How Do You Decide What to Write About?

Just curious, as usual.

Being a nonfiction writer, I write about whatever I think there's a commercial demand for. That completely informs my writing. If I don't think there's a demand, I won't bother. That's what journaling is for.

LC wrote:

Being a nonfiction writer, I write about whatever I think there's a commercial demand for. That completely informs my writing. If I don't think there's a demand, I won't bother. That's what journaling is for.

Very Wise!

12/29/2012

My next book will be based on a character from my murder

mystery " Murder On Society Road," I already know what the

cover will look like, when I get the cover together I'll post it.

It'll be interesting.......

Cheers..Joe...

I went to law school to change the world. I quickly learned that was not the best road to doing so and two years after graduating and passing the bar, I began my true path of teaching and academic administration. My non fiction is still rooted in that impulse, though, in that I only write articles and books about issues that are important to me in some way in the hope of effecting positive change. My textbooks are drawn from a similar vein--I don't produce books to compete head on with the leading texts, but provide alternatives to these for like-minded college faculty that want the least expensive, most direct, student-friendly treatment of the subject with the least amount of ancillary materials that bloat the size and cost of textbooks to the $200 range. My voice is very different from that of the crowd, as is my focus. Adopters of my texts like that and are willing to forgo the canned materials that they seldom assign anyway in favor of their own supplementation with current cases, statutes and relevant current events.

In a similar vein, most of my scholarly articles are intended to move the law in a specific direction in areas that I believe it has gone astray. If I am going to devote six months to a year to the research and writing of an article that will have to survive the rigor of peer review to be published, it needs to be about a subject that is important enough to me to merit the commitment of time necessary to create it.

My fiction, on the other hand, is almost always at some level about attempting to reflect my view of what it means to be human, about our frailty, our strength, and the painful lessons we often learn too late in life about both.

My poetry is about the unbridled joy and the depths of sorrow that are the alpha and omega of the human condition from one unimportant, irrelevant, insignificant person's viewpoint, informed by a great capacity to feel his own and others' boundless, ever-present pain and ecstasy. At times of great grief and great joy in life, poetry is what allowed me to maintain the balance and kept me from falling into the void.

I've been writing stuff down as long as I've known how to write. By the 4th-5th grade, I focused my "fun" writing on poems. As I grew older, I had to be very careful. My mom found a way to read just about everything I wrote, and generally found it offensive, so I shut that mode down for a time. I limited my writing to assignments given to me by my teachers and professors. Most of them not only didn't find what I wrote to be offensive, they liked it, except for my professor for the advanced freshman comp class my first year of college. He was horrified by my inability to write a paragraph that met with his very stringent guidelines. Toward the end of the semester he called me in to tell me that unless my work improved, I would be his first student to flunk an accelerated class. (In accelerated classes, a "D" was considered failing.) I cried, and he rolled his eyes and handed me a box of Kleenex. Apparently I was not the first of his students to need them. I pointed out to him that I had made "A's" on all of my creative projects, and he told me that he had been pleasantly surprised by them, but the purpose of Freshman English was to prepare students for technical writing.

For the rest of the semester, I focused on learning to write the way he said I was supposed to write. My average slowly improved, but as we entered exam week, I still had a high D average.

Then as was taking the exam, something just hit home. I got it. I left the room knowing that I had aced that exam. In those days, grades were still posted on the prof's office door. I went by to check and saw that I had made a C--- for the course. I have never, before or since, taken as much pride as I did for that particular grade.

None of my high school teachers had ever said a word about form and order. In fact, none of them ever actually taught writing as such. I remember, just after I started teaching AP classes, getting into a discussion with my brother, who said that it was "cheating" to teach a student how to write. It was something they ought to know without being taught, and their grades ought to be based on that innate ability, or lack thereof. I was shocked to find that my favorite uncle, Feagin, a respected attorney - at one time our little city's DA, seemed to agree. I was learning that, at the time I started teaching, English and LA teachers were only just beginning to think of writing as a skill that could be taught.

And, here I am, way off course from the original question.

Except for a period of time after I became a mom, when I went through a prolific poetry writing period, and a creative writing course I took during the late 70's, when I had returned to college to finish my degree, I wrote what my coursework or my job dictated. Then, in the late 80's, my own learning shifted into a drastically different direction. By chance, I overheard a comment made by a metal bandleader on MTV. My son was the only one of my children still at home, and he watched the channel whenever he had the chance, since he, at the time, was the rhythm guitarist and arranger for his own metal band, Redline, and was still trying to decide whether he wanted to become a rock star or an advertising executive. (It wasn't until his undergrad years that he discovered calculus.)

