HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: nadeau@bnr.ca (Rheal Nadeau)
Subject: Re: Creativity, Creative writing classes
Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd., Ottawa, Canada
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 92 15:34:26 GMT

In article <wu80iB1w164w@nlbbs.UUCP> willdorr@nlbbs.UUCP (William Cutlip) writes:
>
>If you read this thread backwards, Curt[is], you will find a posting 
>wherein Naughty Nancy (I think it was) questioned the value of her 
>creative writing class. She said that her CW teacher was, in some 
>sense, inhibiting or restricting her creative development. I 
>gathered from her missive that the teacher's approach was rigidly 
>academic. 

Joining this thread late (I just started looking at this group
yesterday)...

(Note to Nancy - I have no idea what you actually said or think; I'm
just going by what William said.  So take my comments as referring to
some fictional Nancy, not a personal comment or criticism!)

OK, what does Nancy expect from a creative writing class?  No one can
teach her to write - she has to learn that by herself.  All anyone can
do is provide criticism, or set down rules/suggestions, which she has
to think about and accept or reject or adapt into her writing.

Criticism is necessarily subjective.  There is no guarantee any given
person (teacher or otherwise) will like the sort of thing you write -
someone who doesn't like or read SF is not the best critic of SF
stories (though they may still be able to comment on aspects of the
story - the writing style, discrepancies, etc, i.e.  the technical side
of writing, as opposed to the creative).

Now Nancy felt her "creative development" was being restricted by the
class.  Why?  Is she not free to write what she wishes, outside of the
limits of the class?  Will writing a story using the teacher's rules
taint her forever, making her unable to ever write anything different
again?  I would hope not!

But an argument can be made (and in fact I'm making it) that trying to
meet the professor's requirements is a good exercise.  I see nothing
wrong with writing something specifically for the class, different from
what one normally writes.  (In fact, the whole nature of education is
to make students do things they wouldn't necessarily do otherwise, and
thus broaden their skills and horizons.)  Perhaps Nancy's own ideas
about her fiction are as limited in some ways as the teacher's, if she
can't conceive of writing anything different?

(In one of John D. MacDonald's books, Travis McGee meets an artist
who only does abstracts, and challenges her to sketch a lamp.  At
first, she bristles at the suggestion, but later accepts it, accepts
the challenge, and works on improving her drawing skills.  She then
goes back to painting abstracts, but with a better understanding and
better control of what she's doing.)

The Rhealist (Rheal Nadeau)                 |  Bell-Northern Research
Internet:  nadeau@bnr.ca                    |  Ottawa, Ontario, Canada 
BNR neither endorses nor censors my views   |  (613) 763-4266
From: lwall@netlabs.com (Larry Wall)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: Uncreative Writing.
Date: 17 Apr 92 18:19:33 GMT
Organization: NetLabs, Inc.

[This article is also for Jon, who still wants me to Answer The Question.]

It is a sad fact that many creative writing teachers are still asking
their students to write "What I did for my summer vacation."  When they
say "Write what you know," they don't really mean it.  They mean,
"Write what I know you know, and you know I know."  After all, how can
they grade something they don't know about?

The correct retort to "Write what you know" is "I know an awful lot."
If that sounds egotistical, fine.   It's one of the job requirements.

There is a small wisp of truth floating around in all this, however.
If you're going to communicate with someone, you have to start from
what they know, and lead them to what they don't know.  Worse, you have
to make them enjoy the journey.  Depending on where you want to go, you
might have to pick your audience in order to get an audience that will
stick with you.

Now, here's the crux of the matter.  You have to consider creative
writing teachers to be just another audience that must be picked.  So
be picky.  Do your research.  Don't take a creative writing class from
someone who doesn't want you to be creative.

Unless, of course, you're really a poet.  Poets have to suffer.

Larry Wall
lwall@netlabs.com

P.S.  The same goes for finding a good writing group.  You need a group
      that will tell you whether what you've attempted is working.
      Unfortunately, many writing groups concentrate on telling you why
      you shouldn't have attempted what you attempted.  That's the
      downside to working with a bunch of egotists...  :-)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: richh@tigger.jvnc.net (RICHH)
Subject: Re: where do i start???
Originator: richh@tigger.jvnc.net
Organization: JvNCnet
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 00:16:42 GMT

Brennan.J.Murphy.53@nd.edu () writes:
> does anybody know how to go about becoming a writer for sat. nite live???  

