Wholly Writ: All You Need Is Lore, Lore. Lore Is All You Need

So, I quit my job to follow my dreams.  I didn’t follow them too far: just about a mile northwest to the University of Louisville and their English grad program.  I now spend my days submerged (read: drowning) in the written word.  Reading it, writing it, debating it more heatedly than I think necessary, teaching it.

It’s teaching it that’s the really scary part, in my opinion.  But that part hasn’t started yet; right now we’re just reading, writing and debating about how to teach it.  The main object of discussion is lore, which makes it sound like we’re all leafing through crumbling tomes of cryptic tales and mythology, but sadly that is not the case.

Lore is basically the accumulation of all the writing advice you’ve ever received, which, once you start to think about it, is a lot.  From Mrs. Lafrenierre (4th grade)’s “Don’t say said, say exclaimed, growled, grunted,”  to Mr. Lang (ENGL 514)’s “If I see one more substitution for said, I’m going to vomit on your paper and then return it to you in class,” my personal store of lore is vast, colorful and contradictory.

So here, for your reading enjoyment, is a glimpse of the writing advice I’ve been given over the years, some of which I follow scrupulously, and some… not so much:

-Write what you know.  (And as Markus Sakey memorably puts it: “Write what I know? Okay.  Well, I’m an administrative assistant with a pug, so I’ll write about an administrative assistant with a pug… who solves murders!”)

-Don’t be afraid to write bad material.  Just write: some of it will be good, and some will be awful.  Just write.  And learn to tell the difference.

-Don’t start your piece with a moral in mind.  Each time you write, your message will surface from the reservoir of your life’s accumulated morality.

-Free-write for at least two hours first thing each morning.

-Read the New York times cover-to-cover first thing each morning.

-Read a writer you admire first thing each morning.

-Read my latest book on creative writing (incidentally the textbook for this class) first thing each morning.

Shameless plug:  Check the Poetry and Fiction forum on the Sojourn discussion board for a thread on the best/worst writing advice you’ve ever received.

Très Geek: [Alt T W]  = Favorite. Keystroke. Ever.  Call me compulsive, but I hit that thing practically at the end of every sentence.  I can’t go on till I know.