Precision and Accuracy of Thought: Room for Creativity in Nonfiction

Covenant as Ethical Commonwealth

Educator, cultural observer and lecturer Perry Huesmann has authored Covenant as Ethical Commonwealth, published by Italian Paths of Culture Press, on the concept of covenant and the possibilities for trust in society. In this guest post, Perry discusses what went into the writing of the book and the process of publication.

AA: What is the background for the book?

Author Perry Huesmann

PH: The book is, in essence, the result of a master's thesis written and defended for a master's-level Christian studies program with the Faculty of Philosophy at the VU University of Amsterdam. The program was centered on an analysis of the philosophical underpinnings of Western culture and, especially, Enlightenment modernity. The book focuses on the foundation of trust in Western society. It looks at how the West has been heavily influenced by Enlightenment thinking, and the implications of that for the formation of trust in society when the individual is the anchoring point for universal values.

AA: What inspired you to select this particular topic?

PH: I was especially intrigued by the philosophical implications of the Enlightenment project as it relates to the place of the individual in society. The problem arises when the Cartesian trajectory of the individual as determiner and guarantor of reality takes root at a societal level. The implications are rather serious.

AA: What insights did you glean about the creative process while writing it?

PH: There are numerous writing styles, and some are appropriate for some projects and others are not. I would say that a work that is philosophical can tend to suffocate some aspects of creativity. While precision and accuracy of thought are highly important, there is room for creativity in how one organizes the material and presents it to the reader. I enjoy writing, and so attempted to write as if I were speaking to a group in front of me. This always helps me write in a way that is understandable and accessible.

AA: What did you learn about the publishing process, particularly as it relates to working with an international, print-on-demand publisher like Italian Paths of Culture Press?

PH: As is the case for all authors, the challenge is getting the word out about the book. Print-on-demand has advantages in cost-savings on the front end, but one must realize going in that marketing and distribution are clearly a large challenge. It is important to get exposure through book reviews, interviews, articles, etc., so that the book can be known. I think it is important to use all possible networking to help this process.

AA: Do you have another book planned?

PH: I am currently in a Ph.D. program with the same faculty, and my research essentially is looking at the philosophical framework for social relations in the 21st-century polis. What do we consider the polis today? Where does man meet, form and sustain social relations, and how are they characterized? The 20th century has been characterized by collectivism and individualism, and it seems we have no other alternatives. I am exploring one that is rooted in the Jewish concept of covenant.

AA: What would you do differently during the writing and/or publishing process the next time around?

PH: I think I would be a bit less technical in my style, and seek to be a bit more narrative. It renders the content more accessible and readable.

AA: Anything you'd like to add?

PH: Thank you for the opportunity to present the book, and if anyone is interested in reading it and interacting with it, I would enjoy that immensely. I am a strong believer in the need for humans to seek out others who have very different ideas, and be forced to understand them and respond to them in a respectful and mature way. This is central to our human experience, and enriching for our culture. I see this as central to the Judeo-Christian faith experience as well.

Perry Huesmann is an educator, a cultural observer and a lecturer who lives and works in greater Milan, Italy. He has worked as a corporate instructor of English, and holds a Master's degree in theology. He has a Master of Arts in science and society from the Free University of Amsterdam and is pursuing a Ph.D. there. To order the visit Italian Paths of Culture Press or Amazon, Covenant as Ethical Commonwealth.

Invitation to Wonder, Too: A Writer's Journey

Award-winning newspaper columnist and Center for Creative Writing founder Elizabeth Ayres has authored Invitation to Wonder: A Journey through the Seasons. She describes what prompted the book, and the emotional healing writing can bring. The winning comment on her posts will receive an autographed copy of Elizabeth's Invitation to Wonder.

AA: How would you categorize "the journey" noted in the subtitle?

