Wallace Stegner–remember him? He of the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Angle of Repose? Known as the Dean of Western Writers and founder of the creative writing program at Stanford University?
I have a slim volume of his entitled On The Teaching of Creative Writing, and from time to time I dip into it see what wisdom the master might impart. Today I found him talking about the need
“to dissipate the vulgar error that writing is easy, because it only involves ‘making words.’ Words must be about something, and making them isn’t easy, by a long shot. It is not a frivolous pursuit. It should be taken as seriously as the search for the replicating machinery in the DNA of the E. Coli virus x170….Rigor is what we are talking about, a responsibility to a certain kind of truth and to observed reality.”
Indeed. He goes on to talk about the worst kind of writing classes, what he calls the “soft” ones, which foster an atmosphere of geniality with an indulgent teacher who accepts the so-called truth of everything the students choose to write.
I wonder what Wallace Stegner would make of writers today. We have an entire generation of kids who got rewarded for just being their own wonderful selves. Working hard at writing? If it doesn’t come easy, then it’s not meant to be, right?
Wrong. Writing is hard work. Sometimes it’s blissful and sometimes you feel as if you’re carving the words out of dried up clay. Sometimes what you write amazes you and sometimes it appalls you. Either way, you keep on writing. Because that’s what you do. It’s not a choice. It’s who you are.
So, in the interest of not being one of those of whom Stegner said “they were good people and good writers, but they were not good teachers of writing, because they demanded too little”, I will now be including an exercise in the Wednesday Writer’s Workshop. You can do it or not, as you please, and you can send to me or not. I’ll tell you what I think. What I really think. Your rigor will be rewarded with my honest opinion. Can you handle that–both the rigor and the honesty?
Exercise: Last week, we talked about the importance of Beginnings. Send me the opening paragraphs (2-3) of something you’ve written recently. Send to jane(at)midlifebloggers.com
Have you been to BlogHer’10 Room Of Your Own Proposals and voted for Upping the Ante: Moving From “Just Blogging” to Writing Creative Non-Fiction? Are you going to BlogHer’10 and want to help present this? Check that box too when you vote. There are only eleven days left to vote!
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