Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor by
Lynda Barry
My rating:
5 of 5 stars
I first sought out Barry's comics years ago because Filipina! Okay, part-Filipina but enough to hook me with a panel of an elderly woman, sitting on a couch with one elbow resting on her raised knee, declaring "Ay, nako!" But
Syllabus was my first encounter with one of Barry's artistic how-to books. It's a compilation of syllabi, courses, and exercises she's used in the various classes she teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Other artistic how-to books emphasize the importance of play, but this is the first one I've read that has shown me exactly how to leverage that idea. Barry's thesis is that when we were drawing or writing as children, the last thing on our minds was whether or not we were creating works of art; at least in my case, she's right. And thus, I get something extremely valuable from this book: a method for RE-training myself to suspend any judgement at all about writing as I'm writing. (That stuff is for editing and polishing later.)
Syllabus gets 5 stars because after a mere two weeks, the exercises within--more or less in practice; definitely in principle--have already yielded dividends as far as filling some of the gaps in my writing practice that I've been struggling with since the day I started. I can feel the techniques reshaping my artistic process the way I used to feel muscles being shaped while working out (another experience I haven't had in awhile), and it feels great!
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