The Romantic Myth Of The Solitary Writer

Jejak PandaHallo Jumpa Lagi Kita Di Blog Ini
judi ceme terpercaya

            What’s been on my mind all week to write about is a sort of sad and sort of funny interaction I had with a high school student this past Saturday at Open House, which I’ve worked for the last three years because I really like meeting the incoming freshmen and talking to them about majoring in English.

            Despite all the talk of declining interest in the English major, we got good foot traffic at our table, and only one student who said her dad would kill her if he saw her talking to us.

            Students expressed interest in many things, but many wanted to talk about careers, the teaching profession, and creative writing.

            The young man who made such an odd impression upon me was one who wanted to talk about creative writing.  The conversation took place toward the end of the morning, when most students and their parents had cleared out and headed to find lunch.  The student approached the table slowly, and I asked him if he was interested in English.  He said yes, but almost reluctantly.  When I asked him what aspects of the field he was interested in, he said “creative writing,” but he said it even more reluctantly than before.  I handed him some information on our Creative Writing Concentration, which he accepted, but then he said to me, “You see, the masalah is, I don’t think it can be taught.”  I wasn’t surprised by this.  In fact, I know when I was much younger that I subscribed to the same romantic myth—that creative writing was something people were only able to do well by the sake of some mystical and supernatural process of divine inspiration.

            I have a student now who strongly ascribes to this belief, and I have made it my private mission this semester to provide sufficient evidence to the contrary to disabuse him of this notion.  I recently shared with him a Times article on the editor Julie Strauss-Gabel, who works closely with John Green and currently has five of the top ten Best Sellers in Adult Fiction and has had 22 Best Sellers overall.  In the article, Green talks about how he not only relies on Strauss-Gabel for editing but for guidance throughout the writing process, sometimes seeking daily composing advice.  So far, my efforts have been to no avail, but I keep trying.

            So, I said basically to the high school student that he was subscribing to a romantic myth, and that certainly creative writing could be taught.  He countered by pointing out that F. Scott Fitzgerald had never even completed college.  I countered by saying that dropping out of college was not a plan I would recommend for a successful career of any kind—with all due respect to F. Scott Fitzgerald and Bill Gates. I then pointed out, as I had also just read in the Times, how many successful writers on the Times Bestseller list hold MFAs, and cited, as an example I thought the student might be familiar with, Junot Díaz, who won the Pulitzer for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.  Unfortunately, the student had never heard of Díaz.

            Then he asked me what “big names” we had in the department.  I told him quite honestly that if he didn’t recognize Díaz he probably wasn’t going to recognize the names of any of my colleagues.  Nonetheless, I rattled off several names—Penelope Pelizzon, Ellen Litman, Gina Barreca, Lynn Bloom—none of which he recognized.  So I shifted gears and bragged about the Wallace Stevens Poetry Program and all the many “big name” poets that jadwal has brought to UConn over the years, even bringing up on my laptop the website that lists all the poets.  Sadly but not surprisingly, he did not recognize any of the poets on the list.  In fact, when I asked, he had to admit that he had never heard of Wallace Stevens.  Pressing forward with his agenda, however, the student asked for names of prominent graduates of our program.  Again, I pointed out that if he was unfamiliar with Stevens, he was likely not going to be familiar with our recent graduates, but I nonetheless mentioned Sean Forbes and Jon Andersen and Ken Cormier, knowing full well that he wouldn’t recognize any of their names.

            In the end, he walked off, unimpressed by the dearth of recognizable writers teaching in our department or emerging from our program.  And I really didn’t know what to make of the young man.  But I wish him well in whatever lonely, isolated writing endeavor he chooses to pursue.  I just hope he doesn’t drop out of college.