Creative Writing

Photo courtesy of eHow.com

 Many students may think that the Writing Center is just for academic papers, and that makes sense. We are part of a university, so we should focus on collegiate work, right?


Well, actually, much of collegiate work is creative, especially for students who are Creative Writing majors or minors. Stories and poems can just as difficult to write--if not more so--as essays and research papers. And it is even more difficult for most people to share their creative works than it is to share academic papers. Creative writing allows us to reveal very intimate parts of ourselves, and when we are unwilling to show those parts to others, it can become very arduous to get any kind of feedback.

But I am here to tell you, writers, that the Writing Center is here to help. A large majority of our tutors are/were Creative Writing majors and minors; we understand the struggles of writing creatively and we have experienced the fear of showing our most private thoughts to entire classrooms through our writing. Any of us would be happy to work with writers on a creative piece with the utmost respect and sensitivity. Plus, it would really be a refresher from our usual onslaught of essays and narratives.

We know how scary it is to have a creative piece reviewed, but we struggle with the same emotions about our creative writing. We love it, we hate it, we swear never to show it to anyone. But getting feedback from an audience is the most effective way to become a better writer. And when your writing is successful, anything is possible. Who knows--maybe you'll even get a book deal.

So bring in your short stories and your long stories, your poems and your flash fictions, your memoirs and your novels. Let us take a look at your creative writing and help you make it great. We won't judge, and we won't laugh (unless it's a comedy; then, we'll laugh unreservedly). But we will help, and maybe even give you the confidence you've been missing.

All the best in your creative endeavors!

--Sarah

Total Presence in the Writing Process

Hello, dear blogosphere and assorted Writing Center friends.

The best writing advice I have ever stumbled upon was not in a standard grammar book or Style by Williams & Colomb or even Stephen King’s On Writing. Rather, I happened upon it in a little book by a Catholic priest named Henri Nouwen, and this is roundabouts what he said:

For the sake of your own soul, I urge you to cultivate presence.

“By presence,” he writes, “I mean attentiveness to the blessings that come to you day after day, year after year. The problem of modern living is that we are too busy … to notice that we are being blessed… It has become extremely difficult for us to stop, listen, pay attention, and receive gracefully what is offered to us.”

Is this truly writing advice?

I would argue, YES.

The artist of great language experiences a special joy. We can be such artists! Crafting our language into shapely thought-animals, capable of standing on two (or four) legs apart from our creational clarification… that is achievement and worthy of aspiration.

Yet…

We too often try to make flying leaps between achievement and aspiration and fall flat on our faces! We want the first draft to be the last draft! We multitask ourselves into defeat!

In the quest of creating GREAT ART, bridging the aspiration and achievement is doable. It’s just a process.

So let’s break it down, shall we?

How to Cultivate Total Presence in the Writing Process

1. Turn off that cell phone. Be where you are. (Where are you? See #2) 
2. GO someplace that will lead you to “pen-to-paper” productivity. 
• Being alone is perfectly acceptable. Library, study corners, your room… 
• I prefer a semi-quiet environment. Coffee shop, kitchen table, the Writing Center… These are particularly great places if you need positive peer pressure to get your work did. 
• Outside is always an option. Beware of this one, though. Looking for that one word on the tip of your tongue can quickly turn into looking at that mermaid-shaped cloud or looking at how cute the squirrel is. Construction is also to be considered. 
3. Shut off: 
• Safari 
• Chrome 
• Mozilla Firefox 
• (the ever-popular) Internet Explorer à My other Writing Center friends are much more technology savvy than I, and they say they know ways to get the technology to work against them, e.g. have your browser lock you out of Twitter or FB after 2 hours of surfing for no good reason (other than seeing those wedding photos for the hundredth time or revising your movie list or checking out Drop-Dead-Gorgeous So-and-So). No no no no no. Every bit of research ever done by anyone ever says we can’t multitask and expect excellence. 
• So get off. Now.
4. Put headphones in, even if you don’t or can’t put on music. I have gotten into a writing zone for hours and realized I never opened iTunes, but once I took the headphones off, the osmosis of thought between my computer and me was disturbed unto death. Wearing headphones alone is a silly trick. But it works. Honest. 
5. You tell yourself you can work with friends. You cannot. Statistically speaking, the likelihood you will, in that grand social atmosphere, write anything is zero percent. 
6. Get a hot drink to plant your tail. 
7. Finish drinking and thinking and staring at the blank screen. 
8. Then just begin to write the thing. Turn off the inner critic and promise yourself, now that you’re writing Round ONE, you can work on the craft of your creation after it’s finished getting created.

