The Writer's Process: An Interview with Shanny Jean Maney

The PCCC Writing Center Blog welcomes guest blogger Sarah Dolan, the Assistant Director of Residential and Student Life at Lincoln College Normal. Sarah travels, writes, and creates various forms of art in her spare time.  The PCCC Blog, in addition to sharing writing best practices, is also a space for readers to learn more about writers and their process. This blog introduces an interview with poet Shanny Jean Maney.



Shanny Jean Maney, poet.

Shanny Jean Maney lives in a house that looks like it belongs to a poet, a composer, and two dogs named Cricket and Wembley.  Art adorns the walls, books fill the shelves, and a piano is nestled into an impossibly small room.  It is in this home that Shanny smiths words into images as real as our own memories.  Throughout her book, I Love Science, Shanny whisks the reader away in a chicken limo navigated by Jeff Goldblum, and her awkward 11 year old self recounting events of a childhood that seems distant but familiar.  It is in her home that Shanny, dogs in tow, answered questions about her writing.  When asked about her childhood, Shanny recounts that she read too much. “I would often hide in the closet to read.  My parents used reading as a reward.  I couldn’t read my book until I practiced my violin.” 

 Even though Shanny always had a love affair with books, she never thought that she would eventually write one.  “If you asked me 8, no 5, years ago, I would have never thought that I would ever make a living writing.”  Initially, Shanny’s creativity was expressed through performance.  She competed in speech tournaments and performed slam poetry.  According to Shanny, “Writing something that is going to be said is different than writing something that is meant to be read.” 

Because of this, the transition from spoken word to written word came with some challenges.  Shanny entered Write Bloody’s open book contest.  In the second round she had to submit 40 poems.  During that time, Shanny quit her job as a waitress and wrote constantly while coaching speech.  When asked about her initial writing, Shanny laughed, “It was not all good.  I had a few trusted friends who I would send my work to.  Often they thought it didn’t fit with my overall theme.  It’s hard to not take it personally, but it also gave me the opportunity to defend my work and see what was really important and how to express that idea.”

I Love Science by Shanny Jean Maney.

What happened next still seems impossible to Shanny.  She won and became published, but the hard work did not end there.  The next phase was promoting her book.  “People think that getting a book published means a lot of money and riding in limos.  What they don’t realize is that it means sleeping on friends’ couches and hoping that your last gig will pay for the gas money to get you to your next one.  You are extremely lucky if you make money let alone break even."

But being published has its perks.  Shanny has traveled the country reading her work.  Most recently she presented at the University of Illinois at Chicago, to a class that had read her book.  She expected them to hate it, proving that she is always her toughest critic, but was met with a group of students eager to hear her read.  It is no wonder.  Through her writing, the reader cannot help but feel that they have known Shanny her whole life.  For aspiring writers, Shanny has these words of wisdom, “My husband once told me that as an adult no one tells you what to do, in college somewhat, but after you need to do it.  No one is going to care if you don’t write or create art, so you have to care.”  I Love Science is meant to be read out loud amongst friends.  It can be bought at www.ShannyJeanManey.com or on Amazon.

A New Way of Looking at Completing College

An article, New National Tally of College Completion Tries to Count All Students, by Katherine Mangan in The Chronicle gives many community colleges some hope that the statistics on college-completion rates may come closer to the realities of our many students who can only attend one or two classes per semester. The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center released a report that looks at the non-traditional path many of our students take toward a college degree.

The report, "Completing College: A National View of Student Attainment Rates," concludes that when such nontraditional but increasingly common patterns of enrollment are considered, the national completion rate jumps to 54 percent, from 42 percent. Among full-time students, 75 percent earn a degree or certificate within six years.

While those numbers are lower than most educators would like, they aren't as alarming as the figures that state and federal policy makers have decried in calling for policies that tie budget allocations to colleges' graduation rates.