Sure.  First, go to Harvard.
Then, write for the Harvard Lampoon.
Oh yeah, and be really funny.

RICHH
From: fish@hpscit.sc.hp.com (John Fisher)
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 17:03:33 GMT
Subject: Re: The Shorter, the Harder
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Santa Clara, CA
Newsgroups: misc.writing


Hear, hear! I concur! Ad copy is the most difficult of all the types of
writing I've been inclined, induced, ordered to do (technical, ad copy,
business, letter, marketing, short fiction, magazine, newsletter,
screenplays, posting to the net, slug lines, treatments, step outlines,
greeting cards, and class notes). 

The "Golden Rule" in writing ad copy, I think, says it all:
        Say what you have to say in one word...or less.

Argghhh!

John Fisher at Hewlett-Packard |
in Santa Clara, CA             |  "But enough about me. Let's talk about you.
fish@hpscit.hp.com             |   What do *you* think of me?" Bette Midler
Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: cgy@cs.brown.edu (Curtis Yarvin)
Subject: Re: Creativity, Creative writing classes
Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 00:25:02 GMT

In article <wu80iB1w164w@nlbbs.UUCP> willdorr@nlbbs.UUCP (William Cutlip) writes:
|
|cgy@cs.brown.edu (Curtis Yarvin) writes: 
|
|>Okay.  Neither of you are foolish enough to claim that all, or no, 
|>academic writing teachers are doddering idiots. Bill thinks most 
|>are. Tom thinks some are. Hardly a recipe for a resolvable 
|>argument. 
|
|>Bill, do you think an unsuccessful writer _can't_ be a successful 
|>writing teacher?  Why not? 
|
|I do not think that unsuccessful writers cannot be successful 
|teachers; I have not said that most writing teachers are doddering 
|idiots. 
|
|Note that I said, "Your teacher" -- Nancy's teacher, a specific 
|teacher. I then said, "The western lit tradition must be preserved 
|at all costs" -- which, I still say, is a specific reference to a 
|specific musty/dusty conservative academic mindset. It's real; it's 
|out there; it exists. 

I don't think there's much of that great 19th-century Ignatius-Reilly "The
Iliad IS the greatest work of fiction!" attitude floating around today, at
least not in the gutters I frequent.  A more oppressive attitude, I'd
venture, is the conception of Literature-as-Art, wherein a Good Book should
be Innovative and has to be Meaningful.  Its proponents may prefer Kathy
Acker to Shakespeare, but their attitudes are no less static.

|I then described a specific teacher (a medievalist) who forbade the 
|writing of metafiction in her classroom. I published one of those 
|forbidden stories, and pointed out that my teacher had never 
|published fiction. 
|
|In a later posting, I made another specific reference to another specific
|teacher who discouraged the writing of science fiction in his classroom. 

Yeah, I have one too.  She takes my Gernsbackian orts, but grudgingly.

|"Another" Tom Maddox flamewar, you say. I take it then that this is 
|not a rare occurrence.

Not hardly; he seems to relish the sport.  I've seen him on alt.flame,
cheerfully blasting away with double-barrels and buckshot at lowlifes (like
the infamous "Dac" Clayton) who should be miles below his exalted
intellectual strata.

|Have you asked yourself what Tom is doing on this net -- indeed, what is
|his reason for being? The answer is that Tom desperately wants to be
|admired. He is (in short) a wanker

Yeah, but ain't everyone?  I mean, we're not exactly posting out of rampant
personal modesty, ya know.  You're a wanker too.  So am I.

|and you are his unwilling witness.

Not at all.  Leaving aside the delicate question of Tom's literary talent,
he does ken the wanking o' words, and I'd rather read a well-honed wank than
a polite and mushy homily.

|What do you think, Curt? Is that what I meant? Read all those 
|postings thoroughly, take your time, think about it. 

