Yesterday, an article in the Guardian raised an important question: can creative writing be taught?  The article listed opinions from various authors, many of whom believe that creative writing degrees are moot because the writing process can’t be taught.  Others believe that writing can be taught, but only by writers who have already been published because they know how to write something of publication quality.  As a writer and teacher, I’m not sure I agree with most of the authors interviewed in that article.  Here are some of my thoughts on the matter:

The best way for a writer to learn the craft is to read.  I think a lot of people underestimate the power of reading.  As a creative writing teacher, I incorporate readings from literature into all of my lectures.  My students read something–either a short story or a poem or an essay–for every class.  I believe that writers who don’t read are doing themselves and their work a disservice.

Not all great writers make great teachers.  Some of my best writing teachers have not been big-name authors.  In fact, one of my best teachers had not published her first novel until after I had taken two or three classes with her, yet she taught me more about writing than many other more prominent novelists.

While the Master’s degree can be great for some writers, you can get a lot of the same benefits on your own.  I’m a firm believer in do-it-yourself, otherwise I wouldn’t have devised the DIY MFA.  There’s no reason why writers can’t get many of the benefits of a Master’s degree, even without enrolling in school.  You can do the literature study on your own by reading with a writer’s eye, and a great deal of craft can be learned through practice.  Connecting with other writers in conferences, critique groups or online can be a great way to gain perspective on your writing.  Most importantly, just write!

What do you think?  Can creative writing be taught?

What I love about Melissa Paris (Missy) is that she always knows how to come up with workouts that you can do anytime, anywhere.  This leg work out is perfect for when you take that 20 minute break from writing.  I don’t know about you all, but I’m planning to keep my yoga mat right by my desk so I can do these exercises while I let my writing thoughts percolate.

For more information about Melissa Paris, check out her blog and her Facebook page or connect with her on twitter (@Melissa_Paris).

Now, here’s Missy!

It’s time to stand up!!  You don’t have to step inside the gym to get fit and feel great.  Taking short breaks throughout the day will help you reach a healthy fitness level.  If you have time you can go through the whole routine if you have a few five-minute breaks you can split it up throughout your day.

Repeat this cycle 2-3 times depending on length of break.

20 Bird-Dogs: Face down with knees and hands on the floor.  Raise opposite hand and leg straight at the same time for a 2 second count. Repeat on alternating sides until you have completed 20 on each side.

30 Squats: Keep feet shoulder width apart and push off from your heels.

30 Lying Hip Raises: Squeeze your butt at the top and make sure to keep your foot that’s on the ground flat.

20 Stationary Lunges: Make sure you do a 90 degree bend on each leg, then squeeze your butt at the top when you stand back up.  Remember to push off from your front heel.

20 Side Lunges:  Stand with both feet wide apart, toes facing forward.  Bend your right knee and shift your weight to the right side, keeping your left leg straight.  Come back to center.  Repeat the same thing on the left side and return to center.

Repeat all exercises 2-3 times depending on how long a break you’re taking.

This week, see if you can take some time every day to do something a little bit active.  These exercises are a great place to start and can be a nice break from writing, to help clear your head.  My goal is to try doing at least one cycle of these exercises every day this week.  Who’s with me?

Update: Missy just launched her new website today so check it out! 

We all have goals and high hopes that things will turn out a certain way.  As writers, we hope to see our work in print someday.  We hope for agents, publishers, reviewers, and readers to love our book.  We wish for a lot of things, but it doesn’t always turn out the way we’d like.  Sometimes our projects flop, people don’t like our work or we ourselves don’t follow-through on our goals.  Sometimes we… fail.

So how do we deal with these moments of hurt and disappointment.  How do we bounce back from from failure?  Two words: Mindful Writing.  Today, take out your notebook and take a few moments to take stock of the parts of your writing life where you feel like you have failed.  You can do this as a guided exercise, following the five steps below, or you can just read through and do the exercise later.  Here’s how:

1. Notice the disappointments.  Look at your writing life and write down goals you’ve failed to meet or places where things have not turned out the way you would have liked (i.e. rejections and other disappointments).

2. Recognize the things that are outside your control.  While some things may be outside your control–you can’t control who likes your work and who doesn’t–other things you may be able to control after all.  The key is figuring out which things are things you can control and which are not.

3. Take responsibility.  Look at the things you can control and take responsibility for areas where you failed to meet your goals or contributed to the disappointment in some way.

4. Say how you will not let it happen again.  Make a list of ways in which you will not let this disappointment happen or this goal be missed again.  Come up with real strategies to help you avoid this same failure in the future.

5. Let it go.  Don’t ruminate on the disappointment, but move forward towards your goal.  These things happen so just acknowledge, accept and move on.

On a personal note, for me the biggest failure I’ve had to deal with lately was working on my WIP and making my self-imposed deadlines.  I set some rather unrealistic deadlines and it took missing two such deadlines to realize that this method of self-motivation was not working.  At first, I beat myself up for missing the deadlines, but then I realized that I need to set more realistic goals.  But I would not have made this important discovery had it not been for mindful writing.

Have you faced disappointments in your writing?  How have you managed to bounce back?