Many students who are balancing classes with family and work obligations attend more than one institution and take longer to earn a certificate or degree, the report points out. "Conventional measures of success, such as graduation rates for institution-based, first-time full-time degree-seeking cohorts, are insufficient for recognizing the distinctive pathways these students take, or for understanding the particular risks and supports that shape their academic careers," it says.

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From Local Center to Global OWL: An Interview with Muriel Harris

The PCCC Writing Center Blog welcomes Muriel Harris, founder of the Purdue OWL. Muriel Harris is professor emerita of English, Writing Lab Founder and Director (retired), founder and current editor of the Writing Lab Newsletter and founder of Purdue's award-winning Online Writing Lab (OWL). She has published books, including The Prentice Hall Reference Guide and The Writer's FAQs through Pearson. In this interview, Harris talks about the Purdue OWL best practices, its humble beginnings, and what's next for the online lab.

PCCC Writing Center: The OWL at Purdue is known as the oldest online writing lab but also one of the most comprehensive. How did the OWL get its start? Can you talk about the process of establishing an OWL?

Muriel Harris: The Purdue OWL started as a small e-mail service and morphed into a huge website along with the technology that was available at each stage of its growth. Way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and there was no Internet, most writing centers had cabinets filled with paper handouts to use in tutorials. When the earliest e-mail became available (before web browsers), I decided it would be helpful for students writing their papers at night (especially on Sundays) if we could make the handouts available online. Somehow, by securing small bits of funding, I managed to find students who could type those handouts in ASCII characters and upload them so that they’d be available 24/7 by e-mail request. The attempts at formatting were minimal in that limited online environment. But a student with programming skills was able to set up the service so that a user could send an e-mail requesting the index and get an instant response. Then, the student could browse through the index and request specific handouts listed there, send off the e-mail request for them, and again get an instant response.

Initially, Purdue students were infrequent users (many not yet computer users back then), but somehow people all over the world learned about this resource when it was written about in various computer magazines. Usage increased with startling speed. Since this was all happening via e-mail, people needed an e-mail address to send their requests to. We had considered something such as “Word,” but feared the wrath of Microsoft for infringing on the name of their word-processing program, Word. One student who was working on this project suggested that since our writing center is the Writing Lab, we could simply call it the Online Writing Lab or OWL, and that became the address.

Later, in one of those rare moments of serendipity, a grad student from another department who had previous extensive IT experience at a software company before starting grad school at Purdue heard about the project and came over to the Lab to see if he could work on our burgeoning OWL. He introduced us to the earliest web browser, Mosaic, which had become available, and designed the initial website, uploaded the documents, and launched our fledgling OWL on the web. Since then a number of graduate tutors in the Lab and I worked on updating the resources that were there, plus creating new handouts. As I was able to secure funds for grad students to serve as OWL Coordinators, they enhanced their own computer skills as they worked on improving the OWL’s appearance, ease of use, materials in different media, and ways to respond to questions sent in by users. Among other projects, we ventured into PowerPoints for teachers to use, and moved forward as technology advanced and added services. Because I’m now retired, I no longer have access to the OWL or to the Purdue students who are continuing to develop it.

PCCC Writing Center: Share an OWL best practice.

Muriel Harris: The best practice for any particular OWL depends greatly on the technology and resources available to that writing center and the needs of students and teachers at that institution. When I retired, there were no usable software programs that would allow some visual and verbal synchronous contact between tutor and student, a format I consider necessary for tutorial interaction. Because talk is the pedagogical format in one-to-one conferences in a writing center and because I value the generative and clarifying power that back-and-forth dialogue permits, I didn’t have any means to explore ways in which an OWL tutor could interact more effectively with student writers. Now, there are some highly sophisticated means for tutors and students to communicate online, and I assume some best practices are being defined. And, I hope, writing center specialists will continue to think about the theory and pedagogy of online interaction which, finally, is not the same as f2f interaction.