A fine posting that, and I am no fan of Tom's, but the name "Curt" tickles
my hackles; I'd rather you and the world refrained.

c
From: wlaite@carina.unm.edu (Winter Laite LAW)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Electronic Publication and Copyright
Date: 16 Apr 92 22:42:33 GMT
Article-I.D.: lynx.hd1j97=
Followup-To: misc.legal.computing
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

I am a law student at the University of New Mexico. In following
this newsgroup I have noticed a sporadic but apparently ongoing
controversy about the issues involved in electronic (or network)
publication and copyright. As I'm doing a paper on this subject
for intellectual property, I'd be interested in hearing from
people on this subject. The source material available to date is
unnervingly sparse; I need everybody's views on the subject.

Some topics I'd like to cover:
	1) At what point do you "lose your rights" during
electronic publication?
	2) What constitutes "fair use" of material that appears,
for instance, all over the Internet?
	3) Should this be covered by statute, or should we let
the courts decide?
	4) What are the elements of copyright infringement in
electronic publication?

Many other topics come to mind, of course. I'd love to receive     
your e-mail responses on this, but I'll try to keep up with
the newsgroup as well.

Thanks in advance for your interest in what I believe will become
an increasingly important (and if this group is any indication,
contentious) issue.

I will be glad to post a summary of responses and will offer the
paper for public-domain consumption once it's finished.

Sincerely,
Winter Laite
wlaite@carina.unm.edu
From: davidb@muppet.bt.co.uk (David Baboulene)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Take the money and run..
Date: 16 Apr 92 11:05:47 GMT
Reply-To: davidb@muppet.axion.bt.co.uk (David Baboulene)
Organization: British Telecom Research Labs



A few words to offer a perspective against a 'take the biggest advance you can
screw 'em for' philosophy. Remember - there's no such thing as a free lunch.

My experience of advances against royalties was in the music business.

I was advised not to take too much up front, as the size of the advance was taken
into account in the subsequent percentage split between publisher/agent/me et al.
This is fair enough, in that the financier may never see his money back, so the
more I wanted up-front, the less my percentage claim on potential returns
became. This sliding scale ran all the way to the top at which point I got a
substantial figure up front and NO claim on future royalties; more of a fee for
handing over the copyright.

A few words to offer a perspective against a 'take the biggest advance you can
screw 'em for' philosophy. Remember - there's no such thing as a free lunch.

My experience of advances against royalties was in the music business.

I was advised not to take too much up front, as the size of the advance was taken
into account in the subsequent percentage split between publisher/agent/me et al.
This is fair enough, in that the financier may never see his money back, so the
more I wanted up-front, the less my percentage claim on potential returns
became. This sliding scale ran all the way to the top at which point I got a
substantial figure up front and NO claim on future royalties; more of a fee for
handing over the copyright.
 
The other thing with an advance was that it muddied the waters, allowing one
particular publisher to rip me off - claiming I still hadn't finished paying
back my advance, so he didn't owe me anything yet. Despite having management, I
could do nothing to disprove his claims without heavy legal distractions. I was
hearing myself on the radio, and earning nothing on top of my advance!

In an ideal world, this doesn't happen because everybody is lovely and honest and
cuddly. I suspect that the *business* of books is financially driven (like the
business-music) and has the potential to really upset those on the artistic side
of the fence who are in it as 'Artists' with their accompanying sensitivity,
temperament, etc.

I became so miffed with the business side, that half way through writing a song,
I would get a vision of the hassle that lay ahead, lose my inspiration and head
straight for the pub!

My advice is DO NOT GET INVOLVED ON THE BUSINESS SIDE ANY MORE THAN YOU ABSOLUTELY
MUST! It will disenchant you beyond belief. Do whatever you have to
to get a reputable agent, then leave it all (within reason) to him/her.

Best of luck!

Donald Fagen

 
(Not really - David Baboulene - davidb@muppet.bt.co.uk)
-- 

David Baboulene (davidb@muppet.bt.co.uk)

British Telecom Research Labs.      o  o
Suffolk,                              >
England.                              .
From: johnnyb@ims.com (Johnny Battle)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: More style stuff
Date: 7 Apr 92 16:00:47 GMT
Organization: Integrated Measurement Systems, Inc.

In article <1992Apr4.161543.15132@csun.edu>, vbcsc01h@VAX.CSUN.EDU writes:
|> RE:  Authors addressing readers...
|> 
|> Martin Amis, "Dead Babies."

