tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.comments2023-09-11T06:13:03.758-04:00Talking WritingMartha Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02125887259454036708noreply@blogger.comBlogger199125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-25210406174896589882022-10-16T21:20:58.791-04:002022-10-16T21:20:58.791-04:00Good rreading your postGood rreading your postFontana Carpentershttps://www.find-carpenter.com/us/woodworkers-california/fontana-carpenters.shtmlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-56520668758244486582022-06-15T15:30:14.299-04:002022-06-15T15:30:14.299-04:00Thankk you for sharingThankk you for sharingIvy Peckhttps://www.ivypeck.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-77288440344462892472010-09-02T09:01:36.256-04:002010-09-02T09:01:36.256-04:00Dear Fickle--glad you think it's cool. Regardi...Dear Fickle--glad you think it's cool. Regarding publishing material from other blogs, yes, we will do that occasionally--and we will also be featuring different blogs. What we prefer, though, is to have a writer publish in TW first. Once the piece has run for that specific issue, a writer is free to re-post it elsewhere (he or she owns the rights). Anyway, we launch next week on September 6 -- hope to see you then!<br /><br />Martha @ Talking WritingMartha Nicholshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02125887259454036708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-61043015532227934122010-09-02T04:20:54.264-04:002010-09-02T04:20:54.264-04:00That sounds really cool. Would you accept submissi...That sounds really cool. Would you accept submissions published in another blog (my own actually) already?<br /><br />http://ficklecattle.blogspot.com/Fickle Cattlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10281753566416281237noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-73617424510566524642010-08-23T20:25:56.278-04:002010-08-23T20:25:56.278-04:00How much of this Talking Writing should actually b...How much of this Talking Writing should actually be revealed? I mean their are some information best kept censored especially talkings aloud that can cause libel. Anyways I am looking forward to the launch!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04398096786792383531noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-72192911145367112102010-08-02T07:18:32.840-04:002010-08-02T07:18:32.840-04:00Amythyst -- I'm intrigued by this possibility....Amythyst -- I'm intrigued by this possibility. The new TW site won't have a community forum set-up (at least not right away), but I can think of several ways to do this, including using the TW Facebook page to post related essays.<br /><br />If you set up such a community forum, we can also link to it from the TW site.<br /><br />Last but not least, we'll be excerpting and featuring comments from readers, so please encourage your students to engage in that way as well (and to submit work!)<br /><br />All the best -- MarthaMartha Nicholshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02125887259454036708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-81259289075216279612010-07-31T00:59:39.144-04:002010-07-31T00:59:39.144-04:00The most sensible prodigeous link to this project ...The most sensible prodigeous link to this project I can possibly make is have my college students craft their fall essays around some ideas embedded within here and then let them come on and post snippets of them in community fashion...they write what they live: the harsh, the boring, the beautiful, the awkward...the REAL. It should be interesting. ~AmythystAmythyst (Prof. A.)http://www.facebook.com/#!/amy.marcianovanovernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-24158530711043423582010-06-15T18:09:31.724-04:002010-06-15T18:09:31.724-04:00Another terrific piece, Martha. Thank you.
Perso...Another terrific piece, Martha. Thank you.<br /><br />Personally, I don’t know what I would have done growing up without novels to take me away from a world often filled with harsh realities. I was born with a condition called amblyopia (lazy eye), and had to undergo surgery at six to correct my crossed eyes and nearly blind left eye. In first grade while learning to read, I had to wear an eye patch on my right eye for several weeks at a time in order to strengthen the left. Without sounding too Dickens-esque, I had a cruel, indifferent teacher who always made me read aloud when the patch was taped to my right eye. Of course, I couldn’t see a thing, so the kids called me “dummy” and groaned with impatience whenever it was my turn to read. You’d think I would have hated reading after experiencing such humiliation, but I didn’t. I adored stories that transported me “somewhere else.” In fifth grade I discovered Nancy Drew (God bless Carolyn Keene forever!) and have loved reading novels, both “trashy” and literary, ever since.<br /><br />Years ago, when my husband was transferred to Anchorage, Alaska, I had two small children, no friends or family nearby, and only the snow, darkness, and cold to keep me company while my husband worked long hours. So I read novels. Novels kept me sane during that lonely time.<br /><br />Novels have been my dear companions for as long as I can remember, and I can’t imagine living life without a good, engaging, read near at hand. Novels aren’t on the way out. Not by a long shot. Ask the ladies of my book group, and of thousands of book groups all over the country if novels are obsolete. Ask the preteens and teenagers who’ve been voraciously reading Stephenie Meyer’s New Moon series if novels are on the way out. Nope. There will always be a craving in us humans for good storytelling. And I can’t see that changing any time soon. It’s been that way since cavemen gathered around the bonfire to tell compelling tales of their hunting prowess. While the way the printed word is presented to us may be dramatically changing, I still endorse the dictum, tell a good story and people (and publishers) will buy it.