This is probably the exact wood violet that Glück was talking about in her poem. Maybe.

My father recently sent me a quote from the poet Louise Glück who, in her collection of essays, Proofs and Theories, writes that the fundamental experience of the writer is…

…helplessness…most writers spend much of their time in various kinds of torment: wanting to write, being unable to write, wanting to write differently, not being able to write differently. It is a life dignified…by yearning, not made serene by sensations of achievement.

Which is affirming, if you look it at one way, and see it as confirmation that your own struggles — and what writer does not struggle? — are par for the course, a consequence of the difficult art you have chosen for yourself, and not a symptom that you suck.

So many people that I work with think that their writerly torment means that they are doing something wrong, or that they shouldn’t be writing, or they believe that that no one else finds it so hard. Me and ole’ Louie G are here to tell you otherwise.

At the same time, though, jeeze, Louise. Bleak much? I replied to my father’s email with just such a sentiment. “I get it,” I wrote to him. “I experience it, but what’s the freakin’ payoff? Why do this?”

His reply: “Well, the reason for doing it is that there’s no other way of ‘getting’ it than by doing it. That’s the payoff: being in it. ‘Cos otherwise you’re not in it. And then where are you?”

That’s a prime esoteric father response right there, readers. I get it though. Do you? Is this your reason for writing or are you driven by something else entirely?

As a closing note, here’s a link to a Glück poem, called “April,” because we are in April and despite all the writerly torment that we all put ourselves through on a daily basis, the spring sunshine outside is glorious. This is not at all what the poem is about, though.

These lists, compiled by The Guardian, are too much fun not to share. Inspired by Elmore Leonard’s ten rules of writing, The Guardian asked a whole bunch of writers to come up with their own versions. The results are usually interesting, often funny, occasionally obvious, always helpful.

Part one features Elmore Leonard, Diana Athill, Margaret Atwood, Roddy Doyle, Helen Dunmore, Geoff Dyer, Anne Enright, Richard Ford, Jonathan Franzen, Esther Freud, Neil Gaiman, David Hare, PD James, and AL Kennedy.

Part two features Hilary Mantel, Michael Moorcock, Michael Morpurgo, Andrew Motion, Joyce Carol Oates, Annie Proulx, Philip Pullman, Ian Rankin, Will Self, Helen Simpson, Zadie Smith, Colm Tóibín, Rose Tremain, Sarah Waters, and Jeanette Winterson.

Note: I started writing this post in January. I know, I know — it’s like, two weeks out of date already. What can I say? Stuff has been going on. The links still work, though, and the possible discussions they could kick off are still valid. Have at it.

There have been some interesting articles about memoir kicking around on teh internets recently, which I will collect here for your delectation.

First Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, writing in the UK’s Independent newspaper, gives a rousing “publish and be damned” call to arms for all memoir writers. Alibhai-Brown is responding to the bru-ha over in the UK about Lady Antonia Fraser’s memoir, which recounts her marriage to the late Harold Pinter. I haven’t read Fraser’s book yet but apparently it’s not a even tell-all – it’s a rather tender and well-written portrait of an unusual marriage (according to reviews here, here and here.) Pinter’s plays, which I studied in high school, had a lasting effect on me. In particular, the distinction he made between the dash and the ellipses. This was revolutionary for me at the time — that so much could be conveyed through punctuation!

Then there’s this juicy piece in the New Yorker, a review of Ben Yagoda’s Memoir: A History.

And then a completely asinine memoir attack piece by Taylor Antrim in The Daily Beast, followed by Stephen Elliott’s Antrim smackdown on The Rumpus.

Boring post title, but exciting news: I sent out an email this morning about my February workshop and had a flood of emails — gratifying! As of 3.20 p.m., four people lined up already and some others who have expressed an interest in the remaining two spots. Yehaw!

And this seems like a good opportunity to include the other publishing news I sent out in the newsletter.

The first item was regarding the publication of Elyssa East’s fabulous book, Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town. Elyssa’s book is a true crime story, combined with the history of an abandoned colonial settlement and expanse of wilderness close to Gloucester, Mass. In a signature review for Publisher’s Weekly, Joyce Carol Oates called the book “…fascinating, richly detailed and remarkably evocative.”

I was lucky enough to get a sneak preview of the book when I read it and offered some feedback, pre-publication. It’s a real page turner, and takes the reader deep into a mysterious, intriguing historical world. At Elyssa’s launch party, at Word, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, on December 1, I was awarded “Top Dog” honors (along with some other people who had helped Elyssa’s book along the way, including her agent Brettne Bloom and her fiancé, Yulun Wang, one half of Pi Recordings). Pic of the award below — ain’t it pretty?

I also announced — not that she needed me to, considering the great reviews and exposure the book has received — Jessica DuLong’s debut book, My River Chronicles: Rediscovering America On the Hudson, an account of Jessica’s transition from the dot-com world to engineer of the John J. Harvey, a classic fireboat. Jessica’s compelling story is interwoven with fascinating, narrative-driven industrial history, made personal by her deep investment in the preservation of the Hudson river.

Jessica was a member of one of my first ever workshops, back when I was teaching though the Sackett Street Writers’ Workshops. She was honing her sample chapters then, subsequently found an agent and sold the book, and is now busy promoting and reading and being fabulous!

I love hearing about the publishing success of friends, clients, and students. If you have some to share with me, I hope you’ll be in touch.

The Paris Review has put all their interviews with writers online. This makes me very, very happy.

