The Manuscript Versus the Market
Thoughts after attending Claire Keegan's writing course, How Fiction Works, in Brisbane last week.
Last week I was in Brisbane for a few days attending Claire Keegan’s writing course, How Fiction Works. It made me have a lot of thoughts about art, writing and commerce, some of which I’m hoping I can articulate in this post and none of which are meant in any way to cast aspersions on Claire Keegan, who I think is a brilliant writer—her book So Late in the Day is one of my favourite reads so far this year.
It’s like the often forgotten (on social media) notion that someone can hold two opposing ideas in their head. On the one hand, I can love Claire’s writing and find some parts of her course to be exceptional, but on the other hand I can also ask some questions about other elements of the course and that’s an okay thing to do. I could even change my mind at some point after I’ve thought and learned and changed, and that’s okay too! It’s why I like Substack; most people here seem to still believe in and understand the complexity of human opinions and beliefs.
Essentially, hers is like no writing class you’ve ever imagined. There are eighty people in attendance, there are no desks and you’re not sitting in groups as most of us are used to in a writing class. Claire has no set program; she has some things she wants to share and then some reading examples she wants to work through. When questioned, she couldn’t recall why she’d chosen one of the set readings to discuss, so it all has the feel of being very organic in terms of what’s covered on any one day.
I experienced a couple of breakthrough moments during the course in relation to the book I’m working on now, and I scribbled lots of ideas for it. I rediscovered some things I knew about writing, but had forgotten, and I really enjoyed the way Claire encouraged us as writers to get out of our heads and into our bodies, and to trust the work. I’ve always said that my gut knows more than I do, and I’ve always believed in the magic that happens in writing, so I loved that she talked about these things as not being woo-woo, fanciful notions, but true and real parts of the writing process.
Long-Dead Masters vs The Market
Claire’s approach to teaching writing is to carefully read and discuss the work of several authors: five short stories and one novel. All the writers are dead, and all of the works were published some time between the early 1920s and the early 1970s, so at least fifty years ago. Claire said right up front that she doesn’t read anyone who’s alive. She doesn’t read any contemporary fiction at all. For her, it’s unnecessary; she’s adamant that our forebears produced better work than anything that’s being written now.