Elizabeth at the Patuxent RiverWriting Retreat-Workshop

EA: My background is poetry. When I moved back to southern Maryland, every wave, every leaf, every bird, everything spoke to me, everything put words in my head, but I wanted to give voice to this experience in such a way that it would be accessible to a general audience, which tends to be intimidated by verse space. I decided to write prose, and I proposed a monthly column of lyric reflections to a regional newspaper.

So there I was, writing about Nature each month, trying to express the amazing aliveness of the world around me, but also conscious of my readers: What would make the reflection most relevant, most meaningful to them? In "Butterfly Q and A," for instance, I started out writing about honeysuckle — that was what was calling to me at the time. Honeysuckle was in bloom, I was transfixed by the smell — but I also knew the column would appear in July, so I related it to Independence Day, an experience common to all my readers, so a connection between nectar and freedom emerged. Or with "Vigil." I'd been wanting to write about the stars for a while. As Columbus Day approached I thought, well, Columbus would have used the stars to navigate, so that's how I can link the two things together and make the reflection most meaningful to my readers. After four years, I had cycled through the seasons four times, addressing every major and minor event in the American experience: from Martin Luther King Day through Memorial Day and Labor Day, from Easter through Thanksgiving and Christmas, from Groundhog Day through Mother's Day and Halloween.

The seasonal progression became all the more apparent when I decided to record selections from the book as an MP3 audio download. I realized that Invitation to Wonder contained not one but five distinct themes, each of which can be experienced as we travel through the seasons. So this became A Journey through the Seasons, Celebrating the Journey, A Journey into the Cosmos, A Journey into Chesapeake Country and A Journey into Divine Presence. Then, when I decided to create a study guide for each audio; the series just naturally demanded to be called The Companion on the Journey Listening Guides. I give these away free with the audios. I had been resistant to the word "journey" at first — it's so overdone! But it seems to have been an inspired choice after all.

For an autographed copy of Elizabeth's Invitation to Wonder, post the best comment on the writing life.

Elizabeth Ayres is also the creator of Writing the Wave, Know the Way and her Center for Creative Writing is celebrating its 20th anniversary. Visit her at Invitation to Wonder.
 

    

Invitation to Wonder: A Writer's Journey

Invitation to Wonder

You never know who you'll meet through a Google search. I met award-winning newspaper columnist and Center for Creative Writing founder Elizabeth Ayres while researching great resources for writers. Since then, Elizabeth has written Invitation to Wonder: A Journey Through the Seasons. Here, she describes what prompted the book, and the help and emotional healing writing can bring. Read her first post in the series, and submit a comment or post on the positive effects of writing to Word for Words. The winning selection will be published on the blog and receive an autographed copy of Elizabeth's Invitation to Wonder.

AA: What prompted you to write the book?

Center for Creative Writing founder Elizabeth Ayres

EA: I grew up in southern Maryland. Our house stood on a bluff overlooking the Patuxent River just where it enters the Chesapeake Bay. I loved it as a child, but as a teenager I hated it. It was too remote, and there were family tensions I needed to escape, so I left when I was 17 and rarely returned. I lived most of my adult life in New York City, then in northern New Mexico. And all that time, I never really felt connected; I never really felt I had a home. I kept wandering around, lamenting my sad plight, the rootlessness, the alienation so prevalent in American society.

Finally, through a series of rather mysterious events, I moved back to where I'd grown up. The connection to the landscape of my childworld just gushed forth onto the page every time I sat down to write, and the more I wrote, the less estranged I felt, until I came to realize, I belong here in this place, I belong everywhere in the place called Earth. It was a powerful experience of healing for me, personally, and I think it's something we all need to cultivate. Intimacy with Nature's beauty, wisdom and mystery is the antidote to all our ills, really, because the feelings of awe Nature induces make us feel part of something larger. That's why I called the book Invitation to Wonder. I want my readers to step into the place where joy, amazement and insight meet as an ineffable response to the world around us.

