Flip a coin: go to creative writing class or not?

[icarus]

So, I can't switch classes, it's too late in the year. The textbook of my creative writing class is great.

I'll limp along somehow. I'll follow theemdash's excellent advice and get in touch my old creative writing professor, so what advice he has for me. Beg him to let me go to his class instead even if it's in a different school.

As for today... I sat down to write a story for sga_flashfic, and the experience was a little like being a surfboard, riding a wave, and then having someone (sounding suspiciously like my current Creative Teacher) yell, "Hey! You're at a 30-degree angle!"

*wipes out*

It's all the analysis, analysis, and analysis we're doing in class. In this textbook we're following (it's edited from transcripts of an actual class that my creative writing teacher attended) the teacher makes the entire class a creative process. But what we do is read the textbook and study it, analyze the stories we wrote, analyze the textbook and all the creativity they're doing in there, process, process --- AAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH.

I want to be in the textbook teacher's class. Not the one I'm in. The one where he's inspiring and challenging, and has us tell stories verbally, then has us visualize the moments in our stories.

But I'm not in that class. I'm in the class where we watch what a great class did from the sidelines. And talk about it.

It's the dead discussion that killing my writing.

*flips a coin*

Shall I call in sick?

Comments

[cheshyre]

Is this the kind of teacher who would accept "I was inspired by my muse and so caught up in my story that I didn't want to interrupt the flow" as an excuse?

Also, what's the textbook? Is it a commercially published book or something internal to the university?

[batdina.livejournal.com]

there's nothing more painful than a bad creative writing class. I'm sorry to hear yours has deteriorated.

any way to show up and do what you want without having to participate?

[amalthia]

I'd drop the class if I hated it that much, unless I needed the hours for finanical aid...in which case I'd skip as much as possible and do what's required to make a passing grade but that's about it.

I'm sorry your creative writing class is sucking so bad. :( Hugs.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I need it for the hours, so I have no choice. I'm going to turn in my anecdote and tell him I'm not feeling well and go home, I think. I've been coughing for seven weeks and he knows that.

Or something. I don't know. I'm at the point where I want to talk to someone in the creative writing department to see what my options are.

Icarus

[ursula]

The coughing bit sounds like me before a year on inhaled steroids. Mmmm, steroids.

[ncp.livejournal.com]

You analyze... creativity? There's an oxymoron in there somewhere...

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

What was it from? I'm so utterly sick of coughing.

I went anyway, and I'm doing the exercises he wants me to do. What the hell. It can't hurt in the long run, right? I said in class (because everyone's kinda frustrated) "Look, it's okay if you suck, or if trying this kills the story and what you usually do. Just do it as an exercise, to try it out. It's okay to suck."

That said... he told the class today to avoid adverbs. *rolls eyes* He used the example of:

"I hate you!" he said angrily.

I gave another example:

"I hate you," he said softly.

There the adverb colors the verb.

He paused, blinked, said, "Colors is a good way of phrasing it, well... okay... but it should be apparent from the rest of the story that this is his attitude and...."

But I just don't believe in these hard and fast rules. He said the adverbs were often used as a shortcut in writing, but I think what really needs to be avoided is extraneous crap that doesn't drive the story forward. If you tell people "avoid adverbs" they'll just go into their heads and avoid adverbs, but stand so far outside the story as to never get into it.

Let's face it: the class sucks. No matter how nice or understanding I try to be, it's a terrible class and it's going to be a struggle to get anything out of it.

Icarus

[ursula]

Previously undiagnosed asthma. I never had all that much trouble with wheezing, but when I got sick I went on coughing forever, to the point where my chest hurt because I'd been coughing constantly, and I spent a lot of time just feeling lethargic and unmotivated.

Alternatively, sometimes if you've been sick for a long time you're at the point where the coughing is irritating your lungs by itself. In this case they'll just give you cough syrup (often the strong stuff, laced with codeine) and send you away.

Either way, you can go to the Health Center one time a term for free (your student activity fee pays for that-- I don't know what your deal is with insurance & medication, but they're usually pretty helpful about prescribing generic drugs). You can get an instant appointment by saying the words "chest pain", though that's sort of overkill.

[tonicollins.livejournal.com]

I don't think this guy could be creative if his life depended on it. The whole it should be apparent from the rest of the story that this is his attitude is just weird. Words are going to be needed to show his attitude be it via an adverb (nice and quick) or long harlequinesque sentences. Has this guy taught this class before? It's like he's reading from a script and will self-combust if he deviates from it.

