nothing is what I end up writing. How can I and others who face this, get pass it? Anne, let's hear your thought. Anne Lamott: Plug your nose and jump in, and write down all your memories as truthfully as you can. Bedouens: If I'm to be honest with you Anne, there are times when I find myself writing about my memories as truthful as ever, and I have to stop. I don't allow myself to continue, writing about my pass can put me in my feels. Not a lot of people want to be in their feels. Anne Lamott: (Shrugging) Maybe your childhood was grim and horrible, but grim and horrible is okay, if it's done well. But don't worry about doing it well yet, just start getting it down. Bedouens Philistin: (Scratching his chin) Okay okay. So you're saying just start writing and if stuff about your life start coming out, just let it happen. But what about in that moment of feeling overwhelmed, do you believe in writer's block? And this question is to any of you, not just Anne. Anne Lamott: Now, the amount of material maybe so overwhelming it can make your brain freeze. Mary Karr: Actually, every writer needs two selves--- the generative self and the editor self. Bedouens Philistin: Can you elaborate? Mary Karr: In the early drafts, the generative self shakes pom-poms at every pen stroke and cheers every crossed t. In a month or so, this diligent and optimistic creature gins out, say, two hundred pages. The editor self then shows up to heft the pages, give a sniff, and say: Yeah, but. . . The editor condenses two hundred pages down to about thirty. I don't mean she cuts the rest; she may well boil the whole thing down so the same amount of stuff happens more economically. Bedouens: Okay so the generative self is who we all start with, and the editor self comes to revise our rough draft. Bringing it back to writer's block, it occurs with the generative self? Mary Karr: I find generative me harder to get going. But through sheer hardheadedness, even I can grant myself permission to run buck-wild down the pages with sentences dum as stumps and few glimpses of anything pretty. The idea is to get some scenes down. Let your mind roam down some alleys that may land in dead ends---that's the nature of the process. (The class applauds) Bedouens: Wow bringing it back to writing being a process not a product, I learned something today. And hopefully class has as well. Don Murray, Mary Karr, Anne Lamott, thank you for joining us and teaching us how to get started on writing. Class is now over, I hope to see you guys on the next episode of The Writing Process Podcast. Bye bye. The End
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bEDOUENS PHILISTINMy stage name is t.m chozen. It stands for the messenger chozen. And to the world, my stage, boy do I have a message for you. Archives
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