That comment - trying again to get back on track - by the metal bandleader, was that he hadn't believed in God until he learned about quantum physics. It started me on a quest that led me, eventually, into Jungian psychology (yes, there is a relationship) and the work of Joseph Campbell, and the study of comparative mythology. My first novel, still and probably forever unpublished, And Adam was a Gardener, grew out of that quest,as did the habit of writing journal entries expanding on my dreams, one of which involved an underground cave with a magical red stone inside. So did my first published work, a nonfiction study of the mythology of heroes as seen through the individual, Audie Murphy (my own first childhood hero), A Myth in Action.

After completing that book I started to dream about just being a writer, rather than teaching others to write(a task which, according to those I worked with, I was becoming adept at, in spite of my brother's and my uncle's disapproval - think of it, maybe because of). My life started to work in what Jung would call synchronistic ways, all of which led me to being able to accomplish the first part of my dream: retiring with the means to just write.

At first I was intent on telling the particular story of my mother's ancestors through historical fiction, but I kept getting tripped up by the truth.

Now, I have taken elements of those individuals, placed in a historical context, so that the history serves as a constant and a limit, while my fictional characters remain free to do whatever develops for them within those limits.

So, I decide on particular characters, mostly made up but with doses of my own ancestors thrown in; I set them within an actual place with an actual history, and then, I do what had been so carefully drawn away from me in those early college days, I just let go and allow the pencil (now the keyboard) choose for me.

Victor,
I think your approach to writing is sound. Since I don't write to make a living and don't think my writing would support a living, I write when I'm inspired. If there is an issue that I feel strongly about, it is motivation enough for me to write about it. I did that with my first and second books using personal experience to show a different view on current events.
Writing can be hard work especially where much research is involved as is with your writings. If the rewards are not financial, then knowing you have helped someone and getting positive feedback is reward.

At the moment, instead of writing, I am doing much reading and that includes re-reading novels that I liked. I like historical novels.

Ann, I think we posted at the same time and I hadn't seen your post.
You have accomplished much. I enjoyed your "A myth in action". Bring history into your writing, even if historical fiction, is enjoyable to read. It lends credibility to even a fiction story.

I enjoy reading Don Stephen's novels. They are credible, much drawn personal life experiences and/or historical content as with the Native Americans.

There is much talent on this forum. Reading the works of fellow authors provides much insight about the writer as I found by reading D.K.'s novels. Then there are others like Shelagh, Alice, Betty, Dick Stodghill, Carol Trostler, Brenda Hill, Malcolm Campbell, etc. They all have different writing styles. We can learn much from one another.

Ann,

Unfortunately, the unpleasant and difficult but critical skills needed for a solid foundation in writing, grammar, mechanics, organization, etc., have not been taught in most public schools at the k-12 level in two generations. I remember my own experience with teachers teaching comma usage by telling us to place a comma where we normally pause in conversation to take a breath. This leaves university professors with the unpleasant and impossible task of teaching students that which they should have learned before sixth grade--the elements of style rather than the substance of composition. The average student does not know a gerund from a gerbil, a participle from a principal or a principal from a principle and it is not their fault.

Too many college writing professors, especially those who teach creative writing and poetry in my experience, evidence an inexcusable preference for their own writing style and expect their students to emulate whatever they believe to be the current ethos, style and substance of writing. It takes a strong, stubborn and self confident student to shrug off a low grade that reflects more the professors prejudice than the student's lack of talent. You may have suffered from such an instructor as much as from a lack of proper training when it should have been given. That is true for most of us.

Abe,

I don't think there is a better preparation for writing, especially creative writing, than reading widely and avidly. I think you are dead-on also about the insight we can get about widely different, talented writers, not only from their books but also from their posts in this forum. Reading and participating in this forum is an education all its own about writing and so much more.

I am impressed with all you and your accomplishments.
You are all thinkers and very creative.
I wish I had that ability. Being reared in a home devoid of imagination and then
becoming an accountant did not further those attributes.

Alice,

Your posts belie your lack of creativity, but even if it were true, just think about how many mad creative people the world holds as opposed to how many mad accountants.

Victor, I can't really fault that professor too much. I had a strong background in grammar, mechanics and sentence structure. that wasn't the problem. He, and as I later learned, most Liberal Arts professors at least, wanted to see a balanced five-paragraph essay format, with and introduction that moved from general to specific, ending wth a thesis statement, followed by three body paragraphs that began with a clear topic sentence, and proceeded, using deductive reasoning, through at least three supportive sentences to a concluding statement, and ending with a conclusion that reversed the pattern of the introduction by restating the thesis and working back to the same broader idea expressed in the opening statement. I learned that it was the "bible" format for such classes on most college campuses, at least at that time.

I even taught the format myself, as a preferred way to organize an essay - the middle part of a process that moved from open, creative freewriting into loose first drafts through organizing charts to that formal essay pattern, and afterwards, working on sentence structures, and only then, at grammar and mechanics before writing a final draft. It was a process that was needed to be practiced in order to produce an essay that would earn a high score on that Advanced Placement Exam, which was the main purpose for a student to take that AP course.

