I guess I got into writing because no one had written the
specific stories I had wanted to read.
That’s probably why I’m still here.
It seems like I’ve got stories inside of me that I just really want to
experience, and I have no other alternative than to write them myself.
What I’m
really talking about here is fiction writing—apparently that’s what’s most near
and dear to me. It seems more genuine in
a way, less presumptuous than creative non-fiction (which I do like if I’m
feeling chatty), more coherent than poetry, and less boring than regular
non-fiction. When I think of “writing” I
think of storytelling.
I probably
would be an actor if I had the self-confidence.
I would probably direct movies or TV if I had the social skills to
coordinate that many people without my head exploding, or the desire to learn
nit-picky things about cameras. I’d be a
painter, if I had the patience to learn advanced techniques or the money to
spend on supplies. Writing is the
easiest tool I have to get my stories out there. Not necessarily for other people (recognition
is nice), but probably just for myself.
I don’t adore
language, I’ve never opened a dictionary of my own volition before, the
musicality of poetry doesn’t send me into thralls of literary ecstasy. I missed that memo, I just don’t get it.
Nobody's ever told me that I can't
write or that I shouldn't write. That's probably why I'm still here.
My parents never told me that I'd never be able to support myself with a
B.A. in Writing, they just encourage, heavily hint, and otherwise pester me to
look into journalism and technical writing. They know that I'm not cut
out for that starving artist shtick.
We have the money to send me off to
school to learn a skill that doesn’t provide an instant financial payoff (or
perhaps any payoff). I was expected to
go to college, so I was groomed in the public school system so that I could
become a good candidate for acceptance.
There was a prestige level—if I had really tried, or tried at all—a
fancy name on my diploma would’ve been nice.
It’s hard to see yourself as attending a prestigious school when you
share the TCAT with kids from Cornell.
Maybe IC is nicer than I think it is.
I’m not sure.
Anyway, I’ve had a supportive
family, and that’s a big deal. It’s
important not to get a raison d’etre
stomped out of you when you’re growing up.
My high school was okay. They did their jobs in getting me tons of
college credit before I even graduated, I took AP courses and tests, got an
Advanced Designation Regents degree, and blah, blah, blah. It’s the same old college rat-race.
I had room for electives, sort of—at
the expense of my only study hall. I
took Orchestra and Art, all four years.
I continued French because it would look good to colleges. I had always wanted to take the half-semester
Creative Writing course that our high school offered. The kids in that class were the ones who
decided what got in to the high school Lit. Mag. something I really
wanted. There was never any room in my
schedule for it.
But I submitted some poems. A set of three versions of the same poem, a
triptych. I mixed visual art and poetry
and also old-timey vampires. I thought
it was a genius idea. I never got
published. Looking back, I think that
they didn’t got what I was trying to do.
Maybe they didn’t like vampires that weren’t love-struck and sparkly. They did however, like angsty poetry about
the problems of being a teenager that hinges on an extended metaphor about
grocery shopping. I thought it was a
boring, whiney poem.
I’m not bitter.
Anyways, so that was my only experience
with creative writing in high school and it was thoroughly disappointing.
So I came to IC. I’m here because it’s fairly local, and it
has a Writing Department. I didn’t even
know that those existed until I found the one here. At the other colleges I could’ve gone to,
Creative Writing was a sad subset of the English major, or it didn’t
exist. So, in the end, my college
choice, the big agonizing choice was a no-brainer.
Now I’m here, and now I have the
best example of how undernourished my writing knowledge actually was. When I got into Intro to the Essay (which I
only took because it’s required) I learned about the existence of the Creative
Non-fiction genre.
Wait, what? Non-fiction isn’t just boring
book-documentaries? There is a world
outside of textbooks? Nobody had told me
that essays weren’t anything different than the crappy things we wrote in
English class, or in frantic, formulaic brain-dumps on Important Tests.
Totally blew my mind. Completely changed my idea of what writing
is, and can be.
I feel like ending on a happy
note. Look forward to seeing y’all in
class!
Questions
for review:
-Should
Brandt be explicitly in here?
-I’m not
too ramble-y am I?
-Where do you want more?
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