academies, higher education 241–247
as open space 247–248
as patrons of writing 23,82,249–251
teaching and learning writing outside 44,46,234–257
Achebe, Chinua 41
activity, displacement 66
adaptation 73
agencies, literary 59
Albee, Edward 141
Allende, Isabel 164
amateur, honesty of 14
ambition, literary 15,30,56
Amis, Martin 104
anger, writing from 47
anti-narrative 89,163
Apollinaire, Guillaume 226
Aristotle 16–17,33,54
Poetics 10,16
Arnold, Matthew 41
Ashbery, John 41
Atwood, Margaret 41,104,142,148,185,215
Auden, W. H. 41,67,194
audience 91,142,211
as reader 216–217
creating an audience 43,82,216,217–218,235
writing for an audience 142,191
Austen, Jane 14,161
authenticity 211
background 47
Baker, George 16,116
Baudelaire, Charles 211
Beard, Richard 79
Beckett, Samuel 38,46,70,135,148
behaviour, studying human 101
Bellow, Saul 41
Berry, Cicely 219
Bierce, Ambrose 158
Bishop, Elizabeth 39,47,140
Blake, William 141,226
Blegvad, Peter 226
blogs see weblogs
Bloom, Harold 20,25,41,235
Bly, Carole 16,177
Boden, Margaret 242
Bohr, Niels vii,245
Boisseau, Michelle 50,196
Boland, Eavan 41
Booker, Christopher 9,164
Borges, Jorge Luis 148,158
Bowen, Elizabeth 127
Brahms, Johannes 133
Brande, Dorothea 97
Brodsky, Joseph 27,41,237
Brontë, Charlotte 88,92
Brontë, Emily 92,110
Wuthering Heights 88,92,110
Brook, Peter 24
Burgess, Anthony 159
Burns, Robert 202
Burroughs, William 112
and ‘cut-up technique’ 112
Byron, George Gordon 119,202
cadence 72
Calvino, Italo 75
Capote, Truman 159
Carlson, Ron 96,157
Carver, Raymond 43
Castiglione, Baldassare 18
Cavafy, Constantine 70
Chaplin, Charlie 14
characterisation, fictional 2,127,155,166,167–168,173
main and viewpoint 168
Chatterton, Thomas 74
suicide of 74
Chatwin, Bruce 27,102
Chaucer, Geoffrey 16
Chekhov, Anton 158,174,209
children, impact on writers having 71
‘circles for survival’ 56
clarity 90,135,137,200
Cocteau, Jean 106,187
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 20,41
Collins, Billy 29
‘commonplace books’ 100,207
competitiveness 31,32,57,70
communities, creative 22–23,115,234–257
Connolly, Cyril 64
Enemies of Promise 64
Conrad, Joseph 96,159
Coover, Robert 163
Cox, Ailsa 162
creative nonfiction 37,59,177–193,242
and interviews 185,190–191
and memory 185
and point of view 186–187
and science 248
as a literature of reality 177–179
devices of 179–180
fieldwork for 189,190–191
finding a topic 189–190
general writing strategies 179–183
introductory structures for 181
origins of 178
qualities of accuracy and art 178
range of 191–192
speaking with the reader using 182
subverting the structure of 181–182
using experience to create 183–184
using passion to create 183
writing about people and the world 188–191
writing about travel 192
writing about yourself 183–188
writing a memoir 185
writing an investigation 190
writing family history 189
writing in scenes 189
creative writing
and academic assessment 85–86
and academic standards 82–86
and business studies 242,249
and composition 88–124
and dangers of professionalism 14
and freedom of expression 16, 48–49
and interdisciplinarity 8,23,39,241
and knowledge 2,28,37,38,183,187–188
and memory 185,200
and neural development 8–9,26–27,52,102,185,197
and other art forms 19,23–24,42
and rhetoric 17–19,76
and science 28,242–243,245–246
and the academy 16–17,30,85,241–247
and the community 234–257
and the media 82
and the publishing industry 55–59,61,82
and the self 1,7,46,142–153,212
and tradition 19
and value 156,197,211
as a craft 81
as a crossover discipline 243–245
as an academic discipline 1–33,54,82,241–247,252
challenges of 50,64–87,160
course-creation 85,248
distance learning 231
doctoral programmes 163
creative writing (cont.)
