August 1 Newsletter

An explanation (or reminder) of what The Unschool is about; PROMPT workplace/(h)interlands; monthly poll; Book Review "On Writing & Failure"

Photo by Jacki Drexler on Unsplash

August the 1st, mid-summer surely, even though the longest day of the year is gone weeks ago and we are nearing (shhhhhhh…) fall. For some writers summer is a productive time and for others it’s time for a needed break.

We’ve had a number of new subscribers—writers finding us by way of Substack’s new “Notes” possibly, and from other paths. You-s may be wondering “what is The Unschool about?”

It’s a bit eclectic here. We look at writing fiction, usually for adult readers, but for children and young people, too. We have a small picturebook writing group that posts in our workshop space; it’s quiet at the moment, but with the turn of the season, that’s likely to change. There are other workshop groups too, and at the moment we are looking at work-place-stories.

Once each month we post about poetry. Occasionally, nonfiction and memoir is on the table. Why the breadth? It’s what I write and how I’ve published. I’ve also published historical middle-grade work, novels for young adults, short fiction (adult readers), a ghost-written “Boxcar Children,” an educational book about mental health… my work is all over the map; it’s how I escape boredom.

Mostly, though, I believe that learning and working outside your form-of-choice does inform all of your writing; I’m convinced of this.

In a shell of some sort—nut or sea, egg or turtle, take your pick) The Unschool is a weekly posted piece on some form/genre/aspect of writing, publishing, or creative life.

(Digression: re-cap of July posts)

Through July we’ve been sharing thoughts on work stories—stories with workplace settings— and on the elements of tropes/metaphors/similes and more in poetry. I wrote about the aftermath of rejection when your work is coming from an intensely personal place, and a new approach to the “character worksheet”—an exercise I’ve always rather loathed. This—what I call “inter-lands”—is how it makes sense to me, and proves useful.

I fully expect that fiction writers reading the monthly poetry piece about metaphors—for instance—might heighten their awareness of how to make more use of the element in a story. Or thinking about “workplace setting” might birth a memoir or a sonnet.

And so we ramble (linger, tarry—what word do you use?) to explore; the “unschooling” piece is about listening to your inner push—that same push that causes you to pick up one book over another at the annual library sale. And when you go home, fill a mug of hot chocolate and sit to read, you realize it’s exactly the book you’ve been looking for. Even if you didn’t know it.

I welcome questions, and earlier in the spring answered a number of subscribers’. Take a look through the 2023 Index to get an idea of the Q&A we’ve worked through these past months. If you go to the Home page (easiest to access by first clicking on the title of this email, and then by clicking on the “Unschool for Writers” at the top of the site page) you’ll find the three indexes at the bottom right hand of the page.

Here’s a post on how to navigate.

And how to find the workshop space:

You need to sign up to take advantage of the workshop space. You do this by clicking on your photo or profile image in the upper righthand corner, and then clicking on “manage subscription.” (NOT “settings”…as per Substack’s instructions! I’m sorry that’s confusing.)

THEN click the box for the Workshop Space under “Notifications.”

That way you will know when someone has shared some feedback or comments or posted. Check out what others have posted, and the feedback. If you want to post, do offer feedback, too.

To post your writing:

Send it to me via email: alison@alisonacheson.com

Note that workshops are for paid subscribers only.

• We’ve had one piece posted to the workshop space: a story of serving in a chowderhouse restaurant. (Check it out! Leave a comment.)

Questions about The Unschool? Let us know.

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PROMPT

Each month with this first of the month post there’s a prompt posted in a separate thread, also released on the first.

Last month the exercise was to list details about a work place you’ve known.

In the prompt thread this month, let’s continue with exploring such settings, and combine it with the post on ‘character not-worksheets.’

Consider what was “between”—the inter-lands of—two people/characters, possibly yourself in the workplace with another, maybe two work-mates or boss-and-employee.

Again, you might simply list in bullet-point form—or more—to build a sense of the friendship/animosity/jealousy/rivalry/humour/mentorship… or whatever was or is between these two. Later you might develop into a full story and post to the workshop.

Here is the prompt thread.

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July reading poll

65% of you are reading novels, with 75% of you reading more than one hour per day!

Nonfiction and online content reading were tied at almost 20%, and the little cousins of short-fiction-and-poetry were left at home while the big ones took off to the lake.