I wrote a column for The Faster Times that was biting on NaNoWriMo, but only a little. When I tweeted the link to the column, Paul Constant, book editor for The Stranger newspaper in Seattle, tweeted back. “There’s something to be said for speed, too,” he wrote. “Knocks the precious out of you.” And you know, he’s right, as backed up by John Steinbeck in this quote:

Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down.

But then again, the next day, I came across this interview with Mary Karr in which she talks about her process in writing her new memoir. Seems like it was incredibly slow and painful, which is something I can identify with. Whether the results will be worth it remains to be seen, but I’m fan of her first two books, so fingers crossed. Here’s a preview of the interview:

Mary Karr was four years behind deadline for delivering a new memoir detailing her disintegrating marriage, alcoholism and recovery. She had scrapped more than 1,000 pages and was considering selling her Manhattan apartment to give back her advance.

“That’s how much I didn’t want to write the book,” said Ms. Karr, best-selling author of “The Liars’ Club” and “Cherry,” also memoirs. “I was clawing my way through it. It was a horror show.”

The NBCC website has kindly made available the recording of a panel discussion I attended a couple of weeks ago on “the art of reportage.” Find it here.

Then there’s this: Make your own academic sentence! Too funny.

Look! Someone has made a movie all about bad writing! George Saunders is in it! So is David Sedaris, who says: “I have written so many bad, bad things.” Haven’t we all, David, haven’t we all.

No distribution information or date, though, so maybe the film is…bad? Watch and decide for yourself.

Seriously – how awesome is it? Very awesome indeed is the correct response.

Thanks to Jeremy D’Arcy for his fine design skills and for accommodating all my persnickerty requests with such good grace. There are a few broken images and links here and there – I have to find and fix them, which I will do forthwith. Bear with me.

I’ll tell you something else that is also awesome: The writing of Rainer Maria Rilke. Something I read today prompted me to go hunting for a quote of his that I half remembered – about, appropriately enough, memory. I found it, and also this quote, which I did not know, but love, and which sums up my feeling right now:

“Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.”

This is Ann Patchett in the afterward to Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face.

In the right hands, a memoir is the flecks of gold panned out of a great, muddy river. A memoir is those flecks melted down into a shapable liquid that can then be molded and hammered into a single bright band to be worn on a finger, something you could point to and say, “This? Oh, this is my life.” Everyone has a muddy river, but very few have the vision, patience, and talent to turn it into something so beautiful. This is why the writer matters, so that we can not only learn from her experience but find a way to shape our own. I’m not talking about shaping every life into a work of art. I’m talking about making our life into something we can understand, a portable object that has the weight and power of an entire terrain.

I’m excited to announce that I’m launching my own writing workshops in the fall, starting the week of September 14. I have taken the best elements of all the workshops I have taught and participated in over the years and blended them into one engaging, rigorous combination. My workshops are a great way to get yourself writing again and are open to all New York based writers. I’ve even had writers make the journey from Jersey or Connecticut to join my classes (previously taught through Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop) in Brooklyn before.

If you live in or near New York City and you need some motivation, structure, feedback, encouragement, community, and good, solid, craft discussion, please consider joining me. I’ll also supply tasty snacks, of course (anyone who has been in my classes before knows I have a mean addiction to Kettle brand sea salt and black pepper crinkle cut chips, among other things…)

Here are the details:

• These will be craft-focused workshops, open to fiction and nonfiction writers, limited to just six writers per group (so you get more individual attention).
• You’ll get eight sessions, total, and we will meet every other week (so you’ll have structure and feedback over a sixteen week period).
• Each session will last three hours and include some in-class writing and discussion of process (so everyone will engage with their work and leave with a goal).
• Everyone will submit four times, a maximum of 25 pages (so you could produce and workshop up to 100 new pages).
• Everyone will get a one hour phone or in-person consultation with me over the course of the workshop.
• The price? Just $595.

I’ll be running two sessions. One will start the week of September 14 and one the week of September 21. That means I’ll have space for twelve writers this fall. I did an email to my current and former clients about a week ago and there are now only six spots left open. If you are interested in one of them, email me at nancyrawlinson@gmail.com and I’ll be happy to answer any questions and give you information on how to reserve a spot.

If a workshop doesn’t suit you right now, I’m still available for one-on-one consultations. Contact me at nancyrawlinson@gmail.com to discuss the options or check out my website, nancyrawlinson.com, for more information about my services and fees.

All this business development is making me reassess various aspects of my self presentation – including the name of this blog, which you’ll see has changed. Look for some more posts on what makes for a good workshop experience soon.

25 year-old Denis wants to attend the MFA program at Hollins in the fall, but can’t afford to go. Sound familiar? Denis’s solution, though, is new. He decided to do some internet fundraising. He writes on his blog:

Instead of asking people to loan me money for school, I’m now asking them to simply give me money. To that extent, I’ve created a fundraising page on fundable, and if you can spare $10, please pledge towards my goal. Since I can’t get a loan and there is no way my parents can pay my tuition, I’ll have to rely on the kindness of strangers.

You can check out his fundraising site directly here. At time of writing, Denis only had $10 in contributions. Is this because his campaign is brand new (launched 7/13/09) or because there’s a recession on, or because this idea simply isn’t going to work?

There’s also this article, over at Publisher’s Weekly, about writer and blogger Dianna Zandt, who, after signing a deal for her first book that provided no advance, decided to “crowdfund” the money she needed to write over the summer. It helps that her topic is “…writing about the power of social media to shift perceptions and cultural values.” She’s been pretty successful so far, it seems – you can read her thoughts and feedback on the process (plus tips for others who are considering going the the same route) here.

What do you think? Are Denis and Deanna smart to try this approach? Is their initiative laudable? Do their requests for funds seem justified to you? And is this a sign of things to come?