future developments for 252
grassroots of 238–239
in schools 238
in self-development 3,143–153
in the world 36–63,188–191,251
learning 6–15
possible disciplinary origins of 15–19
processes of 125–154
some principles of practice 88–93,112
teaching 7–8,41–44,52,216,231
creativity 1–5,9,41
physical activity promoting 103
critical realism 39
criticism 36–39
and development of creative writing 20–21
as a complement to creative writing 25,36,89
as a negative influence on creative writers 21,38,40,67
within a group of writers 56–57,117,121,122–123,134
Dante 73
The Divine Comedy 73,85,254
Darwin, Charles 96
da Vinci, Leonardo 42,243
Dawkins, Richard 242
Dawson, Paul 7
daydreaming 97
deadlines 135–136
death 70,147
de Balzac, Honoré 158
defamiliarisation 9,90
de Maupassant, Guy 128,158
depression 143,146,152,249
de Vinsauf, Geoffrey 1,17
Poetria Nova 1,17–18
diaries, learning 85
Dickens, Charles 50,149,217
Dickinson, Emily 30,110
dictionaries 103
difficulty 50–51
Dillard, Annie 32,69,174
Dinesen, Isak 158
discipline 69,95–99,129
and indiscipline 97–99
productive forms of 96–97,129
dissatisfaction 94
Donne, John 12,202
Douglas, Keith 178,180
Alamein to Zem Zem 180
Douglass, Frederick 178
Dove, Rita 237
drafting 57,86,91,174–175,199,210–211
drama 16,18,109,217,221,248
dreams 2,45,100–101,163–165
duende 12,110
Dürer, Albrecht 89
economy 90,135
editing, close 210
editors 58
effacement 151
egoism 187
Einstein, Albert 20
eisteddfod 80
Eliot, George 151
Eliot, T. S. xvi,14,41,60,194,240
Empson, William 41
‘enemies of promise’, concept of 64
envy 67,70,99
essays, reflective 38,65,85
expectation, raising the level of 83
experience, writing from 40,44–45,47,153,184,212,242
writing against your 47
experimental writing 74–78
failure 14,134–135,212
addiction to 99
importance of 68,69,134–135, 212
fantasy 31,54,67
Faulkner, William 45,158
Fenton, James 205
Feuchtwanger, Lion 73
fiction, practice of 155–176
and conflict 166,173
and verisimilitude 155,163,169
as ‘storymaking’ 169–175
beginnings 171–172
character driving story 166,168
character development 168,173
character history 167–168
dreaming a fictional continuum 163–165
endings 175
flash fiction 156–157
form and structures for contemporary literary fiction 161–163
narrative voice 170
novel 159–160
novella 159
plotting 163–165
point of view 169–171
prewriting 167
pros and cons of writing literary fiction 156–161
research for 160,167
rewriting 174–175
setting 173–174
scenes 163,165
short story 157–158
‘storymaking or storytelling?’ 169
time 173
‘what if?’ propositions 172–173
fieldwork 101–102,149,167,189,190–191
Finlay, Ian Hamilton 227
Flaubert, Gustave 9,97,148,174,209,234
fluency 98,129,131
Ford, Richard 157
form 78–81,91
as a design tool 78–81
as a restrictive device 70
as elemental 80
and fiction 161–163
in poetry 203–207
opposition to 81
subversions of 162,206–207
Forster, E. M. 69
France, Anatole 5,210
Freed, Lynn 250
‘free verse’ 81,196,205
freewriting 105–106,119
Freud, Sigmund 54,152
Frost, Robert 15,41,72,80,200,202,208
Frye, Northrop 187
Fuentes, Carlos 30,235
Fussell, Paul 205
game-playing 76,80,110,128
Gardner, John 15,20,38,41,43,90,160,163,166
genius 92
Gibson, William 94
Gide, Andre 106
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang 42
Graves, Robert 198
Greene, Graham 96
Gunn, Thom 41
Gutkind, Lee 183
Hall, Donald 22,210
hallucinations, auditory 26,27
Hardy, Thomas 102,166
Hawthorne, Nathaniel 158
Hazlitt, William 178
Heaney, Seamus 14,41,71,129
Heller, Joseph 49
Hemingway, Ernest 2,3,11,66,121,122–123,133,136,158
Herbert, George 12
Hill, Geoffrey 41
Hogg, James 147
Holub, Miroslav 23,49,246
Homer 166
honesty 69,90,120,140,144,152,186,187,211
Hopkins, Gerard Manley 12
hubris 44,164
Hughes, Ted 36,41,46,69,103,201
Hugo, Richard 4,194,197,234,236
The Triggering Town 194,212
