Community and the Creative Writing Process | Long River Review

?Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer?s loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.? So said Ernest Hemingway in?his 1954 acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature, read before a party of over 1,000 guests at the annual banquet in Stockholm while the Old Man and the Sea author was in Cuba recuperating from two near-fatal plane crashes.

It isn?t difficult to follow Hemingway?s method, as many more have testified that the writing process is a long, lonely road. And for good reason, says Appalachian author Dr. Lin Stepp. In ?The Solitude of Writers,? an essay?on her website, Stepp argues that workshops and conferences (for women especially) are detrimental by design because they tend to sedate writers through continual nonconstructive approval. She calls instead for a commitment to solitude, which she distinguishes from loneliness in its deliberate and purposeful nature.

Of course, we can?t deny the fruits bore from Shakespeare?s collaborations with his acting troupe, or even, in my particular interest, the ?New Vision? that blossomed in the hands of Kerouac and Ginsberg at Columbia University in the ?40s. So, it appears that Stepp is directing her sentiments toward unestablished writers (like myself ) in her avowal that only solitude ?allows your own unique voice to emerge.? Zen Habits blogger Leo Babauta touched on this relationship between creativity and isolation with a more positive outlook in a post from a couple of years ago. While less sober, his piece made a point to emphasize that interaction and feedback needn?t be mere ?distractions,? as Stepp contends, but may be, in fact, integral steps in fostering one?s creative voice. ?We need inspiration from without, but we need creation from within,? he says.

Here at the University of Connecticut, we?re lucky to have a thriving creative writing community. Aspiring writers are encouraged to step up to Long River Live?s open mic to workshop their pieces, the creative writing program offers multiple writing workshops and opportunities for tutorials with writers-in-residence, student-centered groups like Poetic Release Performance Crew meet regularly, and off-campus programs like Inescapable Rhythms at Real Art Ways in Hartford provide excellent venues to connect.

Still, there was a time when I simply wasn?t comfortable enough with my work to present it, and because I wasn?t wholly confident in my abilities, I missed out on these experiences. For those of you nodding along with me, or for any budding creative writers outside of the english department, you might consider making an appointment with me at UConn?s Writing Center on campus? aside from my role as a fiction editor at the Long River Review, I?ve been working there as a writing tutor for four years. Just like with any research paper, persuasive essay, or personal statement, working on creative efforts with another knowledgable writer to develop your ideas and recognize the paths laid out in front of you can be enormously productive. In my time, I?ve helped students to ground a narrative voice, flesh out characters, move plot, and maintain realistic dialogue.

Hemingway concluded his brazen Nobel speech with the following thought: ?I?have spoken too long for a writer. A writer should write what he has to say and not speak it.? And yet, his final line, ?Again I thank you? reminds us that he was speaking to a community of his peers.?

Source: http://longriverreview.com/blog/2012/community-and-the-creative-writing-process/

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