Read my latest flash, Venison, at 52|250.

I know that a lot of writers and other artists read this blog, so I’ve decided to begin offering a prompt every Friday just in case any of you find yourselves stuck over the weekend. You’re welcome to post your responses in the comments, on your own blog, or anywhere you can imagine.

Here’s the first prompt:

Go somewhere where you usually turn right. Turn left instead. Use all available senses to report on what you witness and experience there.

Over at Peony Moon, Michelle posted a quote from Judith Ortiz Cofer about waking up at 5 am every day to write. The title refers to ritual, but the passage itself talks about discipline, which got me wondering: when it comes to writing, what if anything is the difference between ritual and discipline?

I suspect that it is discipline which brings us to ritual, discipline which makes a writer wake up early (or, in my case, postpone bedtime or wine). The act of writing itself is, however, ritual: whatever method we select for recording words becomes the rite by which we alter our consciousness and enter into the state known as writing or revising. Discipline brings us to this observance which may or may not be worship, yet the ritual (if it is successful) reinforces the discipline. In other words, the act of writing gives birth to itself (or, what is ultimately the same thing) to the desire for it.

Recent online authorial meltdowns over less-than-stellar reviews have brought me back to the question of what the appropriate way for an author to respond to a review is. I still remember my high school journalism teacher telling us that when someone wrote a letter criticizing our work we should print it without comment and trust readers to be intelligent enough to decide for themselves if the critique was fair. There is something appealing in applying that idea to book reviews—an appeal to our better selves and to what we as authors hope for in an audience.

That said, book reviews occur in a different context from letters to the editor: whereas the latter are read by someone who has already chosen to pick up the paper, the former may influence the choice to pick up the book (though a book that receives negative reviews will probably sell more copies than a book that isn’t reviewed at all: name familiarity does play a role). Thus, it may be a bit more reasonable for an author to respond to a review that they feel is unfair or untrue.

But what are the bounds of an acceptable response?

1. Debate the points made by the critic, not the critic’s status or authority. Alice Hoffman asked who Roberta Silman was. I’ve had someone respond to a negative review of one of his poems by saying that I’d never written a memorable line of poetry in my life, which if true wouldn’t have had any impact on whether my critique of his work was fair. These sort of maneuvers don’t advance the discussion and are a sort of silencing: don’t go after me, or I’ll use my higher status to hurt you.
2. Don’t encourage other people to join in attacking the critic. This is a variant of the status argument: I will hurt you by bringing other people (my fans, since I’m more popular than you are) to say nasty things. No matter how thick your skin, it takes time to go through a deluge of emails, phone calls, or even blog comments.
3. If you feel the need to rant, do so but it in private. Have a friend you can complain to, preferably over a glass of whiskey. If this friend can double as someone to check your public response for constructiveness, that’s even better. Ranting can help get it out of your system, but screaming at people doesn’t help advance the conversation about literature.

What other guidelines should an author who responds to a review follow? Or do you think writers should never reply?

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Visiting or looking at pictures of other gardens and reading other poems isn’t just about getting ideas for what to plant or how to arrange the seed-words. It’s about learning to identify weeds sooner (by elimination or by name) so that they can be transplanted somewhere where they aren’t weeds (worked on in another poem) or disposed of before they strangle other idea-plants.

This may seem more essential for gardens since growing seasons are bound by frost. In fact, poems have growing seasons too. A writer can lose touch with material for emotional or practical reasons. The initial impulse may be forgotten or superseded by other ideas.

Nonetheless, the end of the season does not mean that the failed garden plot or poem is doomed to remain barren forever. Spring always returns and, with enough patience, the poem’s growing season may as well.

Nothing created or (what is ultimately the same) arranged by a human is as certain as the seasons.

Tomorrow I’ll be re-seeding parts of my garden.

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