Exceptions to the Rules

[sakon76]

So, six new students in writing class this term. I was expecting maybe half of that! But Maralys is once again hitting some of my buttons. Stuff like, "writers have tragic backgrounds and we write from that pain."

Um, NO. Sorry. I've actually lived a pretty damn happy life, and I still consider myself a writer.

"A beginning novelist will never sell a book over 100,000 words."

*looks at the 600+ page first novel by Patrick Rothfuss that I really should finish reading*

And, crowning it all, lack of time management skills and her favoritism toward certain gen-lit-writing classmates meaning Carol gets a half hour of discussion on her submission, Pat (who writes sci-fi) gets less than ten minutes, and I get booted to next week.

Argh.

I like this class, really I do. Some of my classmates are great writers and I've really grown a lot. Just, sometimes, things really grate at me.

Comments

[dragondancer515.livejournal.com]

Damn, that'd be irritating to a LOT of people. =/

[meallanmouse.livejournal.com]

....wow. So, um. I need a redo on my background, CLEARLY. MY LACK OF PAIN KEEPS ME FROM WRITING!

Or something.

(Maybe I just get to laugh as much as I do because so many people have such weird and entertaining notions of "what makes a real writer".)

[flybystardancer.livejournal.com]

Some of that sounds like the fail in my short story writing class I took one semester at college.

The prof didn't want anything she considered "genre" in her class. And after returning the group-critiques she praised the story that was written from a zombie's POV, and then thoroughly skewered the historical Japanese assassin story for being too "genre", while that author was not in class. (The story was in my group, and I thought one of the better ones of that round!)

Then again, this prof also liked using words in weird ways. Like adjectives as verbs, or something. I just remember her examples making NO sense.