I hate my "creative" writing class.

[icarus]

I hate my creative writing class.

For me, it's an experience of stultifying any sense of creativity in order to fit the definitions of "literature." (Be sure to say that with nasal, snotty voice.) The textbooks are great, but every time I have a real issue or question -- there's no help.

Use music. Great idea, I do it all the time.

Write every day or you'll find it suddenly difficult to write, yes, no shit, but everyone falls off, so it's better to get into how to pick yourself up again.

Only good writers have writer's block -- value judgement, bullshit detector goes off.

Do a sensory journal to get into the details of how you experience things ... that's a good way to get away from telling and not showing, perhaps I'll try it, but I don't want to write my life. My life is either boring or terrifying and horrible, depending on when you pick it up. I've only two people in my life who's been able to get through a retelling of the "highlights" of my life, and one of them is wildernessguru.

I don't want to do the exercises, I don't want to write what he tells me to, and I can't stand the arrogant dismissiveness I have to put up with towards "genre" fiction.

I don't think the teacher is very good and because I had a brilliant teacher at my previous school I do know the difference. I could talk to my teacher at my other school about writer's block, and he'd say something profound, tell me a story from his writing experiences where he built a house because "sometimes you can't force it." He said he doesn't believe in writer's block, writer's block is just a name we put on a variety of other issues.

I talk to this teacher and he, well, he doesn't have any ideas. "I don't know what to do about that," he says.

You don't tell a student a simple I don't know, because what you're really saying is I don't care. Because if you cared, you'd at least say, "Let me think about it."

I feel like I'm wasting my time.

When's that cyberculture class again? I'm not taking the Creative Writing track at the college anyway.

Comments

[slashophile.livejournal.com]

That bites. Reminds me of my creative writing class in high school. I never wanted to do the projects b/c it's honestly hard for me when someone says "okay, here's what you're going to write about...".

Also? There's something about teaching creative writing that just doesn't sound right.

P.S., whenever I see spiders I think of you. No, that's not a bad thing.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

So in your honor, when I wrote my next Creative Writing assignment (which had to be an anecdote) I wrote about that spider. :)

[slashophile.livejournal.com]

Awwww, I do feel honored! I hope you received a good mark on it. :)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

No grades on the exercises, just on the story portfolio. We'll see what he thought of it on Tuesday.

Icarus

[slashophile.livejournal.com]

Oooh, okay. :) You must let me know, it has to be divine. :D

[cheshyre]

How badly will the instructor choke if you say that "literary" fiction and/or "mainstream" fiction are just different genres, no better/worse/harder/easier than SF/mysteries/westerns/romance?

Unfortunately, academic writing departments often sniff at genre fiction. I was told that when I got my undergrad (class of '91) and I thought things were getting better, but in academia, progress is slow.

No advice, but sympathy.
Good luck on the cyberculture class!

[cheshyre]

A comment my husband made elsewhere seems relevant regarding genre fiction: http://matociquala.livejournal.com/919954.html?thread=14707346#t14707346

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

He'd shit bricks. *sighs* But what can you expect of a definition that self-serving?

It's too late for me to switch, and part of why I'm doing creative writing this quarter is to keep the workload light and the cyberculture class has jargon as thick as Spivak's unwarranted jargon.

I'm just gonna be patient and hang in there. He is using a great textbook.

Icarus

[rike-tikki-tavi.livejournal.com]

I didn't say anything the last time that teacher said something stupid because you still seemed pretty excited about this class and I didn't want to harsh your buzz, but I really don't like this guy. First the back and forth with allowing you to bring your NaNoWriMo into class or not and then his snob thing with literary fiction. Maybe you have different definitions in the U.S. but to me any prose is literature, just some of it isn't very good. And the genre doesn't tell you anything about the quality of a piece of writing. *growls* And now this. It seems that you have gotten one of those guys, that proof the old cliché of Those, who can write write and those who can't teach. Sorry.

