Encouraging My Students to Keep Writing
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009I have been wonderfully privileged this past week to interact with Houghton College students in a May Term class I’m teaching called, “From Manuscript to Book: How It Happens.”
These students are writers—some of them Writing majors, some of them focusing on other areas but still having a minor or even just a hobby in Writing because “they just have to write.”
I pitched the class to the Writing department, specifically the chairman Dr. John Leax, as a way to help the students be more marketable once their college time is over and they must begin to pay back their loans and make a living. The students who chose to take this course know that they either want to work in publishing or will have to navigate the world of publishing in order to get their work published.
And some days, I look at them and see that they are overwhelmed with the information I’m giving them about what actually goes on in a publishing house. And, I have to say, I feel bad about it.
Yes, lots of bad stuff gets published and lots of good stuff doesn’t.
These writers have been studying the craft of writing and dreaming of becoming great writers with published works. And I come along and tell them that it’s about platforms and who you know and is there an audience and will it sell and can you sell yourself and, oh yeah, it better be an outstanding idea that hasn’t been done that way before and it should be well written and can you market it.
But first, it all comes down to a well-written query letter or pitch at a Writing conference. It comes down to a few seconds to make an impression (a good one). And it depends on hitting the right acquisitions editor at the right time with the right need with your right idea.
And where does that leave the craft?
That’s why I liked reading Mick Silva’s blog post, “Balance for the Writer.” As an editor who has sat at his share of writers’ conferences and heard his share of pitches, he still understands that writing has to come from the heart, from the passions. If a writer is writing from something deep inside, something implanted by God himself, that will come through. And God will see to it, when the time is right, to send that message exactly where it needs to go, whether that is to a single friend or to millions who need to hear that message.
I don’t want my students to go away from my class jaded that getting published may be impossible. I want them to understand the dynamics of a publishing house, the business that does matter, and the basic steps they need to know to work there in some editorial role or to interface there as an author. All of this is important information—if I didn’t think so, I wouldn’t be taking a three-week hiatus from my day job to pass along as much as I can to these students.
But I don’t ever want them to forget that they should write, write, write. And they should do so just as Mick suggests: “It’s essential we writers find who we are—and write from that. Don’t write to a trend unless it’s one of your passions. And don’t force yourself to write what you aren’t naturally inclined toward already. We’ve got to understand that writing what we know means being who we are.”
Getting published? It’s a good thing but it’s not the most important thing. What’s most important is that the authors find their individual voices and write the words God calls them to write. Then let him take it where he will.
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