I’m wondering how this connects with what you write as we have poets and short-form people here, and one of the biggest writing newsletters on this platform closely examines short fiction… but is no one reading it?

I am LOVING the short fiction of Lucia Berlin, and that’s one of the books I’ve been reading this past month. Her words crackle. Some stories are a mere two pages, others much longer. Some have one of those closing lines that cause me to hear a door click shut; others leave me pondering, and I have to go for a walk, or stare out the window.

I’ve also been reading an amazing piece of work, The Scent of Time, by Korean-born philosophy teacher (now working in Berlin), Byung-Chul Han, about the acceleration of time, and the roots of this seemingly contemporary thing—though he traces it back back back. Another book that produces periods of window-staring. Subtitle is: A Philosophical Essay on the Art of Lingering.

And I’m including a book review in this post, about another book I’ve just finished, about writing life. On Writing & Failure. See below.

I am heartened by the time spent reading—all of us. Please share titles—

The August poll has to look at what YOU write. I’m curious.

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Book Review

I’ve had on my TBR list, Stephen Marche’s 2023 release On Writing & Failure, with its lengthy sub-title of Or, On the Peculiar Perseverance Required to Endure the Life of a Writer. After a particular recent rejection in my life, a good friend said it’s a Must Read for perspective.

It’s a short 80 pages, containing the nuggets of three of his published essays. And is one of a series of such short books called “Field Notes” from Canada’s Biblioasis press.

Page 35: “The world does not particularly like writers” is a theme throughout. As is “Why should it be any different for you?” and “No whining.” He spells out the tribulations of centuries of writers; the first sixty pages spells out the realities that have been. It makes me think of the times in my life when I have—literally—bored myself out of whatever depressive funk I’ve been in. The “no whining” niggled, then made me smirk, then made me laugh. Even as the opening words (and later, closing) of Philip Roth’s statement about writers eventually being so thin-skinned as to see through it, made me want to weep. This is the paradox we live with. The thickened skin and the thin, and the imbalance of no in-between. The exhausting need to navigate. The “why should it be any different for you?” Why indeed.

By page 60-something he gets into the motivation. He speaks to how a writer’s perseverance is akin to what Buddhists would call “attachment” and want to be rid of it; attachment causes suffering. No news flash for writers. In many ways I wish the first 60 pages was 30, and that the ideas contained in the last 20 were 60. But perhaps that’s my job to ponder. I would welcome any thoughts on this from any Buddhist readers. How you connect these… and live with.

Page 65: “Sheer bloody-mindedness, too, is underrated as a motive.”

We know that too.

“Fail better,” Samuel Beckett’s words. And Marche says it’s “a phrase that has been taken on by business executives… [who] miss Beckett’s point… [He] didn’t mean failure-on-the-way-to-delayed-success… but to fail better, to fail gracefully and with composure.” (My emphasis.) He says it’s “so essential because there’s no such thing as success. It’s failure all the way down… Writing itself is failure. Even the successes are failure.” He explains how too often the intention of the author is sidelined for what the reader wants to think it is all about.

I revisit those two words: gracefully; composure. I fail miserably at those at times.

I think of those who do seem to read of “success” to all the rest of us: those garden-shed variety of writers, who almost always have some spouse running about doing their ordinary work as they compose out in said shed; maybe even those writers have tales of failure.

Then my thoughts turn to the few I know who write day in and day out with an orderliness that would win Flaubert’s nod. Who mange to hold for the most part to the grace and composure. Though we slip at times, surely. I know this writer does. As I crash breakfast dishes.

I’ll be re-reading the last twenty pages of this pamphlet.

Ovid in exile, page 68: “You ask, why send my scribbles… Because I want to be with you somehow.”

Want to be with you. Somehow.

Desire for human connection. Is that what this is all about? Is that why we struggle so with publishing? Is it writing we struggle with? or publishing? both?

He speaks to how Socrates, Confucius, and Jesus were all “failures”—in the event we feel a need for company.

Marche says, “Two thousand years later, Jesus has over a billion devoted fans. They get together, sometimes once a week… to read his stuff out loud to each other. A career could not have gone much worse or better.” (71)

“A fact that no one seems able to tell young writers: The quality of your writing will have very little effect on your career, and yet it is the only thing that matters.” (72)

Know this: If you’re writing well and failing and submitting and persevering, there is no more that anyone can ask of you, even yourself. (Stephen Marche 73)

Until next week —