Over the river and through the woods...

I did, indeed, go to Grandmother's house most often for Thanksgiving. I remember my freshman year in college (Brown University, in Providence)---I was 17---taking a train to New York and from there a train to Harrisburg, where someone picked me up for the 15-mile trip to the smaller town in Pennsylvania where my grandparents lived.  My parents lived in Washington DC and had driven up from there, and my sister made her way down from Penn State, where she was a senior.

Goodness, why am I blathering on with such dull nostalgia? Holdiays bring that on, I think, when we start remembering holidays from the past.

Today I am the grandmother, but people are not heading over the river and through the woods to my house...instead I am heading to Maine tomorrow, bearing desserts which I will make today. (recipes from a GREAT new cookbook: THE ESSENTIAL NY TIMES COOKBOOK, by Amanda Hesser)

But first, before I start cooking, I am answering today's email, and just finished up with one to a teacher who had sent me sample writings from a 13-year-old. He, the teacher, wanted me to advise her on routes to possible publication. I'm going to copy, in part, what I sent to both the student and the teacher, because I know there are a lot of young poeple out there eager to become "Authors" which to my mind is not the same as becoming a "Writer"---

 Mr. XXXX suggested that because of your interest and gift for writing, perhaps I could advise you about possible routes to publication. But I am not going to do that because I believe very strongly that it would be much too soon.  At your age the important thing is to read and read and read, and write and write and write...all kinds of things in both realms. You have a long time to enjoy the pleasure of experimenting with words and language and story.  Maybe eventually you will choose to enter the world of professional writing and publication.,..but that is a very different thing; it is the world of business and has nothing to do, really, with mastery of the written word.  Writing is a very personal and private thing, as you already know.  It is best to keep it in that realm until you are older because it is a realm where you can savor the joy of the solitary experience, and in which you will have time to learn a great deal.  Successful professional writing requires mastery of certain skills, of course, but those are easy for an interested student like yourself to acquire; more importantly, it requires life experience, a broad knowledge of literature, and keen observation of human behavior...those are things that can’t be rushed.

Comments

[Laraine Herring]

Thank you for posting that response. I get asked this question a lot - from students and from other colleagues. It is so hard to convince them of the patience it takes to enter that relationship with words, but it's that relationship that will sustain them when the business-side of writing may fail them. Happy Thanksgiving!

[Betty Birney]

I have been plagued with this question as well and when I've given an answer like yours, I often get a hostile reaction from the teacher/parent. All you say is true and beyond that, I think the editorial process of editor's notes/copyediting would be too difficult for a child to cope with (on the remote chance that a manuscript would be accepted). I wrote all the time as a child and it never once occurred to me that my work was publishable. I've read some excellent student writing but never anything even remotely saleable.

[ojimenez]

I wonder if 'publishing' is necessary to validate the work or a writer, or if it (i.e publishing) is only necessary if she wants to make a living at it?

Cheers!

[Lola Schaefer]

Thank you, Lois, for posting this advice for younger writers. I, too, am bombarded by teachers and parents with the same interest - immediate publication for the student writer. And even though I have said some of these very same things, perhaps not as eloquently, the adults do react in a less than enthusiastic manner just as Betty shared. However, I believe in this advice and will continue to share it. There's nothing that can replace the joy of true experimentation with language and unabashed self-expression.