One of the more interesting paradoxes of analysing the interviews of professional writers during the Teachers as Writers (TaW) project has been the finding that many of the writers struggled when we asked them to define their ‘craft knowledge’ of writing. I call this a paradox because, when they spoke about other aspects of their writing life and process, they displayed abundant craft knowledge. From a researcher’s point of view this has led us to asking that if writers were more consciously aware of their own expertise, might they be better able to share it with children and teachers when working in schools? Of course, that is a big ‘if’. I know this because I have also been pondering these interviews with my writer hat on, privately wondering how, if it came to it, I would define craft knowledge myself: what do I know? Here is what I came up with:
- I know the difference between writing ‘car’ and ‘blue Passat estate’. I know that, sometimes, ‘car’ is fine; but ‘blue Passat estate’ is a name, a thing, an actual model, conveying history, context, class, aspiration and memory. I remember when I first granted myself permission to use proper nouns in my writing: using the names of the places and people as I used them in real life gave me an enormous sense of power, and freedom. Instead of ‘Grandpa’ I wrote ‘Grandpapa’. Instead of ‘motorway service station’ I wrote ‘Membury’. Consequently, I am in love with nouns, especially proper nouns. (I am in love with verbs, too.) I think most of my decisions about writing come down to where in the sentence I will choose to put my noun, or my verb.
- Nearly every time I sit down to write I am aware of two thoughts in my head: that I love writing, and that I hate writing. I want the writing to be perfect first time, sounding all glossy and polished like a John Cheever short story, and I hate that it isn’t and comes out all messy and unsure of itself. I want the writing to go on forever, and for it to stop immediately so I can go and do something less difficult instead. I want it over, now, preferably. I don’t want to write. I want, as Dorothy Parker said, ‘to have written’. I also know that the only way I might eventually get to the polished John Cheever stage is by writing, if you will forgive the expression, a whole load of crap first. I hate this. But I am in love with it, too. Mostly I try to concentrate on nouns, and if I am feeling especially frisky, verbs. (I won’t even mention adverbs, let alone the frontal ones, whatever they are.)
- I have learned that my job is not to sound clever (or even polished), but to sound like life. To sound like life I will need to tell the truth. Not the exact ‘truth’ of what happened on a certain day at a certain time when somebody left me at a party (though this might be useful). I mean the truth as it exists somewhere between actual events and what might have happened in a fictionalised account of them, were I able to sit still and concentrate and listen and observe accurately enough. All of this requires invention. And memory. And long hours at the desk swaying slightly and muttering. I have learned that it is not easy.
- I have learned to listen to what my writing is saying back to me. Quoting a Mel Brooks routine in Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott says: ‘Listen to your broccoli and your broccoli will tell you how to eat it’. My job is not to write the poem, but to allow the poem to tell me what it wants and needs to be so that it can have a life of its own outside of my concerns. I believe in inspiration, but I also believe in getting out of the way of my art, so that it can become art.
- I have learned that, for me at any rate, the hardest part of writing is starting.
This post went live on the Teachers as Writers project blog earlier this afternoon. To find more about the Teachers as Writers project, read the project blog here
Anthony Wilson 
I find this fascinating, Anthony. In the 80s I wrote books and articles about teaching writing, produced a coursework series for GCSE, ran courses on teaching writing….spent the the last ten years of my career training primary teachers. Learned a prodigious amount from the writing elements of the Literacy Hour, learned how to synthesise knowledge about language, the pragmatic teaching of understanding elements of syntax and ‘grammar’, and teaching ‘how to write’. When I stopped doing this, I turned into someone who writes poems. There doesn’t seem to be any connection between the two…not superficially. Though I suspect that as a teacher, my constant mantra was: find out what you want to say. Then we’ll sort the writing out. It’s what feeds my own writing. What do I want to say? Why? Poems are the last thing on my mind if I want to be able to write them. Thanks for this article. Thanks for all your articles x
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I applaud your honesty in all your writing. Thank you very much.
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So good, and so true. I can relate to almost all of this.
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Interesting stuff, Anthony. Reassures me that processes, i.e. ways to write, are important in getting through that myth of writers block – it’s easier to edit something on the page than fill a blank page. And content will come later: the worst poems are ones that set out to ‘say something’. In most cases, the more important that something is, the less successful the poem. Truth, with a small or capital t is pretty indefinable… and the writer’s voice will come through whatever system or process s/he follows or uses.
As ever, writers and teachers are a world apart. What a struggle it is for all of us to self-analyse and critique, let alone then step back and find ways to use our craft and literacy to share skills and inspiration! Thanks, as ever, for the post.
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