Abstract
A university employee, Nancy, recently brought to me an idea for a nonfiction book about coping with thyroid cancer.In remission and awaiting word on her latest diagnostic scan, Nancy began our tutorial by excitedly reviewing the many and sometimes amusing lessons about life and family she had learned from her ordeal.As she explained, the book gave her a chance to explore her long-dormant writing skills, work on a project worthy of her time, and pass along what she had learned to other cancer victims.Her personal investment in the project was high, and the intensity with which she listened to my every word of encouragement and advice certainly raised the stakes for me.As we discussed where to begin and the book's potential commercial appeal, I felt edgy and alert -a condition heightened by Nancy's sudden jumps from idea to idea.I wanted to offer support but not build false hope, so I tried to balance any assurance that she had good ideas with a realistic assessment.She asked hard questions about working in a mixed genre -in her case, autobiography combined with elements of a "how-to" manual that might eventually become a sort of humorous Chicken Soup for the Cancer Survivors Soul.Some of her questions I simply could not answer, in part because many of her ideas remained half-formed and success would hinge on her persistence and writing ability.But I improvised suggestions based on some experience with creative nonfiction, a slight familiarity with "how-to" books, and secondhand knowledge of cancer-survival stories.Nancy left our ninety-minute brainstorming session with an attitude of eager determination to continue working.As good sessions sometimes do, this one left me feeling used up but exhilarated -an intellectual version of runner's high.
- Journal
- Writing Center Journal
- Published
- 2007
- DOI
- 10.7771/2832-9414.1615
- CompPile
- Search in CompPile ↗
- Open Access
- OA PDF Gold
- Topics
- Export
- BibTeX RIS
Citation Context
Cited by in this index (0)
No articles in this index cite this work.
Cites in this index (0)
No references match articles in this index.
Related Articles
-
Written Communication Oct 2025Popularization Writing Skills Development: A Longitudinal Case Study of the Writing Process and Writing Outcomes in Nine Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Students ↗Florentine Marnel Sterk; Merel van Goch; Michael Burke; Iris van der Tuin
-
Pedagogy Oct 2025modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism genre theory cultural rhetorics first-year composition writing pedagogy advanced composition creative writing writing across the curriculum graduate education two-year college service learning teacher development technical communication professional writing labor and working conditions archival research multimodality artificial intelligence literacy studies race and writing gender and writing disability studies literary studies editorial matter
-
Assessing Writing Jan 2025A meta-analysis of relationships between syntactic features and writing performance and how the relationships vary by student characteristics and measurement features ↗Jiali Wang; Young-Suk G. Kim; Joseph Hin Yan Lam; Molly Ann Leachman
-
Assessing Writing Oct 2024Effects of a genre and topic knowledge activation device on a standardized writing test performance ↗Natalia Ávila Reyes; Diego Carrasco; Rosario Escribano; María Jesús Espinosa; Javiera Figueroa; Carolina Castillo
-
Research in the Teaching of English May 2024College Composition Graduate Instructors’ Development of Conceptual and Practical Tools for Responding to Student Writing ↗Carolyn Wisniewski