I believe in you. And once you discipline yourself to stay on task and just write, you can begin to engage in the great joy of CRAFT. Creation stands apart from craft. But in both seasons of the writing process, your presence is vital. And you know… Writing goes faster the more you pay attention: that’s why the best parts of our lives seem to fly by. We’re invested!

So invest! Pay attention! Lock into the beautiful specifics of your own writing process and, as Neil Gaiman urges us,

make good art.

I happily anticipate your creations.

~Dorian

Grammar, Grammar, Grammar!

Happy Sunday everyone!

One of the biggest things we're always getting asked about at the Writing Center is grammar.  This should surprise absolutely no one, since English grammar is pounded into our brains from the moment we step into kindergarten until...well, to be honest, people will never stop hounding us about our grammar.

If your first language is English, you're lucky enough to have what's called "native speaker intuition," meaning you can spot and hear major grammatical mistakes, often without being able to explain WHY you know it's wrong.  However, this doesn't often cross over to smaller grammatical aspects, such as homophones, punctuation, and verb tense.  If English isn't your first language, well, you're learning with the rest of us!

But let's get real here, you say, when does knowing the difference between affect and effect become obvious in a conversation between two friends?  When is your mom going to notice if you don't put a semicolon between two independent-but-tightly-related-like-that-one-annoying-couple-you-know clauses?  The quick answer: it won't!

And yet, we've all got that friend who corrects grammar on Facebook.  We all had that eighth grade teacher who drilled subject-verb agreement into our heads.  So what's the big deal?

It's easy to believe that grammar doesn't matter at all, but it's not a very practical opinion.  English, like every other language, has grammatical structures that are unique and essential to it.  These grammatical structures mean the difference between saying something like "I ate dinner with my dog," to "I ate my dog with dinner."  (Sorry Fido!)

Although it may seem easy to write off ALL grammar, the fact of the matter is, you need grammar to communicate.  Sure, it might still be readable if you use the wrong form of a word, but it will take away from your meaning.  And less meaning means less effectiveness.  And, in the end, less effectiveness may tell some readers that you are less intelligent, less worthy, less important.

THIS IS NOT THE CASE.  

You are a intelligent individual, regardless of your educational training, and you should be able to use whatever language is needed to make a strong and effective point in any situation.  It's easy to think of grammar as a punishment, but try thinking of it as a tool instead.  When having a debate on Facebook with a friend, your grammar doesn't matter, but your content does.  However, in academic writing, both are equally important.  Your content may be fresh and powerful, but if your delivery lacks, readers may be confused or even turned off by your paper.

This isn't just an English skill.  You will have to write papers for every aspect of your life.  You will apply for things, you will write romantic/funny/friendly things, you will NEED to have the skills that will allow you to pound out a few amazing and effective sentences on a page instead of a mash of text speak.  Sometimes text speak is amazing.  Sometimes it's not.  That's just a fact of our lives.  So, learning grammatical points and knowing which situations to use them in is a key skill to developing yourself not just as a writer, but also as an individual.

With this in mind, I recommend Grammar Girl's wide array of grammatical lessons.

Mignon (like the filet, but much funnier) publishes tips and tricks under a wide variety of methods.  She has a blog, she has a podcast, she has an APPLE IPOD APP (how cool is that?!).  She is here to help you, not to preach a rule or slap your hand with a ruler.  Her topics range from homophone usage to comma splices to silly English idioms and where they come from.

Grammar Girl (and the WKU Writing Center) are here to help you kick grammar's butt!  Take advantage of that!

--Teresa  

Scheduling Appointments Online

Recently, we have noticed that students may be having problems when scheduling their appointments using our online scheduler, TutorTrac. Some students have scheduled with The Learning Center by accident, which has caused a lot of confusion for both TLC and the Writing Center. I've outlined some of the key steps below to help prevent future confusion.

Step 1: Visit our website and click "How to Make an Appointment."

Step 2: Watch our video tutorial that outlines how to use TutorTrac.

Step 3: After watching the tutorial, go back to the website and click "Make an Appointment."

Step 4: Enter your Net ID and Password into TutorTrac.

Step 5: Click the drop-down menu at the top that says, "Go To..." and click "Make Appointment."

Step 6: Fill out the details of your desired appointment. Make sure to click "The_Writing_Center" on the drop-down menu titled "Select a Center."

Step 7: Once you have filled out the designated spaces, click "Search" and choose a time and a tutor that works best for you.

Congratulations, you have successfully schedule an appointment using TutorTrac! You may want to call us at (270-745-5719) to confirm your appointment, but otherwise, it is up to you to remember the time and date of your appointment.

I hope this step-by-step process for scheduling an appointment is helpful! Please leave any questions in the comments.

Happy Friday, everyone!

--Sarah