Maybe Take The Easy Path

Occasionally, people will say things about me in my hearing. Things like, "I'm sure Stephanie took lots of creative writing classes after high school." It's usually a mother trying to encourage their nearly-grown child, and they're using me as an instant example because I'm sitting right there.

At that point, I look like a lemon that has been summoned instead of a demon. My face puckers up, and I look sour. I avert my eyes.

Sometimes, the mom doesn't notice that I've gone curiously silent. Other times, she notices, does a double take, and suddenly realizes that she doesn't know if what she just said is right. She turns to me and says something like, "You took advanced English courses in university, right?"

I answer by looking at the ceiling, waffling my hand, and hoping that I've hedged the question merely by looking uncomfortable.

Finally, the mother gets in my face. "What did you take in university?" she asks.

And I'm forced to admit the truth. "I have never taken a university course. I've worked in universities, but I've never taken a class in one."

"Why not?" she demands. "You're an intellectual!"

If she wanted to insult me, she didn't have to be so mean about it. I put up my hands in surrender. "I am not an intellectual. Yes, I had my own office in a university. Yes, students clamored to get my attention, but I went to college, not university. I always thought it was backward for me to pay a university for their expertise. What has always made more sense to me was that they should pay for my expertise."

Now, the arrogance of this is astronomical. I am aware of that. What I've just said to the mother has irritated her immensely, but she's not done interrogating me.

"So, how did you learn to become a writer?" she presses.

I look at her funny. "No one teaches anyone how to become a writer any more than anyone teaches another person how to wash dishes. It's not like no instruction is needed. People need to be taught the basics of both things, but the thing stopping someone from writing is the same thing that is stopping them from doing the dishes. They want to do something else. Someone can be smart and not be a writer. Someone can be creative and not be a writer. All someone needs to do to become a writer is to write and never stop. They want their writing done the way people want to do the dishes. That's it."

"So, you didn't take any creative writing classes?" the mother asks, her shoulders down in disappointment.

Usually, this is where I let the conversation end. She gets back to encouraging her child like a limp balloon, and I start inspecting the blotches on the ceiling. There are always ceiling blotches, like clouds you can assign shapes to when the conversation lags.

The truth is that I want to get right up in that woman's face and tell her what I really think. I didn't scratch the surface because that woman doesn't have the time to hear what I really think. I'm not sure anyone does. Quick answers are on the menu every single day in every single conversation.

The long answer is that people who benefit from a class need one of the following things:

Support

The theory is that being around other people doing the same thing is helpful. It's a theory.

Creative types like to keep the fact that they're super competitive a secret. They don't want to admit that they want all the praise, love, and glory that could come from their art. That's why they do it. They want to be praised and adored by their peers as well as their instructor, but this may not be the best system for creating that feeling for all parties. If we're talking about romantic love (instead of artistic appreciation), you want a friend who goes for different men than you. You don't want a friend who's in love with the same guy. She's not your friend. So, if you write, you want a friend who is a painter. Get another friend who is a musician. We need all the different cutie marks on the flanks of our friends. If we've got a quill tattooed to our bottoms, we need ballerina slippers or cake pops on our friends. These people will be more supportive than other writers will ever be. You don't compete with your friends who are chasing after different dreams. You simply enjoy their talents and have fun when a chance comes for you to add your artistic contribution to the mix.

It's been my experience that other writers want you to fail, and writers are better at tricking you into believing they wish you well than other creative types. They write the dialogue for the villain as well as the hero.

Accountability

This one isn't a theory. Some people need deadlines to finish their work. The deadline helps them work better. If they're left to their own devices, they'll never finish anything. However, a writer needs to consider this aspect of school as if it were a pair of training wheels. One day, they're going to find the wheels gone, and they'll have to make themselves write the thing with no supervision. If they need a deadline, they need to learn to make their own deadline. This is the reason why New Year's Eve and New Year's Day are important days in a lot of people's lives. Their goals are centered around New Year's Day as an END DAY. It is also the reason why a lot of clever people don't get their stuff done. There's no pressure, so they don't make themselves. If this is your problem, a class that ends after a few months is only a band-aid solution.

Instruction

I always find this aspect to be extremely funny. It's like, "Didn't you already go to school? Aren't you learning more about writing every time you pick up a book? What are you hoping to get from the teacher? They can't write the book for you."

Aside from grammatical rules, I am profoundly against taking instruction on how to write. There are plenty of writing practices in very popular and classical fiction that are ineffective and not worth repeating. Not only that, but as people change the way they absorb media (including their reading), the old way may not be the best way. Thus, taking creative writing classes from someone who wrote their books in the 1980s may not be the fastest ticket to actually getting readers.

Not only that, but sometimes you're supposed to break established rules when you write. It makes you stand out.

Evaluation

This is about hearing feedback from the teacher. That is supposed to be a good thing in helping you weed out bad practices in your writing, but is it?

The teacher is actually not a good person to take writing feedback from. For starters, they are almost always people who have not succeeded well at their own writing, which makes them jealous of people who write well. They may be the most dangerous person in the room for putting you down because they have the authority and they've tried and failed themselves. The other students in the class may not be your friends, but they're not jaded by a system that has already shot them down.

Secondly, most people who read for pleasure do not have anything in common with the creative writing teacher. What will appeal to a mass audience and that teacher are totally different things. You don't have to impress the creative writing teacher as if they hold the key to your future. They don't. In fact, taking their advice may ruin the good things that came to you naturally as they attempt to make you follow standards to turn you into everyone else.

Before I leave the topic of evaluation, I'd like to address people who have a sixth love language--grades. Some people get a flush of love from the grading system. They got an A. That's how they know they are a good person. That's how they get their love. Frankly, this thought disturbs me. If people are going to feel that way about it, it makes me want to give everyone an A so that they don't go home with an unworthy haze hanging over their heads. However, the A loses its power as soon as it's distributed to everyone. The value lies in comparison. They want to be better than other people. That's what the A really means.

Credibility

Finishing classes and getting certificates, diplomas, or degrees in something might look good for a minute, but it might not continue to look good if you can't turn it into money. If you break your neck (and your bank) at a fancy university and then fail to turn it into a career, I think that would be really embarrassing. Depending on how you got the money to pay for those classes, it might be excruciatingly embarrassing.

I took the other path, and I got yelled at a lot. I got yelled at in my guidance counsellor's office in high school because I was too smart for college, and he didn't want to sign the papers. Then, I got yelled at by the professors in college who thought I was too intelligent for their classes. Then I was yelled at again by students at the universities I worked at who wanted to know where I got my degree and were broken to their cores when I explained I didn't have one and didn't need one because there were people who worked under me who made less money than me who had university degrees.

Instead, I live in a world where people assume that I have that degree when I don't. I get the credibility when I didn't do the classes.

Then, there is another sad aspect to this that must be addressed. When I work really hard on a novel, it doesn't get anywhere near the same praise as something I bounced off my knee. There is almost a rule that the less work I put into something, the more successful it will be. Sometimes, I wonder if there is any correlation between effort and reward. Sometimes, I'm utterly convinced that there isn't. This idea makes academics crazy. They believe there should be. Work should bring a reward. More work equals a better reward.

I'm not convinced life works that way.

But one thing is for sure--if you go do your dishes, they'll be done. The reward for doing them may take different shapes. It may be that the reward is nothing greater than that you have clean dishes at your next meal (that's the result of work). It may be that your mother pops by without warning, and she's impressed you're so responsible (that's luck). In writing, it may be that your desire to create has been satiated (that's work), or it may be that it's an international bestseller (that's luck).