PCCC Writing Center: Did you ever envision the OWL becoming as popular as it has? What does the future look like for the OWL?

Muriel Harris: No, initially, I hadn’t envisioned the OWL being anything more than a local resource for students and teachers. Then, at a few conferences I suggested to audiences of other writing center people that they could develop their own OWLs. Then we could create a national database of writing resources by pooling and coordinating all the OWLs and their resources into some grand writing center mega-site. Some people who didn’t have their own resources to create an OWL linked instead to the Purdue OWL. Because of this and the continued growth of users around the globe, the Purdue OWL developed a life of its own and became both a national and international resource. When we read some of the marvelously appreciative messages sent by people who had found our site, we were delighted to be able to offer this free resource. Ironically, though, I’ve had complaints from textbook representatives. They tell me (and my unhappy editor) that they occasionally are unable to convince composition adoption committees to select either of my first-year composition textbooks because instructors prefer the free Purdue OWL. While I appreciate the sales of those texts, I too am an academic and, like all academics, want to share information freely. I appreciate hearing that the Purdue OWL continues to be so widely used.

So, no, I never envisioned what the OWL would become. Sometimes, when we recognize a need, we can step out into the void without knowing where we’ll land or what the goal is, especially if the goal keeps changing.

PCCC Writing Center: Did you ever consider adding a component to the OWL that address writing for the web as either an online student or a professional (e.g. discussion boards, blogs, social media)?

Muriel Harris: I have a number of ideas, but again, because I’m retired, I no longer have a venue for developing any of such tempting components. If I were still actively involved with OWL, I’d focus on more interactive means of working with writers and think more about visual presentation of information. Instead, because I continue to edit the Writing Lab Newsletter (a publication with articles by and for writing center specialists, https://writinglabnewsletter.org/), the Development Editor, Alan Benson, and I continue to expand the resources and forms of interaction on that website. But WLNis a journal, not a writing center, and so we’ve focused on creating spaces for people in writing center to interact and build collections of resources they find useful. And WLN has Twitter and Facebook sites where we post writing-related content and pass along notices of conferences and materials on the social media sites of writing centers.

But there are people in various writing centers who are currently developing their websites in interesting, new ways. For example, the website for the Writing Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, under the direction of Brad Hughes, continues to add a wealth of resources: http://www.writing.wisc.edu/. They have incorporated a variety of new media, including a blog, podcasts, Twitter, and YouTube videos. Other writing center websites have training videos for tutors, YouTube videos that introduce and help publicize their writing center, online handouts, etc.

PCCC Writing Center: What advice can you give writing centers wishing to add an online component to their services?

Muriel Harris: I’d suggest they first define for themselves how they want to enact the theory and pedagogy of writing centers in an online environment. Then they can formulate how they want to interact with writers and teachers along with thinking about what they want to offer on the site. And they need to study both their student population and the instructors of writing to see what is appropriate for their context. Of course, it’s also necessary to secure funding sources to develop an online site and to recognize the amount of work this adds on, e.g., deciding on hardware and software and ongoing updating; training tutors for online tutoring; designing the website; publicizing it, developing it further as technology advances, etc. Writing center people generously and enthusiastically tend to take on more and more projects as their writing centers develop, but they also need to step back and assess the extent to which all this gets folded into their already overloaded list of responsibilities. However, developing online components can be inordinately enjoyable as tutors and directors work together to develop new, useful, creative ways to interact with students. I look forward to seeing where technological advances and the imaginative minds of writing center tutors and directors will take us next.

Social Development and the Need for a More-Knowledgeable Other

The PCCC Writing Center Blog would like to welcome guest blogger Shawn O’Neil. O'Neil is the Assistant Director for Academic Skills at the Learning Assistance Center—a learner-centered organization that provides tutoring and academic skills instruction for students at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. For more information about his program, click HERE.  


