Undoing my "creative" writing class.

[icarus]

Dear f-list,

I need your advice.

A month ago I finished a creative writing class. The class went very, very badly, and I don't think I need to go into details now since I've spent many posts describing it.

What I need your help on is the after-effects of the class and limiting the damage on my writing. The symptoms are as follows:

From the antagonistic and undermining comments of the teacher (such as the classic, *snort* "and you wanted to NaNoWriMo...") I'm struggling with a separation between myself and the story, killing it with over-criticism before it can be written. How do I get rid of that?

From the heavy-handed "rules" orientation of the class, rules that I had to follow in order to survive the class with my grade intact, I'm now hyper-aware of "adverbs," and to a lesser extent, "summary," and "visual detail" in such a way that it's distracting and hard for me to finish a first draft without killing it. How do I remove those three months of training?

From the personal animosity he directed at me and at science fiction, I feel defensive and on the spot, focused on whether a story is "good" instead of just enjoying it as I have in the past. How do I counteract that oversensitivity to audience reaction? I've always written for the reader -- my first stories were oral, told to my friends as I made them up.

He did a lot of damage, more than I realized, and I'm not sure how to shake off the negativity.

Frankly, based on how he treated us, I have to assume that he's really not that good of a writer. How can he be, if this is any indication of how he squeezes out a story? If this is what he does to himself... *shudders* When I talked to him he had no writing projects going except for a creative writing thesis that he hadn't begun.

That's not a writer. That's someone who's "learned to write" and has found they "are good at it."

A writer needs to write. A writer can't stop the stories nibbling at their toes, or else they're bemoaning about writer's block and wanting to write. Or else they're stalled in that monolithic story.

I feel like I have had some sealant poured over my skin and I can't breathe.

There are several stories starving for lack of oxygen at the moment:

- A Christmas fic called "Silent Night" where John plays guitar for his team under the stars on an alien world

- The latter half of a story where John sleeps his way through half the Pegasus galaxy and the dire consequences come home to roost

- The next scene of Out Of Bounds, where John and Rodney make dinner and play

They're scratching and clawing to get out, they have complete outlines and they're started, but I can't seem to give them air.

Comments

[millefiori.livejournal.com]

As filenotch says, the sort of writing he describes is the sort that bores me to tears. Adverbs and summary and visual detail don't matter if the story's got you by the throat and you think you're going to die if you don't find out what happens next right now! And that's the kind of story you write.

I think your teacher was antagonistic towards you because you made him feel threatened--here you are, someone who's actually writing and loving it, while he's...not. And to add insult to injury, you're not even properly embarrassed by writing sci fi. *rolls eyes* When someone has got me doubting myself like this, I'll ask myself if that's the kind of person I want to be. If he's not the kind of person you want to be--if he's not the kind of writer you want to be--then I think his opinions and advice can be ignored. There are a million ways to write, and the fact that someone hired him to teach a writing class doesn't mean his way is the right way.

I don't have any advice other than to write (or tell the story into a recorder and transcribe later). When I'm killing creativity with criticism I stop it by promising myself I'll come back and fix every awful thing...later, when it's all done. If I have to I'll make a note to myself so I won't forget the awful thing, and that's usually enough to quiet the critic so I can get on with it.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I found the stories he asked us to produce as Dry. As. Dust.

Part of why he was antagonistic towards me is that he was really against "genre." He spent half a class period reading statements from our forum that opposed my position on genre, validating anyone who disagreed with me as the "kosher" view.

I learned later that he runs a Zine that is anti-genre.

I'll ask myself if that's the kind of person I want to be.

That's great advice. Even I disagreed with someone I wouldn't use my position as the teacher as a bully pulpit and I don't respect him as a writer. He seemed too confused when I talked about things like "research" on stories. Frankly, the only think that I would want to copy is his skill in running discussion.

Icarus