 Dr. Seus, "The Cat in the Hat"
Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: rommel@next06cville.wam.umd.edu (David Lawrence Miller)
Subject: Poetry Submissions
Organization: Workstations at Maryland, University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 04:10:56 GMT


	I wonder whether anyone out there might be able to give me advice  
on how I should go about submitting poems to magazines for fun and profit  
<wink>.
	Any experiences to share or suggestions?
					Curious in College Park,
						Dave

rommel@wam.umd.edu
From: hargitai@acf3.nyu.edu (Joseph Hargitai)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: do you like "Love In Time(s) Cholera"?
Date: 10 Apr 92 00:06:38 GMT
Organization: New York University

Just curious.

jh
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: The Future of Popular Fiction
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1992 21:50:03 GMT

In article <60ktg2=@rpi.edu> kasprj@rpi.edu writes:
 
> Whoever this Paglia person is, I think the author of the quoted article should
>go out and take a look at any good science and engineering school before accepting
>what she writes so completely.

I think it also makes sense to read Paglia rather than accept so
completely what the quoted article says about Paglia, as you do here.



--Mike




-- 
Mike Godwin,     |"Les vrais paradis sont les paradis
mnemonic@eff.org | qu'on a perdus."
(617) 864-0665   | 
EFF, Cambridge   |          --Marcel Proust
Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: tmaddox@milton.u.washington.edu (Tom Maddox)
Subject: Re: Creativity, Creative writing classes
Organization: The Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 03:53:25 GMT

In article <1992Apr10.014749.9860@cs.brown.edu> cgy@cs.brown.edu (Curtis Yarvin) writes:
>In article <1992Apr9.075046.14354@u.washington.edu> tmaddox@milton.u.washington.edu (Tom Maddox) writes:

>>[This has turned into an exchange of flames, folks, so be forewarned.]

>Gah.  Yet another Tom Maddox flamewar.  

	Let's see:  you saw my name as the poster; you saw the warning 
about an exchange of flames.  No pulling the wool over your eyes, eh, Curt?
You're one sharp guy.  However, I do wonder why, given your dismissive "gah,"
you're getting involved.  

>Somehow literary talent and raw
>invective don't mix.

	Somehow, blanket assertions and raw ignorance don't mix.  The history
of English literature, for instance, has numerous instances of literary 
talent and raw invective well mixed.  The Elizabethans, for instance, had 
extraordinary capabilities at this game.

>Tom, a question: do you think an unsuccessful writer can be a successful
>writing teacher?  Why?

	Curt, given that you began this little exercise with a gratuitous
insult, why should I do other than tell you to go shit in your hat?

-- 
				Tom Maddox
			tmaddox@u.washington.edu
		"Writing is reading and reading is writing."
				A. S. Byatt
From: Crawford_Kilian@mindlink.bc.ca (Crawford Kilian)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: do you like "Love In Time(s) Cholera"?
Date: 10 Apr 92 05:10:17 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Distribution: world

Yes. He breaks all the rules (all that exposition!) and gets clean away with
it. An amazing writer whose influence is beginning to reach even into pop
entertainment like Northern Exposure.
From: gjh@hplb.hpl.hp.com (Graham Higgins)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 09:24:47 GMT
Subject: Re: Yes, you want to be a writer, but can you use interest tables?
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol, UK.
Newsgroups: misc.writing


eliz@ai.mit.edu provides several arguments for why a larger advance is better
than a smaller one. Thanks Liz, I was just curious to know whether there were
fundamental tradeoffs between author and publisher in the area of advances. As
far as I can see, it is mainly a risk-balancing tradeoff on both sides. Thanks,
I'll bear the arguments in mind when the time comes.

As regards publishers' attitudes towards authors: your comments don't accord
with the limited first-hand experience that this wannabe has had with a UK
mega-publisher, but maybe that's because no money was involved. Time will tell.
Thanks for the response.

