Great question: Part 1

Last Thursday, I spent a class period with an amazing high school creative writing class. I've always stayed pretty connected with my high school self (as in, I remember all too well what that time in my life was like, not, hopefully, that I haven't evolved in the decade+ since then) and so have always had a special place in my heart, and special set of sympathies, for teenagers. Of course, I often don't get teenagers - life and the way people experience their teen years does change ever so rapidly. But the creativity, playfulness, sarcasm and angst displayed by this group felt so comfortable to me, so very familiar.

The list of questions the students put together for me is a study in thoughtful inquisition - really interesting questions that I was really excited to answer. But there were so many of them that most went unanswered in the little talk I prepared. So, in an ongoing series of posts, I intend to answer the rest. I hope my regular readers will enjoy it as much as the students who opt to stop by.

Q: Do you think that good writing has been replaced by popular fluff that appeals to the masses?

A: I think that there are lots of reasons people write and lots of reasons people read, and that sheer entertainment is a valid reason for both. My guess is that the ratio of fluffy entertainment to well-informed non-fiction and meaty, rich fiction isn't so different than it used to be... but with more and more books being published, and the democratization of writing with blogging, and with fewer people actually reading, it might be harder to wade through to more substantive writing. But there are so many amazing contemporary authors: Jhumpa Lahiri, Michael Pollan, Anosh Irani, Salman Rushdie, Marsha Mehran... on and on...

Q: How do you organize your thoughts while writing?

A: I'll let you know as soon as I figure that out... organization is an abiding preoccupation of mine - it's damn near a hobby, really. I'm forever reorganizing, rearranging. For shorter works, I tend to write in layers: first thoughts go down then I revise and rewrite in the document until I like what it says, with notes to myself piling up at the bottom. For longer works, I've been using OneNote lately, a program that works like an actual notebook with sections, pages, subpages, etc. It can collect anything - Web pages, other documents, spreadsheets, images, notes - and is easily searchable. Right now, everything goes in there... now, remembering to look back at that is an entirely different story...

Q: When you walk into a room, do you first observe the condition of the room or the people inside the room?

A: People, always people. People are more interesting to me than just about anything else... and I think it's important to meet the world head-on, looking people in the eye. I think it's a friendlier way to approach life and it shows confidence - it can even build confidence when there's not much to show.

Q: Which is more important in persuasive writing: style, content or wit?

A: I think there's probably a perfect blend of style and content out there - style to engage people, giving the writer an opportunity to be persuasive, and content so that once the reader is hooked into the piece, there's a worthwhile argument to offer. It is in making a worthwhile argument that wit, in terms of being on the ball, comes into play. Wit, in terms of humor, is a bonus, but plenty of successful writers have shown us that it's not essential to persuasion (see George Will).

More to come!