Lev Vygotsky: you might not know his name, but I’m pretty sure you’ve demonstrated his Social Development Theory at some point between Kindergarten and today. Vygotsky posited that social interaction is pivotal to learning and that consciousness and cognition (you know, things otherwise known as “thinking”) are the product of socialization and social interactions.

His work has three major themes. He believed that social interaction plays a fundamental role in learning, and that, everything you learn, you learn twice—once on a interpsychological level (between you and others), and once on an intrapsychological level (inside yourself) (Vygotsky, 1978). He also coined the phrase “More Knowledgeable Other”—someone who has a better understanding or higher ability level than the learner, who helps the learner learn.

The More Knowledgeable Other (MKO) is what I’d like to focus on in this post. Basically, this person can be anyone—a coach, a teacher, another student (of any age), or even a computer. This is someone who guides you in how to grow and improve, and who does it by interacting with you. Vygotsky would say that the MKO is someone who helps you go from not being able to do something, to being able to do it with help, to being able to do it on your own.

[image: Zone of Proximal Development] 

This person is pivotal in your ability to learn, and is the reason why tutoring programs are important. Vygotsky believed that the reason why we learn at all is to serve a social function, such as to communicate our needs. By going to a tutor or writing assistant with homework questions, you can talk with someone who knows where you’re coming from and can guide you in a better way to look at the material.  Your job as the learner is to try to internalize the processes that you’re shown by your MKO—whether that’s a friend, a tutor, or your instructor. Their help is not supposed to be just to make sure you got the “right answer”—it’s a way to get you thinking about how you think, and to learn the tips and tricks you need to know to do the work yourself, later.

So when someone corrects an error or makes a suggestion on how you can improve, try to think of their help narrowly, in terms of just that one assignment or project, but as a way to improve yourself. What steps did that person take?  Try asking questions like, “how did you know to change that expression?” or “where could I look up this information, if I need it again?” You don’t have to do what they do how they do it, but by learning how they learned, you’ll be in better shape to internalize the processes and make them make sense to you.

This process is something you repeat over and over again. Each time you learn how to complete a task on your own; you’re ready to learn another. So let’s keep learning!

How do help guide students through the learning process in an academic support center? What are some strategies your center has incorporated during a tutoring session to help tutees better understand content?

 Sources:

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind and society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

The Write Advice: Authors Talk

I am sure from time to time you have sought out advice on your writing. I do it all of the time (I mean all of the time). Though I can’t help but wonder, whose advice can you trust? How does someone else’s advice on your writing affect how you write?

What about successful writers? What advice can they provide to help us get from draft to draft? What can they tell us about writing despite all odds? Writer’s Digest recently published an article called the “Top 90 Secrets of Best Selling Authors,” sharing top writer’s secrets from 90 years of their magazines. The article discusses how they got their ideas, dealt with reader bias/judgment, writing habits, process, publishing (preparation), and downright odd rituals.

I have put together a few secrets from each area of the article in hopes that it will inspire you not only to write, but continue to write.

Check out the full article at Writer's Digest: http://goo.gl/p0gNG

Thank you to Writer's Digest for allowing us to re-publish part of the article.

INSPIRATION & IDEAS

“As writers we live life twice, like a cow that eats its food once and then regurgitates it to chew and digest it again. We have a second chance at biting into our experience and examining it. … This is our life and it’s not going to last forever. There isn’t time to talk about someday writing that short story or poem or novel. Slow down now, touch what is around you, and out of care and compassion for each moment and detail, put pen to paper and begin to write.”
—Natalie Goldberg

GETTING STARTED

 

“I have a self-starter—published 20 million words—and have never received, needed or wanted a kick in the pants.”
—Isaac Asimov
 

 

“I do a great deal of research. I don’t want anyone to say, ‘That could not have happened.’ It may be fiction, but it has to be true.”
—Jacquelyn Mitchard
 

 