--
Graham Higgins                                 gjh@hpl.hp.com
<< My opinions above are exactly that: my own, and opinions. >>
From: jas@ISI.EDU (Jeff Sullivan)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: Metamorphosis: Lawyer to Agent
Date: 15 Apr 92 23:31:30 GMT
	<ELIZ.92Apr15092540@corpus-callosum.ai.mit.edu>
Organization: USC-ISI
In-reply-to: eliz@ai.mit.edu's message of 15 Apr 92 14:25:40 GMT

In article <ELIZ.92Apr15092540@corpus-callosum.ai.mit.edu> eliz@ai.mit.edu (Elizabeth Willey) writes:

> From: troly@redwood.math.ucla.edu (Bret Jolly)
> Organization: UCLA Mathematics Department
> Date: Tue, 14 Apr 92 06:02:01 GMT
>
>   Greetings!  My girlfriend is an unemployed lawyer who would like to
> work in the world of books.  She wants to know if agencies are
> interested in hiring lawyers in-house, and particularly if any such
> agencies exist in the LA area.  She would also welcome any general
> information on the literary agent business, how it is run, and how
> to break into it.  Please follow up in misc.writing or send email
> by replying to this article or email troly@math.ucla.edu
>
>In other words, she knows nothing about about the business but wants
>to get into it.
>
>She faces stiff competition from people who know everything about the
>business and want to get into it.
>
>She could start by going through the Yellow Pages and writing, then
>phoning, established agencies, trying to make appointments for
>informational interviews.  After, of course, spending some time in the
>library learning everything there is about agenting.  Nobody wants to
>waste time talking to someone who doesn't know what she's talking
>about.  Her legal background, even if she has specialized in (say)
>copyright law, makes no difference if she has no idea how the industry
>works.

If these agencies are the same ones that do film scripts, then even
the lawyers start in the mail room pushing a cart, and get bred into
the system if they can hack it.  There was an interesting article
about it in BUZZ (the talk of LA) a few months back.  Have her check
it out.

BTW, most of the LA agencies do film/tv, if also books.

jas

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeffrey A. Sullivan		| Senior Systems Pgmr -- with a difference!
jas@venera.isi.edu		| Information Sciences Institute
jas@isi.edu                    	| University of Southern California
Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: troly@redwood.math.ucla.edu (Bret Jolly)
Subject: Metamorphosis: Lawyer to Agent
Organization: UCLA Mathematics Department
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 92 06:02:01 GMT


  Greetings!  My girlfriend is an unemployed lawyer who would like to
work in the world of books.  She wants to know if agencies are
interested in hiring lawyers in-house, and particularly if any such
agencies exist in the LA area.  She would also welcome any general
information on the literary agent business, how it is run, and how
to break into it.  Please follow up in misc.writing or send email
by replying to this article or email troly@math.ucla.edu

                            Thanks Bunches and Happy Writing All!
Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: johnnyb@ims.com (Johnny Battle)
Subject: Re: Once more with feeling
Organization: Integrated Measurement Systems, Inc.
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1992 18:41:11 GMT

In article <1992Apr3.182519.4287@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, mtan@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Maureen Tan) writes:
|> I'm a writer and, because I'm a writer, I'm a reader.
|> Question to all you folks out there:  do you re-read books frequently?
|> If so, under what circumstances?
|> 
|> I tend to re-read when I'm struggling  with plotting problems
|> in my own writing.  By re-reading  "old standards" it's as if I'm
|> putting my own mind on "coast" and allowing my subconscious to
|> work out my  writing  problems.   

People have all sorts of practical reasons for reading fiction.  And
then there is the real reason for reading.  The practical reasons (I'm
sure you could list them as well as I could) justify the inclusion
of literature in the curriculum.  Pragmatic people give practical
reasons to themselves (they heard them in school) when rationalizing
the time they spend reading (and re-reading) books like "The Magic
Mountain."  Sometimes people get so many practical reasons for reading
that they stop reading (one practical reason I dropped out of an M.A.
program in literary criticism).  Your reason for reading (I read,
therefore I write) sounds great and is one of the few practical reasons
I really buy.

I probably can't do justice to the real reason for reading.  It's what
makes Intellectual wanna-be`s sometimes sneer that Sci Fi is escapism.
It's what makes 10-year-olds stay awake 'til midnight reading by 
flashlight under the covers.  It's what drives the market in
Romance novels (not heaving bosoms and furtive looks).  It's the real
reason we include literature in the curriculum.  And (to finally answer
your question) it's what I'm trying to re-capture when I re-read a good
book.

************************************************************************
Johnny Battle                 Hysterical explosions of golden forsythia