humiliation, writing from 47
humility 47
Hunt, Celia 85,187
hypertext 229
idealism 43,69
imagination 8,45,91,142,160,167,243
imitation 32,73,91,113–114
incubation see writing, incubation before
indifference 64,65,134,147
individuality 32
inevitability 50–51,79,90,120
influence, literary 32,89,91,113,187
in media res 128
insecurity 101,248,249
insincerity 81
inspiration 79,90,103,108–110
insularity 60
Internet 229
interviewing 39,185,190–191
Iowa Writer’s Workshop 16
James, Henry 7,159,166
Jarrell, Randall 41
Jennings, Elizabeth 212
Johnson, B. S. 226
Jones, Russell Celyn 249
Jonson, Ben 16,22,41
jokes, structure of 81
journalism 67,135
Joyce, James 60,158,166,228
Kafka, Franz 15,159
Keats, John vii,21,41,51,68,76,106,125,146,187,194
kennings 6,199
King, Stephen 32,69,159,164,174
Kinzie, Mary 28,65,217
and concept of kitsch 65,164
Koch, Kenneth 54,199,226,239
Koestler, Arthur 30,44
Kumin, Maxine 237
Kundera, Milan 160
Lamb, Charles 178
language
‘abstract versus concrete’ 91,113
and meaning 72,200–203
as a natural force 51,94–95,134,140,194,251
early interest in 90
evolution of 6,48,72,110,199
misappropriation of 48,156,211,248
sound of 25,26–28,72,81,140,194,195
using scientific 138–140,151,241
Lawrence, D. H. 205,254
Lear, Edward 202,207
‘learned helplessness’ 99,102
Le Guin, Ursula 134,171,174
Lessing, Doris 59
Levertov, Denise 200,209
Lewis, Sinclair 48
Lewis, Wyndham 60
life
as a fiction 67,137,143,184,236
changing your 152–153
exercising discipline in 69
work–life balance 43,69–70,71
writing from 101–102,183–184
line, the poetic 72,195,196,209
listening
to language 194–198,220,251
to music 27,223–224
lists, reading 33
‘literary apprenticeship’, concept of 11–12,113
Litt, Toby 165
Lodge, David 7,169
Logan, William 138
logbooks 86
Lopez, Barry 177,188,191,236
Lorca, Federico Garcia 12,110
lore, using 46,139,165
love 4,47
Lovejoy, Margot 230
Lowell, Robert 73,209
Machado, Antonio 74
McCullers, Carson 159
McEwan, Ian 67,163,236
MacLeish, Archibald 201
Mahon, Derek 198
‘makar’, concept of 19
Mamet, David 248
Mandelstam, Nadezhda 26,29
Mandelstam, Osip 26,29,182
Journey to Armenia 182
manifestos, literary 75
Mann, Thomas 159
Mansfield, Katherine 93,158
marketplace, the literary 30,59,82,155,157
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia 158
Marx, Groucho 48
mathematics 40,52,76
and the natural world 2,52,246
writing using concepts from 52,75,79,139
Maugham, Somerset 50
media, rival 65
Melville, Hermanmemoir 185
memorisation 27,28,209
metaphor 9,10,245
‘method writing’ 150
metre 80
poetic 194–198
metres, Welsh 80
Michelangelo 89
Middlemarch 85
Milne, A. A. 244
Milton, John 18
money, writing for 42,99,198
Moore, Alan 68,226
Moore, Marianne 5,138,206,212
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 42,122
and the Salieri complex 122
Muldoon, Paul 41,94,114
Murdoch, Iris 56
Murray, Les 41,107,108,141,163,245
myth, using 46,165
Nabokov, Vladimir 66,177
names 138–140
‘negative capability’ 21,106,146
Neruda, Pablo 203
networking 56,116
Nobel Prize 84
nonfiction 25
notebooks 45,99–101,137,167,187,191
Oates, Joyce Carol 129,234,235,255
objectivity 40,151
obsessiveness 92,136
O’Connor, Flannery 22
O’Connor, Frank 134
O’Hara, Frank 38
Olsen, Tillie 64
Silences 64,86,240
originality 6,25,26,32
Orwell, George 41,49,67,110,151,155,159,178
‘Politics and the English Language’ 49,112,122
Other, the 146–147,148
OuLiPo, the (Ouvroir de littérature potentielle) 23,74–78,230
overconfidence 69
over-writing 93–94
Ozick, Cynthia 15,29,46,66
Packard, William 250
‘pagefright’, concept of 68
panic 99,134
Paris Review 61
parody 28,73,113
passion 12,92,183
Pasternak, Boris 12
pastiche 73
Paterson, Don 74,157
PEN, International 49
Perec, Georges 75
perfectionism 67,69,143
performing writing 215–233