It was a reversal of the old system that I had learned from public school days, which began with parts of speech and grammar into sentences and mechanics before we ever attempted to write a paragraph. Once we did start writing essays, at about 11th grade, we were left pretty much on our own, and teachers graded them based on our use of the fundamentals: proper verb forms, comma placement, word choices, but not on our ability to use logic and present a sound argument. or to present a thesis and draw a conclusion based on the data needed to prove the thesis.

I ran into a similar problem after I started teaching AP. We had shifted, in our regular classes, to an open form of process writing that encouraged creativity, but did not help students to write for a purpose, and had moved completely away from any formal teaching of the elements.

It seemed that over the years, we had moved from one extreme to the other - a little bit like the political situation we find ourselves facing today.

It was only during my last years of teaching that I had learned, and had the means, to conduct a workshop, with students collaborating in small groups, and me acting as a facilitator who could steer each student within the group in a direction that worked with her own thinking styles, and assigning time for computer-based practice exercises in the areas where they needed extra help. (We had enough computers, in the classroom, for every other student.) If it had not been for the small classes (12-15 students per class), it would not have worked.

alice wrote:

I am impressed with all you and your accomplishments.
You are all thinkers and very creative.
I wish I had that ability. Being reared in a home devoid of imagination and then
becoming an accountant did not further those attributes.

So, where did you pick up your creative talents - because anyone who reads your work cannot help but see that you have them.

Annie

Ann,

For an obviously bright student who had been trained in the fundamentals, the professor should have taken the time to explain where you were failing to meet his/her expectations rather than leaving it to you to figure it out after the fact.
A lesser student would have been frustrated, discouraged and her voice would have been lost to the world to our impoverishment.

And I agree about the movement from one extreme to the other leaving us in uncomfortable places in writing, politics and life. As with managing stability in a spinning object, such as a gigantic wheel or space station for that matter, one finds stability in the center. The farther one moves away from the center in any direction, the faster one accelerates due to the effect of centrifugal force. (Perhaps that explains why the wingnuts at the extremes are forever howling at the discomfiture their position leaves them in.)

Ann,
I have had an unusual life. "Truth being stranger than fiction," helps.




Victor,
The accountants, no doubt, cause madness in those who love money.
There is nothing much more daunting that a dyspeptic accountant delivering the
profit and loss statement. Maybe the economists with their doom and gloom predictions come in second!



Shelagh,

How cute!

I was an avid reader and movie romantic all my life. As a child I loved the musicals of my parents' generation. I still favor old movies, sobbing still through "An Affair to Remember." I always kept diaries.

My English teachers expected me to teach English Literature and write the novels they dreamed of writing but did not. My college creative writing prof always gave my papers A plus without even reading them so he didn't change my style any. I was insulted. Obviously the number of rejections I have received indicate my work can be improved.

I think these are difficult times for authors; the competition created with ebooks and the acceptance of self-publishing creates a free-for-all in the market of so much to read and sift through that it takes a miracle to sell enough writing to survive.

If my house was paid for, I am currently earning enough with royalties and the newspaper articles to survive. Survival, however, is a very tenuous way to live. I could ratchet up my promotional efforts with target blogs and Internet sites and attendance at conferences nationwide. However that is not my choice.

I guess you could say I write non-fiction with the newspaper - at least that is the intent. Writing a non-fiction book does not interest me though the income potential does.

I write because I write and I write about anything that moves me. Be careful what you say and do, my next novel may include you.

I guess what it comes down to personally, these days, is that I don't decide what to write; the writing decides for me.

DK, I would be honored and so would every animal in the Woods.

Alice, you sell your talents short. You have a wonderful way with truth and tongue in cheek. Everything I have read of yours has been beautiful in story and construction.

I have often thought that I should take a famous story, say, The Old Man And The Sea, and using it's sentence structure, create a totally different book, word count and all. I think it would be a challenge. It could not be about an old man or the sea...

Love,

Betty

Annie,

I wish that my spirit could flow out of me like your's does in your writing. I have a constipated spirit. Alas!

Love,

Betty

I write whatever I think would be cool and fun to write.

I like that cartoon, Shelagh. In fact, just yesterday my son quoted Snoppy's open lines in his writing. "It was a dark and stormy night".
I think it would be great to have a book, with Snoppy as the author, that begins with his opening lines.

We could plagiarise the opening line: 'Twas an ominous and torrid evening.

...and the slimy frogs did croak and ribbit in the darkness.

When I was a freshman at Michigan State Honors College, a few students and a professor of English Literature were using a computer (imagine the size of the thing!) to input reams of poetry with the objective of creating new poetry that emulated the existing greats.

I never heard anymore about that project. The Old Man and the Sea made me remember. Unique is unique. Even great artists who make legal copies of great paintings for museums never match the original perfectly.