Q & A with a younger writer

Here's a portion of a  slightly altered (to disguise the innocent) Q and A from private messaging on Facebook, dealing with issues of revision and Beta readers and workshops.

The accompanying images are covers / jackets of my books now in print, in lieu of doing a boring post about what's in print. (And The Foliate Head is somewhat in print--that is, copies still remain at online outlets.)

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Q:  By the way, I have a question: do you use beta readers or critique partners? I am confused. I have revised a story a bunch of times, trying different directions. Got it back from my fiction teacher this week and he liked it, believed everything, and had one small fix that I agree with. Then two days later my writing group met and all three women had many more criticisms than he did. They believe a lot less of the story. I am curious to know if you just trust yourself and your editor at this point or if you have trusted readers.

This gets my head spinning sometimes. I cut something out to get at a different truth, then I find out that someone liked the part I cut out. I put it back in, someone finds it distracting. And round and round it goes.

A: Once, long ago, I did an event with a certain famous writer, and he referred to his six Beta readers, and how he expected them to drop what they were doing, read, and get back to him immediately. And I had to admit that I was the sort of person who didn't like to bother anybody, and that I almost never asked anyone to read a manuscript. Once in a blue moon somebody (in the faraway Carolina past, that blue moon reader would be Erica Eisdorfer) reads something unpublished, but in general I just don't do that. And, really, in the history of the world, most writers have not had that luxury. Even when they read a new poem or story to a group of friends, what happened would not be what we now call "workshopping." Also, I think there's a danger in Beta readers. Writing by committee is not a good idea.

You know, it's not a requirement for a book to be without flaw in order to be a great book. Moby Dick has loads (whale-barrows) of flaws, but it's unquestionably a masterpiece. A book has to try to capture life as best it can, and if it does, well, flaws don't signify so much.

However, I just read The Fellowship, the Zaleski book about the Inklings and was rather jealous of them, though. Their method was not very workshop-like, I note. No brooding over the words and giving careful feedback. They sat around, drinking and smoking, and would read new sections / stories / poems aloud. The reader would get a reaction and comments, but it was more of a casual, oral-response-only sort of thing. Gut reactions. And sometimes the comments were harsh and not helpful (Dyson on Tolkien!) but the impression is usually of support and encouragement (which writers tend to need but don't always find.) Being with other people intent on the same thing is genuinely helpful. You don't feel so alone. (I mostly hang out with painters, which is not exactly the same but helpful.)

X, with squirrels

Yeats, Poems, 1899
Design by Althea Gyles

A memory of a famous author just floated by. I'll call him "X." He had come to visit a poetry workshop of grad students and undergrads. I was there, and curious; I knew that X was sometimes mentioned as headed for a Nobel.

The first thing he did was to shred a poem by a freshman into something else entirely: burning fire slaw, perhaps, or poisonous confetti. She was a pleasant young woman, and she had written a poem about a squirrel. The subject met disapproval. No doubt the poem needed shredding, and perhaps there are instances when a fine, fierce shredding can be salutary. I fear this one was not. It seemed a rather loveless incident. I couldn't help imagining or discerning (which?) that there was a desire to obliterate the young woman--a girl still, she seems, a child in memory. I can dimly conjure her face, and some of the grad students smirking and exchanging glances in what must have been satisfaction. I doubt that such pleasure is good for human beings of either sex. Their poems were, in fact, better--they were young men who, after all, were four to ten years older than she was--and received a modicum of praise.

What surprises me in the memory is my attitude. I was a sophomore and didn't have a poem in the batch being considered that night. While sympathetic to the plight of the unfortunate, upset freshman, I remember wishing hard that a poem of mine had been up for consideration. It seemed to me that I would not be easily torn to pieces. And if ripped and my limbs scattered, I would be quite able to put myself back together. Or so I believed.

I feel a little strange, recalling the young person who was me, so secretly confident and determined. Perhaps one needs to be so inwardly bold in order to pursue the craft of words in our time. But I can't remember if I thought of "To a Squirrel at Kyle-na-gno" from The Wild Swans at Coole, and how a squirrel runs "through the shaking tree." Did I recall "An Appointment," which finds Yeats turning from the being "out of heart" with government to the leapings and delight of a squirrel (Responsibilities and Other Poems.) Did I volunteer that Yeats, whose poems I loved, had not been too grand and proud to write a poem about a squirrel, and not only once?

