Of Craft, Passion and Discipline

We have National Prayer Day, National Service Day and even National Day of Apple Pie. Did you know that we also have National Writing Day?

A group of teachers got together in 2009 to promote this event through the National Council of Teachers of English, a professional association for literacy educators around the country. Following these efforts, the U.S. Senate passed resolutions for three years now, which declared Oct. 20 an official national writing holiday.

According to the NCTE website, the holiday exists, “In light of the significance of writing in our national life, to draw attention to the remarkable variety of writing we engage in, and to help writers from all walks of life recognize how important writing is to their lives.”

“People in every walk of life, in every kind of work, and at every age write more than ever before for personal, professional, and civic purposes,” the site states.

Georgian Court University in Lakewood sponsored its third annual National Writing Day event Thursday, with celebration of writing continuing into Friday morning. Professors from different fields, from public relations to history to criminal justice, talked Thursday morning about the craft of writing, research, revising, and the role of writing in all aspects of life. Then, three local authors spoke to a small, but interested audience about what it means to be a writer.

At the start of his long publishing career, adjunct professor and author Bill Noble compiled a bunch of answers to “his private list of FAQs,” as he put it. According to Noble, who teaches creative writing at Georgian Court, some questions really stood out over the years – those that people asked him over and over.

Do you make a living doing writing? You written anything I read? Are you famous?

Noble published many non-fiction books, including a reference book for writers, called Noble’s Book of Writing Blunders (And How To Avoid Them), and hundreds of articles in national and international publications.

These questions sometimes caught Noble off guard, but since then he had learned how to come up with clever replies and parries.

“For most questioners, the issue is akin to watching Sunday portraitists at a park – a hobby, make a little money, let the time go by,” Noble wrote in his essay for a writers’ journal, from which he read on Thursday. “It says something about our society when supposedly educated people see a writing career in such stark terms. So my answer now is this, ‘I’m a professional.’”

Author and another adjunct creative writing professor at Georgian Court Toni De Palma wrote, “Under the Banyan Tree,” a young adult title, and a second book, "Jeremy Owl," about a geeky kid who turned into an owl, for middle-graders.

She said the main question about being a writer has to do with need vs. want. Are you one of those people who sigh, I would write a book if only . . . I were younger, if only I were older, if only I had better education, an agent, if only I had more time?

“There are days when I just wanna be a writer, and then there are days when I don’t want to,” said De Palma, who published two books for young readers. “But I started thinking, where does that need come from? The need to write? I tell you, if you want to be a published writer, you have to go beyond the want, you need to feel that need in your body.”

Author Marykate Schweiger of Lakewood started her writing career by changing her name. She gave herself a pseudonym, creating a separate identity for herself that declared to the world that she was a writer now.

“I picked out my pen name a decade before I became an author,” Schweiger said.

“How many of you are working on something?” she asked the small audience.

Looking at an even smaller number of hands rising in the air, Schweiger reminisced about the days when a question like that would have made her nervous. Back then, revealing that she was a writer would have felt as intimate – and horrifying – as revealing her age or weight to a stranger, she
said.

“It’s great that the two of you have raised your hands,” Schweiger said.

Adding on to Noble’s advice to “write what you’re best at,” Schweiger also urged writers to remain true to their passions in writing their works, and to create authentic characters whose own passions fuel the story.

“I am a die-hard romantic,” she said, “I love love. Another thing is, I am a snarky clown. I am a wise guy. So I write romantic comedies. . . What about your characters?” she asked the audience. “Why are you writing this character’s story?”

Writing under the pen name of M. Kate Quinn, Schweiger is the author of “Summer Iris” and “Moonlight and Violet,” as well as “Brookside Daisy,” coming out early next year from Wild Rose Press, the last book in this
“Perennials trilogy.”

Aspiring writers asked questions about the authors’ routine, revising process and scheduling. Every panelist had a different answer.

“I think the work ethic is a major commonality,” De Palma said. “Because you don’t write sixty thousand words without putting one word in front of another. But other than that, everyone is different. You have to find what works for you.”

Other National Writing Day Events on campus included a mini-workshop
for aspiring memoirists, and an “open mic” night for both the college students and alumni, and the local community. On Friday morning, Mary Alice Monroe, author of The Butterfly’s Daughter, will talk about her writing process, sign books and take questions from the audience.

“I think no matter who you are, in order for you to function in everyday life, you need to have the basics of writing down,” said Regina Betz, a Georgian Court alumni, who now teaches English at Central Regional
High School in Bayville. “And the creative component of writing really drives people to be individuals.”