Well it's been a while. School has been smacking my behind quite efficiently and I'm only like two or three weeks in. Today I got to experience my first "workshop" session in my creative writing class. Luckily none of my poems were chosen to be "workshopped" but I got to see how the process works.
Holy damn I am terrified.
The process starts with the poem being read by the author. One can only assume that this kind of on the spot embarrassment is meant to lower your defenses and make you a prime victim for the ten minutes of harsh critique that is to follow.
We spend about half a minute saying what we like about the poem. Someone will say something about a favorite line, the professor will disagree and then we're into the "fun stuff." He seamlessly transitions into the critique before you even know what hit you. He all of the sudden starts pulling out lines that you ferociously fucked up and telling you how much he hates them, and you by extension. And then the girl in the back starts to put in her two cents. But really they're the professor's two cents recycled because she's so clearly in love with this washed up poet who, everyday, looks like he just woke up from having the worst, gin invested, night of his life. She supports his views on rhyming (damn it, when did poems stop rhyming?) and agrees on ever criticism he has. Even that a beautiful line about a sisters' love being like intertwined fingers is a cliche and should be omitted, despite the resonance it inspired in the entire class. Idiots, the lot of them.
I was so looking forward to this class. My first real writing class. But now I know what I'm going to be spending the next two years doing, shrinking in the back of these classes while pretentious "writers" in dark rimmed glasses try to teach us how to bring our own self actualization and existentialism into our writing (without rhyming). And all the while I'll be wanting to be sitting under a tree writing stories that matter to people and have nothing to do with my effing self actualization.
I was not expecting that little rant to come out of my nimble fingers. But there you have it. I've been feeling a little fired up lately. "Fuck" is my new favorite word and I've been driven to drink quite frequently on my own. I've turned it into an art form actually. These can't be good signs. Oh and did I mention how lovely cigarettes are? Cloves actually. Mmm, Bali Hi.
A lot of this has to do with the fact that I haven't done anything especially fun and reckless in far too long. There is some definite steam that needs to be blown off (I recently found out that in the UK, to "blow off" means to fart. This makes me love the previous sentence all the more.) School is positively dreadful and Mr. Long Distance is doing his darnedest to give me an ulcer.
I want to share the saga with you all but I'm trying to muster the energy and the right words. How do you begin a story about a person that has you feeling like you're ruined for any other guy that's brave enough to come around?
More on the later. Promise.
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3 comments:
Oy. That sounds harrowing. Overall though, is it all going well?
it's alright. I'm so not a poet and since my creative writing professor is a "published poet" (which he likes to remind us of frequently) all we're studying is poetry. So that's a little frustrating. The other class are just gen ed courses so they're a little boring but pretty straight forward. And no one has tried to sell me recently in class so that's good! Haha. Thanks for asking :)
In my first creative writing workshop class I was picked to read out my work. I cried! I was so nervous. But after that, I read nearly every week and loved it.
I miss university :(
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