Writing and Learning

Sometimes, Mondays just seem to come around so quickly.

Weekends tend to be consumed by chores and studying, and you manage home-made pizza and a movie on Sunday night, then it’s Monday again. What the hell, world.

Anyway, on to the post! Today is all about learning. I have a confession to make: I’m a bit of a nerd [Dislciamer: obviously depending on how you define nerd].

I love to read, I love to learn new things, I love studying (some days), and I find that it constantly boggles my mind how much there is out there to learn about, and how much we can utilise the things we learn in our writing.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m studying a political ideologies subject at university at the moment. At the risk of looking like a complete fool, I will confess that prior to this course I’ve only had (at best) a very scant idea of what particular facets comprise the different political ideologies. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve read Orwell’s Animal Farm (and also saw the creepy animated film: was that really meant for kids? It scared the complete jeewillikers out of me when I was younger and I’ve never revisited it) and Mao’s Last Dancer, and there’s no way you can walk away from things like that without having some general idea of what socialism or communism is. But if you wanted to consider Australian politics (or any nation’s really) in terms of ideology, I was lost. I wasn’t sure what Marxism is, what liberalism and conservatism really meant and what they were characterised by… I didn’t know any of these things.

So where am I going with this? I don’t, at this stage as a writer, really envisage myself writing any kind of political commentary like the type Orwell produced… But I am keenly interested in humanity, in equality and in how humans interact. I think literature is often about the portrayal of humanity, and I think studying the core concepts that underpin varying political ideologies, allows us a way in which to perhaps see and try to understand other people and their particular worldview.

I believe understanding and empathy are crucial to writers.

Regardless of whether we want to create a character for an audience to admire or despise, the ability to accurately understand and portray their motivations and beliefs – in short, their personal paradigm  – allows us to create depth and meaning in the people we put onto the page. And I believe readers can see that and it allows them to more deeply interact with our characters.

I’ve also mentioned previously that I’m studying a great introductory psychology subject at the moment. This week we’re looking at language, cognition and decision-making. Language? How we think and how we choose where to go?

Are any other writers out there (I really hope it’s not just me) drooling a bit from the corner of their mouths because that sounds like pretty epic writing fodder? Great fact for the day from this particular subject. As humans, we are able to make the largest range of vocalisations of any animal and that’s why we can speak; however, the vocal tract configuration that allows us these vocalisations also increases our chances of choking. HOW AMAZING IS THAT FACT? Ok, sorry, back on track. Learning about language constructs and language acquisition is interesting not only from the perspective of considering how we might create and implement our own language in a manuscript, but also how the exchange occurs between the listener and the speaker. Studying this really drove home how the use of gesturing, posture and attitude affects what we say, allowing us to perceive how someone is really feeling without the requirement for dialogue. That is one of the primary criticisms of creative writing tutors anywhere you go: show, don’t tell.

Show, don’t tell. 

I don’t need you to write ‘Bob was angry,’ if you can use his physical, non-verbal clues to tell me that his fists were clenched and he was going red in the face. Now, he might be choking, but he’s probably angry. How are other people reacting? Has his coworker got her arms crossed in front of her body, refusing to make eye contact? She’s probably scared or feeling guilty.

There are probably people rolling their eyes at this, and I get it. Sometimes it just seems so obvious, but sometimes we need to be reminded that, if nothing else, the world is full of things waiting to be learnt which will make us better writers. Plus, if you find out cool factors like that vocal cord configuration and choking risk fact, that’s pretty cool.

Finally, I read a truly amazing article from The Paris Review over the weekend. For those of you who’ve never heard of Robert Gottlieb (as I hadn’t, prior to stumbling over this on the search for some publishing and editing essay sources), he has edited Joseph Heller, John Le Carre, Toni Morrison, Michael Crichton… If your eyes aren’t popping out of your head right now, you are the coolest cucumber ever.

JOHN LE CARRE, people! He’s amazing! I read ‘The Constant Gardener’ a few years ago and was staggered by it: his ability to weave beautiful prose into a complex story line… Sheesh.

So, this article included not only interview material with Robert Gottlieb, but also with the wide ranging host of brilliant authors he’d worked with. It’s pretty long, but if you’re interested in publishing/editing, or you’re a writer who wants to learn more about how editors work and what exactly they do, check it out here. It was fascinating to get a sense of Gottlieb’s editing process and how author’s responded to that, as well as pick up some tips that I’m hoping to apply to my own self-editing process. I really enjoyed reading it, so if you’re vaguely interested, click on over and have a look!

In other news, it’s exciting to note that I’m past the 80 000(ish) word mark for my novel, and have managed to transcribe 20 000 of those! I’m hoping to finish the gargantuan first draft by the end of the year, then give myself a break before (realistically) probably sitting down to completely rewrite it. Now, as a gift for listening to me bang on about learning today: we watched a seriously cool video of a man playing a dulcimer on the weekend. What is that? Here, have a picture::

And this guy played said dulcimer so damn well, that I’m also going to include the link for it here.

Have a great week everyone, see you on Wednesday!

— Ana.

[Image credit to Wiki, of course. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammered_dulcimer]