The Next Thing: Professionalization in Creative Writing

by Cathy Day CW Programs Literary Citizenship Teaching

Careers (job search)Not every Creative Writing major wants to go to grad school, and to be honest, I’m not even sure if most of them want to be published writers. What brings them to our classes, I think, is a desire to be connected to the world of books. This essay by Dean Bakopoulos speaks to that desire.

Creative writing isn’t a pre-professional discipline. We’re not like some academic majors which prepare students for a concrete, discernible “next thing,” such as graduate study, this job, that career path. When my students say, “What I can do with this degree?” I talk about “transferable skills.” I point them in the direction of the career center. Continue reading →

My students, my friends

by Cathy Day Literary Citizenship Teaching Writing

cross firesIt’s “In Print Week” here at Ball State–the In Print Festival of First Books. Each year, we invite to campus a poet, fiction writer, and nonfiction writer who have published their first books.

This has been a great year for me as a teacher;  a number of my former students had books come out. We invited one of them to In Print–Eugene Cross. This is the introduction I wrote and read last night, and I think it speaks to a lot of things I blog about here–literary citizenship, community, and how to make it through the dark times. So: I thought I’d share it with you. Continue reading →

For the man who called me for advice about how to get published

For the man who called me for advice about how to get published

by Cathy Day Literary Citizenship Teaching The Biggest Things Writing

To the man on the phone who called me today at my university office and asked if I had a few minutes to help him figure out how to get published.

First, wow, the phone rang. That hardly ever happens. I wasn’t sure it worked.

Second, no, I don’t have a few minutes. I’m getting ready to go teach a class, and I’m frantically trying to grade a few more quizzes. Continue reading →

How to Talk to Writers

How to Talk to Writers

by Cathy Day Literary Citizenship Teaching Writing

A key principle of literary citizenship is that writers should build their community and expand their circles.

Not “network.” Not “schmooze.”

In her book Living a Literary Life, Carolyn See advises writers to send one “charming note” a day to someone in the publishing field—a writer, editor, publisher, etc. The point isn’t to ask for anything, but rather to just make a connection. These days, thanks to social media, it’s never been so easy to make those kinds of connections.

I require my Literary Citizenship students to friend or follow or email someone five times a week. Friending on Facebook, liking an Author Page, following on Twitter: these are “passive” acts. But at least once a week, they’re supposed to actually say something to somebody. Such as “I enjoy your work,” or “You published one of my favorite books,” etc.

Continue reading →

20 answers to the question: “But what should I blog about?”

20 answers to the question: “But what should I blog about?”

by Cathy Day Teaching The Biggest Things

Relax. Don’t try so hard.

If you focus on the stuff that matters to you, everything else will fall into place: finding readers, an audience, your tribe.
 
Pay attention to what you Tweet and share on Facebook.

Maybe that’s the material you should be blogging about. Every time you share an article or tweet or retweet a link, you’re microblogging. Why not blog-blog it? Take a few extra minutes and say something about that link and you’ve got a blog post.
 
I was on Facebook for a few years before I started blogging. I thought, What the hell do I have to blog about? After about a year or so on Facebook, I found that most of my friends were other writer/teachers. People I worked with. People I’d gone to school with. People the people I worked with had gone to school with. 
 
Continue reading →

A Story about Creativity

A Story about Creativity

by Cathy Day Teaching Writing

A long time ago, I was asked to be a part of a study about Creativity. I’m not supposed to reveal who sponsored this study, but suffice it to say it was well funded. Let’s call them the Company.

The Company sent me 50 poems, 50 stories, and 50 essays by 8th graders and said, “Using whatever criteria you desire, arrange each pile from Most Creative to Least Creative. In the top right hand corner, write a big ‘1’ on the Most Creative piece and so on down to 50. Then send the stacks back to us.” Continue reading →

Last Lecture: What matters more: Story or Sentence?

Last Lecture: What matters more: Story or Sentence?

by Cathy Day Teaching Writing

Every time I teach novel writing, I end the semester with a “Last Lecture” on a topic that’s been on my mind all semester long. Last spring, I wrote about learning to self-identify as a writer; this post, “Am I Writer?” has been viewed about 1,500 times. And Google Analytics tells me that people spend an average of eight minutes on this post–which is not that surprising when you consider how urgently people need an answer to that question. This semester, I’ve decided to write about whether a novelist should focus more on The Story or The Sentence.

Kameron and Kayla won my “Most Words Drafted Contest”? Why? What set them apart? 

Both wrote scene-driven fiction with lots of dialogue. They took my advice and “sketched” their novels, temporarily suspending concern for “good writing” at the sentence level and focused on “getting the story down.” Continue reading →

“I can’t do this anymore.”

“I can’t do this anymore.”

by Cathy Day Teaching

I’m having a real crisis.

I’m starting to wonder if teaching a novel-writing class with 15 students can really be done.

Let me explain.

This semester, I taught Advanced Fiction, a 400-level course at Ball State which I teach as a novel writing class. The course is capped at 15, and so, because I was assigned two sections, I had 30 students writing novels for me this semester.

Let’s do the math.

Continue reading →