STYLE & CRAFT
 

“You have to follow your own voice. You have to be yourself when you write. In effect, you have to announce, ‘This is me, this is what I stand for, this is what you get when you read me. I’m doing the best I can—buy me or not—but this is who I am as a writer.”
—David Morrell

 

“Oftentimes an originator of new language forms is called ‘pretentious’ by jealous talents. But it ain’t whatcha write, it’s the way atcha write it.”
—Jack Kerouac

 

PURPOSE

“I write in a very confessional way, because to me it’s so exciting and fun. There’s nothing funnier on earth than our humanness and our monkeyness. There’s nothing more touching, and it’s what I love to come upon when I’m reading; someone who’s gotten really down and dirty, and they’re taking the dross of life and doing alchemy, turning it into magic, tenderness and compassion and hilarity. So I tell my students that if they really love something, pay attention to it. Try to write something that they would love to come upon.”
—Anne Lamott

 

“The real writer learns nothing from life. He is more like an oyster or a sponge.”
—Gore Vidal

 

CHARACTERS
 

“A genuine creation should have character as well as be one; should have central heating, so to say, as well as exterior lighting.”
—James Hilton

 

“When you are dealing with the blackest side of the human soul, you have to have someone who has performed heroically to balance that out. You have to have a hero.”
—Ann Rule

 

PLOT & STRUCTURE

“For a book to really work, form and function must go hand in hand, just like with buildings, as any decent architect will tell you.”
—Tracy Chevalier

 

“Transitions are critically important. I want the reader to turn the page without thinking she’s turning the page. It must flow seamlessly.”
—Janet Evanovich

 

RITUALS & METHODS

 

“Write. Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts.”
—Larry L. King

 

“I try to write a certain amount each day, five days a week. A rule sometimes broken is better than no rule.”
—Herman Wouk

 

REVISION & EDITING

 

“… Falsely straining yourself to put something into a book where it doesn’t really belong, it’s not doing anybody any favors. And the reader can tell.”
—Margaret Atwood

 

“I’m a tremendous rewriter; I never think anything is good enough. I’m always rephrasing jokes, changing lines, and then I hate everything. The Girl Most Likely To was rewritten seven times, and the first time I saw it I literally went out and threw up! How’s that for liking yourself?”
—Joan Rivers

 

PUBLISHING

 

“If you have the story, editors will use it. I agree it’s hard. You’re battling a system. But it’s fun to do battle with systems.”
—Bob Woodward

 

“Publishers want to take chances on books that will draw a clamor and some legitimate publicity. They want to publish controversial books. That their reasons are mercenary and yours may be lofty should not deter you.”
—Harlan Ellison

 

READERS

 

“I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.”
—Roald Dahl

 

“In truth, I never consider the audience for whom I’m writing. I just write what I want to write.”
—J.K. Rowling

Have any advice for writers? Tell us about it.

Just Say 'NO' to Writer's Anxiety

In Susan Shaughnessy's book of writing meditations, Walking on Alligators, she motivates writers to write everyday. My favorite section is where she talks about writer's anxiety. She includes a quote from Erica Jong: “Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow that talent to the dark place where it leads.”

As writers, are we always walking in the dark? Every day we step out into the middle of nowhere and hope to come back with something in the cradle of our hands. When we do bring something back we doubt its totality.

Why is it that when we search for something we end up back in the same place we started? We fade into the unknown and into the small spaces of our breath.

When you get to this intersection of uncertainty, stop and confront it. Ask yourself why you are stuck. Ask yourself why you are giving up. Do you want it?

Somewhere in the dark though is the light that it takes us to rebuild again. Even when you feel that your ideas have run out into a field far, far away, go after them.

Susan's advice: Go into the dark with courage and breath deeply through your lungs. You are ready to follow your talent. You are ready to go into the dark.

Related articles

• Writer talk (suddenlytheyalldied.com)
• Six Sure-Fire Methods to Break Writer's Block (problogservice.com)