To receive an autographed copy of Elizabeth's Invitation to Wonder: A Journey Through the Seasons post the best comment on the writing life.

Elizabeth Ayres is also the creator of Writing the Wave, Know the Way and two Sounds True audio albums, and her Center for Creative Writing is celebrating its 20th anniversary. She lives with two cats, and spends long hours walking shell-strewn Chesapeake Bay beaches, plucking words from the soft salt breeze. Visit her at Invitation to Wonder.

The Arrogance of Writing: New Author Talks Turkey About His Foray Into Writing

Former Fortune 40 exec Garrett Miller talks about the impetus for his new book, Hire on a WHIM: The Four Qualities that Make for Great Employees, on the qualities every job candidate must have and every hiring manager must look for. Read Garrett's surprising take on what pushed him to write and keep writing — successfully.

AA: With your extensive sales and training background, what got you started writing?

GM: Having time on my hands after a job change and starting a company [Garrett is president and CEO of CoTria, a productivity management firm] led me down a foreign path. I found myself with a very rare commodity — time. With this hopefully brief window of time, I decided I would write, and with excitement I poured the first of many cups of afternoon tea and stared. I had dozens of ideas and years of kinetic energy ready to be unleashed onto the keyboard. Then the doubts began to creep in, and my thoughts began to attack me. On what authority are you going to write? Who would ever read your book? Despite the doubts, I pressed on, knowing the creative process would be better than sitting idle — and to tell you the truth, I did think I had something of value to say.

AA: What was your next hurdle?

GM: Once I was committed to writing, my second obstacle was what I would say, and whether it was new and valuable in the marketplace.

GM: I enjoyed the process of discovering what I would write about. I pulled back my life's camera so that I was looking at my career from a 10,000-foot perspective and asked, "What did you do well, and what did others think you did well?" The answer came quickly — hiring. I hired terrific talent into the company, and others took notice as well. That was a great feeling. So, I had my subject matter; now what would I have to say?

AA: Sounds like the roller coaster all writers go through, but how did you figure that out?

GM: The next step took a few days of hard thinking, and that was figuring out why I hired well and why anyone would care. I began to unpack my experiences and looked for common threads that ran through each of my hires. I still remember sitting alone in a restaurant waiting for my client and just writing down ideas and qualities. I rearranged my thoughts, rewrote them and then boiled them down to four words. Then I played with the words, found synonyms and rearranged them until I had a cleaver acronym — WHIM. It was at this point that my book was born. I had direction and purpose, and a foundation on which to build. Most important was a new-found confidence in my subject matter — that it was new and valuable. Now I could write with confidence.

AA: That's hugely encouraging for any writer — fiction or nonfiction. But the title of this post — which is your title — is the "arrogance" of writing. What do you mean that?

GM: I still found myself amazed at the arrogance needed to write as a "subject matter expert." When I doubted my expertise, I began to bounce my ideas off people I respected. I listened and watched as they heard and processed my ideas. Most of the time a smile would slowly form on their faces as I described my concepts, and then they would give a nod of agreement. What I valued most was when they challenged my ideas and I had to defend them. It was in the successful defense of my subject that I truly grew in confidence. I was energized by these conversations and reconverted to the subject matter expert I needed to be in order to write with assurance.

AA: That's one of the most encouraging things a writer could hear, especially in an age of easy rejection. What advice would you give to other aspiring authors?

GM: Once you set out on this glorious task of writing, be convinced of your subject and the creative process of writing. If you begin to lose your swagger, call on your friends and respected colleagues. Be reinvigorated through lively discussion and debate about your subject matter, and then return, born anew.

Garrett Miller is a Word for Words, LLC, feature author, productivity expert and instructor. His Hire on a WHIM is a must-read for job seekers and hiring personnel. Read more about the book at the Editor's Bookshelf. The book is also available at Amazon, at Hire on a WHIM: The Four Qualities that Make for Great Employees.