First of all, we're reading a lot of stories, which is dumb, but whatever. Personally, I think it'd be more constructive to do in-class writing, especially since our professor is giving us grades on rough drafts. (I got a C+ on a sketch I turned in last week. Granted, I wrote it that day at work and it was C+ material, but I don't really see how you can give someone a grade on a creative piece, especially when it's just the first draft. But whatevs.) We had to read "The Dead" last night, which is a good story, even though it's hard to read Joyce for a creative writing class when you can't really write like Joyce for a creative writing class (which my professor even stated: "If someone wrote this passage in here, we'd tear it apart!"). Anyway, after about an hour spent on Joyce, someone in the class finally said, "I don't understand why we're reading this. It's boring." Then we had to sit through an explanation of why people study Joyce as an author.
Also, I took offense to my professor calling one of my story ideas "Harry Potter-like," because, um, it didn't involve magic or children or British people. It wasn't even a fantasy story. I don't understand where "Harry Potter-like" came from. And he commented that the story idea that I submitted, which is the story that I'm turning in next week, was "an oddity," but I'm going to finish writing it anyway.
He told us to write about bad jobs. But that's what this is for, duh.
This was supposed to be for fun.
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4 comments:
I guess I chose the right class to ditch and instead attend a concert :(
I'm surprised that he has been spending so much time on the stories, though. My first creative writing class with him, we focused almost exclusively on the writing. It doesn't really make sense to focus on all of these other writers and not our own work.
Why would Joyce be "torn apart" if he submitted "The Dead" as a modern-day student? Very curious to know what you all came up with.
Also, you should post some of your creative writing sketches. Fun.
Broady:I think he meant that Joyce's dialogue is so banal and ordinary that no one would accept it from an undergraduate English major.
And Brittany: I'm jealous of your concert, although I left early to go to an improv show.
Where are you taking this class??
Funny though, I find your blog to be very Harry Potter-like also.
[kidding]
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