<br /><br />So, do novels still matter? They certainly do to me.Paula L. Silicihttp://www.pro-edits.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-53195597005290180182010-06-15T12:31:27.188-04:002010-06-15T12:31:27.188-04:00Mary and Tim (sorry for the "Lucian" bef...Mary and Tim (sorry for the "Lucian" before; I was going with the avatar): You're making some of my points, and taking them one step beyond, which I really like. You're right, we shouldn't be surprised by new literary forms, and the novel, however you define it, has been evolving for a long time. The e-Epistolary may be perfect for our times.Martha Nicholshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02125887259454036708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-13434156034801066312010-06-15T12:26:06.906-04:002010-06-15T12:26:06.906-04:00Lucian: I'm wondering about The Box, whether I...Lucian: I'm wondering about The Box, whether I support it or not. God knows, I've spent plenty of time outside the box of editors-agents-publicists, wanting inside--but I've been on the inside, too.<br /><br />You know I have to say that books matter. But I'm not into supporting rituals and rules of a literary priesthood. That's the Franzen way, and i think it's a dead end.Martha Nicholshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02125887259454036708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-62009690620343817212010-06-15T11:44:09.683-04:002010-06-15T11:44:09.683-04:00I haven't done this before, responded to Tim i...I haven't done this before, responded to Tim in print, but after all, it's how I met Tim Barrus. Later, dear reader, I became his co-writer. <br /><br />It has given me a unique vantage point on the issue of memoir/novel. Both Barrus and I have lived what most people consider to be exciting lives. Both of us have written books based on those lives. Mine was explicitly about the "cowboy artist" to whom I was married in the Sixties. ("Bronze Inside and Out.") I called it a biographical memoir, because some of it was researched and some of it was lived through alongside him. Much praised, little bought.<br /><br />But the book Tim and I co-wrote (unsold so far) was developed as it was lived, though he was actually living it and telling me about it in print on the Internet and I was the one who organized, commented, annotated. So I was simultaneously Tim's reader -- jumping out of bed in the morning and checking back all day to see what had happened in the latest dilemma -- and a writing responder. I've never met Tim in person but since 2007 I've been living his life in an unfolding book as it happens.<br /><br />Tim's life and writing are all one thing. It's the publishing that's the problem, but that's true for all of us, even the famous writers. Not even the readers are a problem, though Tim has been so demonized that his writing probably doesn't get to all the readers who would respond as I do. Some really DON'T like his writing. It's TOO dramatic for them! And he gets derailed by his indignation over all that.<br /><br />Tim lives with a few dozen adolescent boy artists who are at risk because of HIV/AIDS, which means that every day is a melee of emotion and creation, sometimes life and death. <br /><br />The earliest English novels were often epistolary, presented as an exchange of letters. "Orpheus Pressed Up Against the Windows of the Catacombs" is what I guess I'd have to call e-Epistolary, a new form of an old form. Is it a novel? Is it a memoir? Is it a journal? I guess the only answer is yes to all. Why would we be surprised when new media create new literary categories?<br /><br />Mary Scriver (Prairie Mary)mscriverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13567509503405689139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-35460279910433746012010-06-15T11:03:06.152-04:002010-06-15T11:03:06.152-04:00What matters is the BOX. Publishing cannot exist w...What matters is the BOX. Publishing cannot exist without the box. It's all they know. It's the only dog and pony show in town. If you as a writer rail against being put into a box that might not exactly fit what you do or who you are, they will look at you as if you're mad (gone gaga), and the hostility you will receive (after all, you are supposed to be grateful and acquiescent not insane) will be like nothing you have ever experienced in your life.<br /><br />"He's not one of us."<br /><br />You are now insane.<br /><br />You are supposed to be ecstatic that your work has finally transcended their inherent indifference.<br /><br />The irony is, they will not defend the box anymore than they will defend their indifference. They know. In their bones. And what most of them know is that they have tried and failed to make it as a writer. It's easier to become a cog that upholds the grind. What they will defend to the ends of the earth is the idea of the sacredness of the status quo.<br /><br />Because they live it.<br /><br />Even with the whole digital media revolution thing going on, the absurd idea of the paradigm of the writer, the agent, the editor, and the publicist is not one they are willing to consider modifying in any way, shape, or form. Don't even think about breaking the rules because they will use Other Writers as mercenaries to go after your ass like a pack of wild, omnivorous dogs. You have two options. Fiction. Or...