and audiences for live literature 216–218
as a conceptual art form 225
as an oral art form 216
as a public art form 227–229
as a visual art form 226–227
as literature promotion 216,220
collaborative performance 230
in a Mushairas 216,224
‘preaching to the converted’ 218
reading techniques 221–225
speaking and performing in public 215–218
subversions 226
types of venue for live literature 218
using acting and actors 217,221
using music 223–224
voice work for live literature 218–220
persona 150–151
Pessoa, Fernando 150
Perutz, Max 242,246
phrase-making 110
Pinker, Steven 242
‘placebo-writing’ 146
plagiarism 73
Plath, Sylvia 200
Plato 16
play, writing using 14,49–50,52,68,76,119
plotting 163–165
Poe, Edgar Allan 157,158
poems, writing 134,194–214
adapting your own experience for 212
addresses for 202–203
alliteration 196
and formal design 203–208
and poets 125,199,211–213
and qualities of language 194,199,200–203
and slams 18,212,216
and song 194,196
and translation 73
available strategies for 208
finding the language for 198–200
‘found poems’ 140,209–210
free verse 196,205
iambic pentameter 195
metre 194–198
practising several modes of 208–211
problems in writing poems 203
repetition devices 197
rewriting poems 199,210–211
rhyme 196–197
sequences and collections 207
‘strangeness’ of poetry 201
subjects for 202
subverting form of poems 206–207
syllabics 195,205–206
teaching the techniques of 197
poetics, developing a 37
politics 48,52,67
posing 32,72
Pound, Ezra 21,38,41,60,74,90
precision 136–141,210
and voice 140,211
pre-writing, concept of 167
Pritchett, V. S. 41,94
process, creative 22,39,55,70,91,125–154
‘promise’, concept of 64,71
publishing 55–61,83,120
and the small presses 58,59–61
as business 55
etiquette of 57
on demand 230
pragmatics of 61
Pullman, Philip 11,156,171,173
punctuation 110
Pushkin, Vladimir 158
Queneau, Raymond 75,76,226
Exercises in Style 76
readers 2,7
as writers 7
reading 25–33
aloud 27,83,120,133,209
and fashion 29–30,82
and learning to write 31–33,159,208
and taste 30–31,33,208
as a writer 39–40,90
creative 26,28–29
for instruction 187,209,236
reality 45,177
receptivity 131
recognition 30,55
Redmond, John 80,202
Reed, Henry 49
repetition 80
research 39,68,101
for creative nonfiction 125
for fiction 125,160,167
for writing 25,44,99
reviewing 37,67
revising see drafting
rewriting 133–134,135,199,210
rhyme 72,80,194–197,198
as a design tool 79
full-rhyme 196
half-rhyme 197
nursery 80
rhythm 194
as a mnemonic device 80,194
Rich, Adrienne 41
Rilke, Rainer Maria 152,254
Rimbaud, Arthur 147
risk-taking 43,68,113,143
Rodin, Auguste 42
Roethke, Theodore 203
Rose, Steven 242
Rowling, J. K. 156,240
Royal Literary Fund 244
rule-breaking 92
Ruskin, John 83,178
ruthlessness 91,97,148
Said, Edward 70
Sand, George 151
Schlovsky, Viktor 175
Schmidt, Michael 60
School of Wildness, the 20–21,119
Schuyler, James 100
science 40,140,151,189
popular 25,54,182,241–242
using the language of 54,241
Scott, Walter 151
self-belief 15,142–143
self-consciousness 13,79,142–143
self-doubt 69
self-importance 13
self-pity 46
sentimentality 65–66,164,203
serendipity 77,127
Shakespeare, William 20,109,138,148,217
‘shelf-life’ 71
Shelley, Mary 119
and the writing of Frankenstein 119
Shelley, Percy Bysshe 9,41,90,119
A Defence of Poetry 90
‘showing not telling’ 166,197
Sidney, Sir Philip 41
Sinclair, John D. 73
silence, and writing 72,74
simile 245
simplicity 140
Smart, Christopher 202
Smith, William Jay 251
Socrates 28
speech, qualities of human 27,101, 195
Spiegelman, Art 184
spontaneity 66
Steinbeck, John 129,132
Stevens, Wallace 212
story 8,155,246
storytelling 31,80,169
Stravinsky, Igor 92
style 90,93
using a variety 77,114
subjectivity 40,46,85
success 33,67
as a relative value in writing 155, 198
suicide 74,152
syllabics 138,195,205–206
