Aspects of a Writer Project: The Writing Life Plan

Preface to Aspects of a Writer OER Textbook

Preface

Welcome to the Aspects of a Writer OER Textbook hosted by Chapman University’s MFA in Creative Writing Program.

This textbook is designed as a freely available Open Educational Resources project using Scalar, a free, open-source, online scholarly publishing platform. All content in this project is licensed under Creative Commons.

The Aspects of a Writer OER Textbook is launching will still very much in progress. The editorial team will continue to add content and revise this textbook.

Editorial Team at Chapman University

Managing Editors
Anna Leahy
David Krausman
Assistant Editor 2023-2024
Henneh Kwaku Kyereh
Assistant Editors 2022-2023
Jay Dye
Ian Koh
Assistant Editors 2021-2022
Megan Friess
Paige Welsh

Background


One evening in 2012, James P. Blaylock, Douglas R. Dechow, Anna Leahy, and Tom Zoellner were having a beverage together. We began trying to figure out why many of our MFA in Creative Writing students started their thesis defense semester with a lot left to draft and why others who had polished work weren’t submitting that work for publication. Our conclusion was that it was the MFA program’s responsibility both to provide a better framework for the complexity of the writing life, literary culture, and writerly career paths. And so, we developed a required introductory course called Aspects of a Writer that launched the following fall.

In the article “The MFA in Creative Writing: The Uses of a ‘Useless’ Credential” in Professions & Professionalism, Clayton C. Childress and Alison Gerber point out that many MFA students report that their goal is “time to write.” For some, however, “‘time to write’ served a more symbolic function in that it was being enrolled in a program, rather than simply writing, which made their time spent writing feel like a legitimate investment in a professional identity rather than a hobby.” Childress and Gerber go on to argue that the MFA “is made useful in a variety of ways: for students as a symbolic resource for artistic identity, for working writers as a source of income and community, and for editors in publishing houses as a signal for possible marketing and publicity potential.” The Aspects of a Writer OER Textbook is intended to be a practical resource for individuals to develop their artistic identity, research income opportunities and career paths, cultivate connection with a literary community and culture, and prepare for the publication and publicity processes.

We believe that universities have a responsibility to create and share knowledge, and we’ve made the Aspects of a Writer OER Textbook freely available online to minimize economic and social barriers for writers. The Aspects of a Writer course at Chapman University and, by extension, this textbook aims to allows each aspiring writer to cultivate their sense of belonging by fostering both shared knowledge and individualized decision-making. We hope that each user of this Aspects of a Writer OER Textbook can build a writing life they can sustain. And together, we can consider how to shape literary culture.

How To Use This Textbook


The Aspects of a Writer OER Textbook is organized around the concept of the Writing Life Plan, which is intended to be an individualized envisioning of your writing life. What does your writing life look like, and what do you want it to look like? What are your short- and long-term goals, and what are you doing to get there? What do you value as a writer? Maybe your plan is a checklist. Maybe it’s a manifesto. Maybe it’s a bingo card or a board game. Maybe it’s a schedule planner or tracker. Maybe it’s a floorplan. It’s possible you follow your plan to get exactly where you think you want to go, but more likely, the plan will set your trajectory, opportunities and obstacles will instigate adjustments, and you’ll end up somewhere not quite expected. Plans change. That’s good. The Writing Life Plan is intended as a reference point to orient yourself and get moving. It can be updated a year or two from now.

The online format of the Aspects of a Writer OER Textbook allows readers to pick and choose, to follow a path through a topic or to jump back and start a different route. As you navigate this textbook, keep in mind what Scalar says about the structure of projects on this platform: “Paths are linear sequences of content, like a chapter full of pages or a tutorial full of steps. Tags are non-linear groupings of content, like items in the index of a book or descriptors on a media-sharing site. … Paths can contain other paths, and tags can reference other tags, making both hierarchical and rhizomatic structures possible.” Take some time to experiment with using the Table of Contents, the menu in the upper left corner of every page, and the buttons at the bottom of pages to decide how you want to move to and through the information.

Each contribution is designated with its Creative Commons license type. Copyright is held by the individual contributors, and Creative Commons is “a standardized way to grant the public permission to use their creative work under copyright law.” The type of Creative Commons license determines how the work can be re-used. If you re-use any content from this textbook, you must follow the appropriate Creative Commons guidelines for attribution, share-alike, no-derivative, and noncommercial use.

Ongoing Development


We see this as a dynamic, ongoing project and know that users will pick and choose the content they find most useful. As such, we decided to value immediate access over completeness and are launching an in-progress project. At its launch, this textbook has a lot of content and a lot of gaps. It is mapped out with numerous paths and also empty spaces yet to be filled in.

To our readers, we ask you for your patience when you find a page yet to be developed. In addition, we welcome your feedback on the content you find especially useful and where the information falls short or becomes outdated. We can be contacted at AspectsOER@chapman.edu.

Anna Leahy and David Krausman will be presenting the Aspects of a Writer OER Textbook as part of the panel “Foreseeable Futures: Equitable Access to Professional Trajectories for Students” at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference in March 2023 in Seattle.

As we move forward, we will also offer opportunities for contributions. 

Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0

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