I hope so.

Kyle-na-gno is one of the seven woods of Coole... Yeats names them in the dedication to Lady Gregory in The Shadowy Waters:

Shan-walla, where a willow-bordered pond
Gathers the wild duck from the winter dawn;
Shady Kyle-dortha; sunnier Kyle-na-gno,
Where many hundred squirrels are as happy
As though they had been hidden by green boughs,
Where old age cannot find them; Pairc-na-lea,
Where hazel and ash and privet blind the paths;
Dim Pairc-na-carraig, where the wild bees fling
Their sudden fragrances on the green air;
Dim Pairc-na-tarav, where enchanted eyes
Have seen immortal, mild, proud shadows walk;
Dim Inchy wood, that hides badger and fox
And marten-cat, and borders that old wood
Wise Biddy Early called the wicked wood:
Seven odours, seven murmurs, seven woods.

We move from shade to sun, from Kyle-dortha to Kyle-na-gno. There's a poet watching, but no chance of a workshop. Kyle-na-gno means "the nut wood" or "the hazel wood." No wonder so many squirrels are happy there in a flourishing green, hid from death and change. 

You asked, no. 9: resources

May your head be full of dreams!
Division page by Clive Hicks-Jenkins
for Maze of Blood.

Here's a reference list of critique and forum sites that I've made for the people on twitter and Facebook who ask me to read and critique their work. I'm afraid that I can't do such things for all who ask--I need to manage being a mother of three, hitting my deadlines, and accomplishing the writing and reading that I must do.

I think the best advice--advice I have often given--may be to get to know your regional poetry-and-fiction scene and area writers and poets. That way swapping work and critiquing can happen in a more natural way. I don't do that, but I imagine it's rather enjoyable if you don't--as I do--live in the middle of nowhere. But many people have little access to the kinds of events that occur in an urban area.

I'm not very good at telling people, NO. So here is a list of helpful places in lieu of a big fat NO. In other words, this is an attempt at a polite and helpful No, but thank you very much for thinking of me, and the very best of luck to you.

If you have a site, workshop, or person to recommend, please leave a comment.

ERATOSPHERE. FORMAL POETRY. I'm a member of the site, though I've never participated in the workshopping--just a tad too busy. But plenty of well-known writers of formal poetry have passed through its machinery, and people seem to love it. (I go by to see who has a new book, ask a question, see what the latest fracas is, etc.) www.eratosphere.ablemuse.com

ERATOSPHERE. FREE VERSE. Look for "Non-metrical Verse" in the forum topics. Workshopping of free verse. www.eratosphere.ablemuse.com

CRITTERS WORKSHOP. FICTION. SF/F/H. I know a bit about this one because someone in my family has used the site. He seemed to find it useful, although I remember him saying that one person who critiqued his work was stellar and the rest less or little help. You have to critique some work by others in order to become part of the system. www.critters.org

CRITIQUE.ORG WORKSHOPS. FICTION. MANY GENRES. NONFICTION. SCREENPLAYS. This one is a child of CRITTERS but is bigger than its parent--does all fiction genres, as well as nonfiction and screenplays.

LAURA ARGIRI. Reasonable fees for editing and revision work.  If you're interested, I can send you an email address.

CLAIRE YOUMANS. (No doubt she is a very distant relation!) Writer who edits nonfiction, fiction, and translations from Japanese and French. Ask me for contact information.

THE WRITE LIFE INDEX TO FINDING A CRITIQUE PARTNER Includes a lot of possible forums and workshops. http://thewritelife.com/find-a-critique-partner/  I don't know much or anything about most of these, but the site seems a good place to start.

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POETRY COURSES And since someone also asked me about a poetry course this week, here's a site with links to free poetry courses. 

At Antioch this summer--

Photographs courtesy of sxc.hu
and Ivan Prole of Zemun, Serbia

ANTIOCH WRITERS' WORKSHOP

July 12-18 

Antioch University at Yellow Springs
Sharon Short, Director

The week's schedule here

Summer program faculty here

Andre Dubus, keynote speaker

Eileen Cronin

Chris DeWeese

Matthew Goodman

Hallie Ephron

Erin Flanagan

Tara Ison

Katrina Kittle

Marly Youmans

and more...