[legionseagle.livejournal.com]

The Verey shells burst in jagged sparks over No-Man's Land, illuminating the shattered landscape in sharp bursts of green lightning. Carruthers, stumbling out of the dug-out into the trench, tapped the look-out on the shoulder.

"All serene?" he enquired. From low down away to the east came a continuous rumble of artillery. Pte Smithers jerked his head in the direction of the sound.

"Poor bloody adverbs copping it again, sir. The Crit Boys haven't let up the barrage since I came on duty. HE, gas, sarcasm - there's not nothing they haven't chucked at 'em. Sir."

Before Carruthers could respond Gaveston came stumbling out of the communications trench, white-faced. "News from down the line, sir. The passive voice took the full brunt of last night's assault. They say it's been practically wiped out in the American sector and they doubt the construction can hold up anywhere else for much longer."

Carruthers set his teeth. He went back into the armoury. They were running desperately short of ammunition. They had gone into this war hopelessly unprepared; some parts of speech already obsolete, few of them trained in their use, so demoralising had been the long years when the country had slumbered, and only a few lone, despised voices dared to challenge the orthodoxy of Creative Writing.

He touched, as a man touches a sacred relic, Onion's Advanced English Syntax, rescued from the flames when the barbarian hordes had taken the Bodleian Library. He flinched in memory as he relived the scene when the Regius Professor of Creative Writing had snatched the first edition Pride and Prejudice (the last in England) from the shelves, and with two or three triumphant strokes of a blue pencil recast its opening sentence to conform with current orthodoxy. "The human race acknowledges that a single man who possesses a good fortune must need a wife."

Carruthers set his teeth, snatched up their last remaining stocks of adjectives, and dived out into the trench again, determined to defend his position to the last man.

[hilarita.livejournal.com]

Shall I call in sick?

Only if you don't have to have a certain level of attendance.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

LOLOLOLOLOL!

You're brilliant, just brilliant. It's 2am, and I think I may have startled the cat. May I quote you? Please? *wanders off, chuckling*

*rereads*

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I'm still laughing.

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Heh. Probably not, though I could probably be late for class and say that.

The textbook is wonderful.

Butler, Robert Olen. From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction. First Grove Paperbacks (c)2005.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Totally doable, though I'm one of those people that can't help but participate. ;)

[legionseagle.livejournal.com]

Quote away, provided you have Gaveston "emerging from" the communications trench" not "scrambling out "of it. I noticed the duplication once I'd posted, but you can't edit comments.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

"Aye, aye, Captain!" Icarus salutes smartly.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Do you know how much you've helped me? Between the short-term loan info that bailed me out of trouble when financial aid vanished this summer, and now this? Thank you.

I have allergies. I'll bet the coughing, being sick three weeks, and the the lingering phlegm from my usual allergies are all playing a role.

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

He's so young. He's so wet-behind-the-ears he practically leaves a puddle under his chair.

I get the impression that the main problem is his uncertainty and inexperience. Based on the textbook he chose he wants to break out of the mold but he's not sure of himself.

Actually, I think I've mishandled him. I think we'll get more and more creativity from him if I'm gentler, more encouraging.

It helps that he's adorable. Sparkly green eyes. If you're going to have a frustrating teacher, at least he's eye candy.

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

It's a little counterproductive. I feel better today: his next assignment is for us to watch a movie and pick a scene to describe in writing. Now that's creative.

Also, the sparkly green eyes? Make up for a lot. :D

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

A goodly portion of my grade is participation, so I made myself go.

Icarus

[ursula]

Hey, stick around a place long enough, you learn stuff . . .

Mmmm, allergies, suck. I actually don't have allergies-- I'm just oversensitive to stuff like chalk dust (which is kinda funny, being a TA and all). But my boyfriend does, and we've also found out that the health center pharmacy has really, really good prices on Loratidine (generic Claritin).

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

:-( I wish it were going better for you. That should be the *fun* class, even if it's a lot of work.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

At least I like my creative writing teacher. Maybe most creative writing classes are like this?

Icarus

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

I have no idea. The only creative writing class I ever had was in high school. The teacher had published a sort of "film noire" type of novel (I'm not really sure what to call it), and he was very proud of this. He spent a lot of class time reading aloud to us from his novel to show us examples of "good" writing. *g*

I'm sorry that your class sucks, though.

lyraeinne was on the waitlist for the creative writing class at her school this past semester so she got to go to the first few classes, and she thought it was fantastic. I'm not really sure why. She didn't get in, though. I hope she does next semester, because I'm pretty sure she's going to choose that for her major (creative writing & English or possibly philosophy).