<br /><br />Ho hum.<br /><br />One cannot be the other and the other cannot be the other and there is no relativism allowed because the memoir police and the Oprah Taliban will crush you with the self-righteousness of the clenched fist. It will not matter what caveat you put in the fine print about coincidence and no person living or dead. Reality is an enforced one-way street and the penalty for going the other (wrong) way is death. The real question is do books matter.<br /><br />NO ONE wants to face the real numbers. Books matter to the small amount of people who actually read them as opposed to how many books sell. Even the number of books sold represents a culture that does not read. The irony is that the Book Lover's Culture that does read will insist that most everyone is like them, and books matter. THEIR take on reality is neither colloquial or parochial. It's reality. Period. Plain and simple.<br /><br />It's called a culture war. One segment of the culture insists it's hold on reality is the real reality while other segments of the culture twist in the wind. The book world knows at some unarticulated level that the culture is almost illiterate and most Americans do not read so much as one book per year.<br /><br />The numbers are also bogus because the number of books bought by Book Lovers include multiple consumer items, and when you spread the numbers out, you can even make the disingenuous case for Americans being somewhat literate.<br /><br />It just ain't so.<br /><br />What no one wants to articulate (heresy) is that the book world is a sub-culture; not a culture, and most sub-cultures operate with rituals, temple priests, rules written on tablets and stone, wars, and mythologies that defy the limits of imagination. The book lovers scream that their world is the real world and books are sacred texts. Vis-a-vis how you write them (inside or out of the box) becomes a sacred activity, and a thing is either real or it's not.<br /><br />No matter. Most religion is a pile of horse manure. Do books matter.<br /><br />Not.<br /><br />Tim BarrusLucian Daemonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06957108135198362566noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-1091186789113801122010-06-13T10:14:57.199-04:002010-06-13T10:14:57.199-04:00Laurie -- It wouldn't be Narnia for me (more l...Laurie -- It wouldn't be Narnia for me (more like Rivendell), but your point is so on target. I certainly chart my own coming of age through the novels that engaged me in different periods. As I recall, there's a wonderful memoir by a British writer that's something like "My Life in Books." I'll dig up the title and author.Martha Nicholshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02125887259454036708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-28072310878094669882010-06-12T14:08:55.091-04:002010-06-12T14:08:55.091-04:00One way to evaluate the emotional necessity, and i...One way to evaluate the emotional necessity, and imaginative opportunities, of a novel, is to look at the chronological list of novels that shaped our personal ontology. Would I really be who was at a particular point in my life without the accompanying novels? Not a chance. God only knows why, at 14, Gide's novels answered the confused self-loathing of early adolescence. Or later Proust, who ushered me through college the way <br />Vergil coached Dante through the afterworld. There are so many writers I could probably never re-read, but when I read them they were the most satisfying companion I knew. We live in a technologically hand to mouth world, full of instantaneous virtual experiences. As I knew well in the third grade, I’ll take Narnia any day.Laurie Weisznoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-64946362762714551352010-06-12T12:28:12.785-04:002010-06-12T12:28:12.785-04:00Thanks, Barbara and Judith. Barbara--what an inter...Thanks, Barbara and Judith. Barbara--what an interesting point you make about the gaps in memoir that we, as readers, are expected to jump. Will you write more about that for us? Feel free to contact TW at talkingwriting@gmail.com.Martha Nicholshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02125887259454036708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-57947031210842647422010-06-12T12:05:49.328-04:002010-06-12T12:05:49.328-04:00Quite simply, novels are one of the things that ma...Quite simply, novels are one of the things that make life worth living. Email, on the other hand, is something that often leaves me wanting to jump off a roof.<br />Yes, its a messy world, novels can not only take you away from that, they can, as you say Martha, help you develop the empathy to deal with it as well.Judith Rosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12079409605010969088noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-791333163108425062010-06-12T12:02:39.048-04:002010-06-12T12:02:39.048-04:00I agree completely and appreciate deeply. But I wi...I agree completely and appreciate deeply. But I will take one small Nichols-esque issue with one of her assertions: The rise of memoir in relation to long fiction has been complicated by, on the one hand, the muddiness of figuring out how true it needs to be and, on the other, the apparent belief that quirkiness or drama in bits, as long as it is true, obviates the need to tell the kind of engaging story Nichols (and I) want. I think it's no surprise that my most-read piece on Associated Content (http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2457982/memoir_or_novel_tell_me_a_story.html) is a rant mostly provoked by Jeannette Walls's "true-life novel," in which she allowed her imagination only as much room as her mother's and her memory went, and left us with a collection of incomplete anecdotes.Barbara Kellam-Scotthttp://bkswrites.