syntax 110,144
Szymborska, Wisawa 199
talent 8,11,12,24,36–63,132
talking, hazards of 66–67
teaching
as anti-creative 43
as a performance art 216
by distance learning 231
motivations for 42
theme 38,119,166
theory, literary 38
thesauri 103
Thiong’o, Ngugi wa 41,73
Thomas, Dylan 79,202
Thomas, Edward 146
Thoreau, Henry David 31,66,178,180
Walden, or Life in the Woods 180
thought-experiments 77,119,147,244
titles 132–133
Tolkien, J. R. R. 13
transaesthetics 230
translation 72–74
and fabrication 74
and imitation 73
and ‘otherness’ 72,74,146
and poetry 73
and the practice of variation 73
as a creative act 72
as a cure for writer’s block 72,146
as adaptation 73
as a form of stealing 72–73,113
challenges of 72–74
truth 46,90,137,144,169,202,236
Turgenev, Ivan 158
Turner, Mark 8
Two Cultures, the 241
‘unlearning’, concept of 93,208
‘unreliable narrator’ 168
Updike, John 156
Valéry, Paul 194,201
Van Gogh, Vincent 9
visualisation 10
vocation 11,12–13,22,212
voice 10,72,91,140,143–144
‘finding a voice’ 144
Vonnegut, Kurt 181
Walcott, Derek 114
Wallace, Robert 50,196
walking 103
weblogs 67,229,230–231
Wells, H. G. 61
Welty, Eudora 155,167
Whitman, Walt 202
Wilbur, Richard 196
Wilde, Oscar 201
Williams, William Carlos 12,234
Wilmot, John, Earl of Rochester 202
Wilson, Jacqueline 156
Winterson, Jeanette 247
Wolfe, Tom 178
Wolff, Tobias 127,135,235
Wood, James 175
Woolf, Virginia 41,60,64,129,159,178
and The Hogarth Press 60
‘A Room of One’s Own’ 64,65,86,151
‘word-blindness’, concept of 68
words, meaning and history of 200
Wordsworth, Dorothy 178
Wordsworth, William 103
work, physical 43,46
Wright, C. D. 48
writers 136
character of 5,11,31,69,91,97,126,143,212
reputations of 82
‘Writing Across the Curriculum’ 244
writer’s block 72,102,108
writing:
about people and the world 188–191,236–238
about yourself 183–188
and ageing 70
and belief 7,13
and chance 26,52,77,111,127
and childhood 15,54,80,81,105,197
and choosing a genre 126
and confidence 141–143,171
and confusion 95,142
and design 78–81,203–208
and ‘flow’ 129–130
and friendship 56,115
and identity 114,254
and impersonality 136,146,151
and intuition 126,160,246
and playfulness 14,77,208–211
and pleasure 4,49,54–55,238
and possibility 78,111,128,142,162,211,239
and silence 72,74,131
and surprise 79,92,110,127,164,194
as a form of teaching 42–43,216
avoiding 66,108,142
badly 91,93,210
beginning a piece of 128
creative nonfiction 177–193
demystifying the processes of 5,15
electronic forms of 229–232
fiction 155–176
finding a rhythm for 4–5,70,96,129
finishing 131–132,133
for yourself 15,25,39,90,160,192,235
ideas for 45,242
improving skill at 52,57,68,131
in different states of mind 143–153
in performance 215–233
in persona 150–151
in the community 234–257
in your ‘zone’ 104–105,126,129
incubation before 127–128,202
literary 93,160
material for 46,101
on ‘nothingness’ 46
permutations of choice during 75,110,162,175,208
planning as part of the process of 127
poems 194–214
preparation for 125–126
processes of 125–154
props and prompts for 103–104,136
reasons and motivations for 3–4,14–15,25,38,95,211–213
reasons for not writing 32,142
rituals for creating the best conditions for 102–106
talking away your writing 66–67
tools for 99
using heteronyms to assist with 150–151
‘writing cold’ 152
Writing Games xiv,68,163,244
rationales for xiv,163,242
‘Writing in the Disciplines’ 244
Writing Programmes 6,59,115
‘writing what you know’ 34,45–47,91,183–184,189
writing workshops 56–57,115–123,134,169
and the danger of homogeneity 118
‘generative’ 118–120
hazards of 121–122
human dynamics in 117,122
improvising writing in 119,129,130
origins of 16,116
purposes of 115
‘Responsive’ 118,120–123
setting up an online workshop 231–232
Yeats, William Butler 97
‘youth-envy’ 70
Zinsser, William 179,188