Re: writers on the list
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Sun, 19 Jul 1998 10:44:49 +1000
> How did you assume that I do any creative writing? Is it taken for
> granted that everyone on Bananafish writes? I just found that remark to
> be somewhat startling, since I don't think I've ever mentioned anything
> about whether or not I write.
That's something that comes up regularly at bananafish and I always feel
guilty being one of the main perpetrators (not that I assume everyone's a
writer ... seems there are quite a lot of readers here to (: ) Guess it
just seems that listserves about fine writers attract a lot of quite
worshipful/envious little disciples.
> By the way, what do you Bananafish people think about creative writing
> classes? I took one for about two weeks at Berkeley. It was led by a
> distinguished writer, but I found the class to be a waste of time. I
> infinitely preferred a class that I'd taken a couple years back, which
> was led by a less acclaimed author. Maybe I was just less inhibited
> then.
How distinguished an author is has nothing to do with whether or not he/she
can teach. You know what Woody Allen said - those who can, do. Those who
can't, teach. And those who can't teach teach P.E. (: I'm of two minds
about writing classes - I used to teach one myself and I felt like it was
an impossible task seeing writing is such a personal thing and changes from
person to person. I basically told everyone `Here's the so-called rules ...
use the ones that work for you and ignore the ones that don't, but overall,
GET YOUR MESSAGE ACROSS in the way you best see fit.' This I found was the
most important thing - a lot of little souls gradually opened up in that
class which made me very proud.
Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
@ THE ARTS HOLE
www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442
THE INVERTED FOREST
www.angelfire.com/pa/invertedforest