Bill and Colin,

Good ideas.

I do think that I would like to be on a course for a few reasons:

1) the intensity
2) the environment, ie, many other writers
3) the structure: it just makes it easier! I can add 'my own' on top of it.

UAE looks like the creme de la creme, and that would be my first choice, although, realistically I would have to take into consideration 1) being accepted!; 2) coming up with the funds; and 3) rearranging my life for that period of time, though this bit would be easier for me than most people.


BUT I was thinking before I logged onto the internet just now about the roles of self awareness and instinct, and, well, I think that the UAE site might adjust their wording a bit, as I can't imagine thay want it come come across quite as it does. (Though they are the experts in writing!)Because both are indeed essential.

In stages, I'd say:

Pre-writing: Both self-aware and/or instinctive
Writing: This is where instinctive can really take over.
Reading (what you've written); Self-aware
Revising: Self-aware

Ani

Hey, I've only just picked up this thread. (Been out of range of the internet for a while.)
I'm off to do an MA this Autumn and when I applied was blissfully unaware of all the stressing
and heart-searching you lot seem to be going through.
Is there perhaps a small tendency for hair-splitting going on in this conversation?
If you want to do it - just DO IT!
I'm very mature in years, but immature in outlook. I tend to rush at life on a wing and a prayer.
Possibly because I led a very hardworking, cautious life for many years.
The rest of my life is my playtime - I've earned it!
Anyhow, I applied, was accepted and I look forward with great relish to learning more of the craft
of writing.
Whooppee! - Life's just a rollercoaster of fun!
Whilst I'm sure it won't be easy, I shall be disappointed if I'm ever bored.
CL

CL -

I think I can safely say you're 'instinctive'! *smile*

Ani

I just popped in to post on a thread elsewhere and saw this thread.

I'm a writer, with loads of pubs and prizes BEFORE I did an MA
and a load afterwards. Personally I believe my MA did NOTHING
for me except got me to read in areas where I might otherwise
not have.

The East Anglia MA is very different in its approach to "what writing is".

The point about heavy-duty "self-awareness" is that (theoretically) you
can put together, deliberately, mechanically, learning about rhetoric, or
rhythm etc, what someone with a gift (and loads of experience of reading
and writing might have written "spontaneously" or "intuitively".

While I did my MA (not East Anglia) we had a visiting "author" who had done
the East Anglia MA. He totally utterly hated every moment he was there. He said
that he was driven wild with frustration by the fact that nobody ever talked in terms
of liking/disliking the piece or even of its "worth". He said everything was theoretical,
heavy, jargonised. He said the course nearly killed him as a writer and as a person.

I am of course only talking of ONE writer's experience there.



Letting Go or Constructing?

We learn craft like we learn many skills and we learn to some extent by rote, or repetition, scales etc, kicking a ball against a wall, hitting long drives on the practice range. 99.9% of artists TRAIN, often for long hours, seven days a week and over a lifetime.

The training MUST happen for virtually every craftsman or artist. The question is not that but how much you CONSCIOUSLY think of the rules, tricks, stance while actually practicing.

I teach the idea of being analytical, theoretical, objective, investigative BETWEEN stories, but when it comes time to WRITE, throw it all out of the window and "write drunk", write right-brained, free, unkempt, fast, loose, easy, uncaring.

I believe that if you've done the work reading, writing, critiquing, studying theory it is BETTER to forget it when writing and allow it (the knowledge) to shape your spontaneity. Harlan Ellison (I think) said that you must learn and learn and overlearn craft until you FORGET IT. You must have it running in your blood, so that when you write you can express without having to consider the METHOD of expression.

How much "awareness" at the point of RE-writing is a matter of personal decision. Some may write very consciously but some very eminent authors say rewriting should be reliving. I tend much towards the reliving end.


AK

I took an MA in writing at Sheffield Hallam, and loved it all. Having said that, I didn't write anything for the MA that I would not have written anyway, with the exception of one shortish (5,000 words?)critical essay which I am now considering turning into a non-fiction book. If I can get a contract for it!

The MA didn't teach me anything that I didn't know already, or that I wouldn't have found out for myself in the course of my work. What it did was it accellerated (sp?) me through the process, and got me to a point at which I could criticise my own work far more clearly and efficiently. It put me in touch with other writers, too, which helped enormously; and I was lucky enough to be taught by the brilliant Lesley Glaister, who is a fantastic tutor and writer.

I would recommend that you all try for an MA--but not necessarily the UEA one: there are lots out there, some of varying quality, but each University has a different approach and there is bound to be one out there to suit you. The worst that could happen is that you don't get onto the course, or if you do, you don't like it and you drop out. If you do the MA part-time (as I did) then you only ever pay for the unit(s) that you are doing at that time, so it won't cost you thousands if you do drop out.

As far as being self-aware or instinctual, well, I think that as writers we are both of those, and more, all the time. You need both sides to write properly, depending on where you are in the process: initial writing is usually far more instinctive than editing which is by nature self-aware.

I think it's very easy to be dismissive of writing being a craft that can be taught. We all like to think that we've got what it takes - spend some time reading slush and you'll quickly realise that 99% of those that write are not writers.

No teacher can make a good writer out of a bad one, but can make him/her better, and can make a good writer see with new eyes.

This is starting to sound like advertising copy...

http://www.write-across-europe.com

Just visit the website... for those that are interested there's a lot of tuition packed into 10 days, course tutors are Bruce Holland Rogers (multi award winning, including 2004 World Fantasy Award for best short fiction published in 2003) and Rusty Barnes, editor of Night Train Magazine.

As with most things, I don't think there's one applies-to-all answer to this. A writer can be under-tutored and therefore be making basic mistakes that spoil their work. Or they can be over-tutored, when they're terrified of putting a single word to paper in case it's wrong. I've written books totally on instinct, then had to scrap them because there were simply too many structural and logistical faults to put right. I also once tried to write a screenplay following a very intense tutorial software programme, the result of which was 20,000 words of background material – characters' motives, plot arcs, etc – and very little actual script on account of me being very bored with the whole thing by then.

Ideally, each writer knows what kind of person they are, and what kind of tutoring they need. The problem is, none of us do! So, my advice would be to try lots of different approaches until you find one that brings out the best in you. Which doesn't necessarily mean the one you're most comfortable with. For instance, if I could afford the time, I'd love to go on one of the 6-week full time Clarion courses in the USA, because I know I'd thrive on that kind of make-or-break intensity. But that approach might permanently destroy someone else's love of writing.

In my own tutoring, I always try to find a balance between what the writer can do, what they're trying to achieve, what they're basically like and what their timing is (this is a big area, and in many ways the key to a writer's development). All the time, I have to bear in mind, also, that all writers are to a degree a work in progress, and can change according to what they manage to successfully pull out of their minds that can delight other readers.

Terry

Indeed, we all respond differently to different stimuli. Same for everyone, children up.

The difficulty is (often) that writers are a mess! We're all egotistical enough to believe that we have something to say that others want to hear, but too insecure to test that belief. Writers' groups, in most cases, don't help too much, imo. Sure, you'll get grammatical tips and pointers, and people will gently mention it if your howlers are too great, but most people pussyfoot. People don't like saying bad things to eachother, so it's possible to go thinking your opus is great because nobody's willing to say it sucks like a Cuban transsexual on speed.

Our basic problem (this doesn't just apply to writers) is that we don't know what we don't know. Some form of expert guidance - even if you come out of it disagreeing with what you've been told - can only improve the situation.



http://www.write-across-europe.com