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-83750545680293304342010-06-09T13:17:20.155-04:002010-06-09T13:17:20.155-04:00Thank you all for your encouragement to go forward...Thank you all for your encouragement to go forward. Gulp! As Kathleen notes, it is too easy to focus on the impediments rather than the goal. I expect the 'big change' will ultimately happen through small, clumsy, steps rather than one soaring leap. But however it happens, I am sure the risk will be well worth the effort.Judith Rosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12079409605010969088noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-31180483074132943182010-06-05T04:20:26.216-04:002010-06-05T04:20:26.216-04:00Descartes said "I think therefore I blog"...Descartes said "I think therefore I blog" or maybe "I blog therefore I am" not sure which..lolAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-51119348937553578282010-06-04T08:43:28.788-04:002010-06-04T08:43:28.788-04:00Great post. You sum up writing/blogging so perfect...Great post. You sum up writing/blogging so perfectly in the last sentence. And chocolate makes everything better!Jennyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03446526228387021274noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-44559533212746254222010-06-03T11:36:44.869-04:002010-06-03T11:36:44.869-04:00Nice post! I just sent it to a friend of mine who ...Nice post! I just sent it to a friend of mine who knew she wanted to blog but didn't know why :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-84825763618651509312010-05-27T07:57:40.562-04:002010-05-27T07:57:40.562-04:00Stepping through a gate into a garden that can be ...Stepping through a gate into a garden that can be seen on the other side is easy. When the barrier is a solid door, however, we must muster great faith to step through to the other side, for how do we know for certain the Great Unknown will welcome us? There is a wonderful Chinese proverb I've lived by for years. It states, "Fear knocked; faith answered and found no one there."<br /><br />Go for it Judith! Step through the gate into that secret garden. You won't be sorry, even if the landscape on the other side doesn't turn out to be quite what you expected. You'll have had the adventure of striding forth into the Unknown and living to write about it.Paula L. Silicihttp://www.pro-edits.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-50197391819309005182010-05-26T11:40:32.833-04:002010-05-26T11:40:32.833-04:00I find the photo interesting. The garden beyond i...I find the photo interesting. The garden beyond is out of focus, the gridded lath so close, so in focus that the grain of wood can be felt. I wonder, why does the photographer choose to let the "gate" or barrier dominate this picture? And not the garden. It would seem to me that until we stop focusing on that which we perceive to block us from going forward, we will never get through the gate. To put it yet another way, by choosing to focus on the impediments to our success we only divert the energy and focus from the goal.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08501917524755520691noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-56339919225320141682010-05-23T21:19:36.981-04:002010-05-23T21:19:36.981-04:00Hi Judith
I never imagined that I, or for that m...Hi Judith<br /> I never imagined that I, or for that matter anyone I knew, could possibly arrive at middle-age; but your lovely essay brings me to my own awareness that at 55, the "when I grow up" mentality that I have carted around for all these years, (when I finally arrive at the perfect evolution of my life that allows me to be who I dreamed I would be) is, well...a lot like saying I will go on a diet when every chocolate cake has been wiped off the face of the earth. The dainty relationship between my primordial self, the circumstances that primordial self struggled against to form a personality, the history and life I have created for myself, and the view through the lattice gate, is fascinating. Underneath the vicissitudes and unveilings is the depth of our self-knowledge, and self-awareness, which in the dizzying din and distractions of our everyday life, can become a very foreign chasm. Something we may not have really stared at head-on since the last time psychedelics ignited those neurons. Is who we think we are, and how we live, simply the scar tissue around our habits of living? You describe a fascinating point of departure. Laurie WeiszLaurie Weisznoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6752087278312138965.post-36411072290182963962010-05-23T10:37:26.448-04:002010-05-23T10:37:26.448-04:00Judith, this is a beautiful post, and I love that ...Judith, this is a beautiful post, and I love that image of life as a fixer-upper. I wonder if the fixing is ever done. Doubtful.<br /><br />One thing that's so evocative about the gate image is how amorphous the world seems beyond the safety latch. It <i>is</i> scary. You should definitely open that gate and walk into the unknown -- but I say respect your defenses, too, and the distance you've already traveled.Martha Nicholshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02125887259454036708noreply@blogger.com