Would I help with the sensory diary by telling you, that I've just tasted the most divine cheese ever?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

What they've done at UW is stick the entry level Creative Writing classes with the TAs. So, he's not all that experienced as a teacher and I'm not seeing any evidence he's experienced as a writer. At least he doesn't know how to answer my questions so far.

I can't get over the irony that my little community college had far more consistently good teachers than the university. (There are good teachers at UW, but it's shaky.) The journalism teacher was the real thing. The creative writing teacher was a published poet. The anthropology teacher spent huge amounts of time on digs in central America. The philosophy teacher was utterly open-minded at the same time she challenged all systems of belief. The linguistics teacher had a passel of Ph.D.s and was about as tough as, oh, Rodney McKay, and twice as gleeful about making you work.

But back to my teacher... his textbook is great and maybe the class will improve.

Icarus

[fractalreality.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine transferred to a different course because of a similar reason; accepted on the basis of her amazing portfolio for her degree course, told she was a brilliant writer by lecturers ... but, they gave her lower marks than she deserved because her own style did not conform to a particular class lecture.

I've always believed that if somebody is a brilliant writer, help them out with guidelines and planning advice, not try and change their actual style, tends to be disasterous.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna limp my way through this class and see if I can learn as much as possible from the textbook as possible. *sighs*

Icarus

[enname.livejournal.com]

Fucker. I know your teacher isn't any good because he isn't actually teaching anything. Just sitting there and giving you drivel that is proscribed, but with no tailoring, no interest and a whole bunch of prejudices he has brought to the table. He also really needs to stop wanking himself over 'literature'. Pity so many people seem to share it - there was an entire section in one of our newspapers today devoted to the overthrow of literature by 'genre'. Whatever.

Sounds about as creativity inspiring as letter stuffing. In fact you might get more out of that just because letters do not actively try to squash the skills you already have.

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

Wow! I haven't done any creative writing for a class since yr 12, but I actually wrote sci fi and got a good mark. Course they also offered scifi and fantasy as units in English at my school.

That sucks! I mean the class sounds kinda silly.

I tend to think writers block is your muse not going where you want it to. Which is why it pops up when assignments are involved...or money. :P

[impetuousoddity.livejournal.com]

Damn, your teacher sounds like he's taking notes from some I've had.

But those tips you gave, I wish I'd known about some of them sooner. I haven't written in over a year. I still have scenarios in my head, but I can't put them down anywhere.

I think talking to your old prof is a good idea. i hit up some of my old ones and they're just overflowing with ideas. Plus it's a trusted source; you wouldn't still be in contact with them if you didn't respect their opinions.

IMP

[theemdash]

I'm so sorry you're having such a bum CRW class. I was lucky enough to never have a really bum teacher. I had one teacher who wasn't as good as the others, but she at least cared. The class had a lot of trouble during workshops and she had trouble leading workshops, so usually I'd start talking and ask a question about the piece to get the workshop rolling, but she thanked me for running the workshops and admitted that wasn't her strong suit.

Despite the fact that I didn't learn a lot from her, she really cared about the class and about making it as good of an experience as she could make it. (Plus I learned quite a bit from reading this one guy's work—Jeremiah Greaves. He's a little shy with his work and if he can get over that he's going to be insanely famous.)

You're not wasting your time if you're writing. Even if you're being told "how to write literary," you're learning something new. What you may be learning is "I don't want to write like this."

One of the things I learned from writing classes is that I hate writing assignments like "Where were you last night?" But I loved writing a 2-page sentence—part of the challenge of that was to come up with a scenario to write about that would fit the breathlessness of a 2-page sentence. (Also it was for nonfiction which was even harder.)

Good luck. And again, I'm sorry you've got such a bum teacher.

[irisisme]

If I were you as a writer from custom writing company suggests I'd either change the class or my attitude. But the former is a better way-out. You can always find some better classes. Nowdays you can even join an online class (they are awesome) or join some groups. There's lots of possibilities. If you don't like it - don't waste your time on it.