Friends,
Earlier today, I typed for way too long crafting a post about a response to an article calling out the workshop process in Poets and Writer's that Ande responded to already. I was going on and on about workshops in general, and how I love leading them but I understand why people feel a little funny about them at the same time. But, after all that, I sort of lost my head of steam with trying to force a metaphor about hot dogs and knowing objectively when fiction is good. So I deleted it, and now you're getting this truncated version.
Anyway, it's an interesting article and worth checking out. It has its shortcomings, don't get me wrong, and there are parts were I think the guy is being just plain stupid (like when he disparages the idea that talent makes a good writer and that desire is mostly what a person needs...which is an interesting argument, but then he challenges a proponent of the talent-first school that if she were so good at spotting talent to go to some high schools and spot the next Yeats, and to that I say you could fill a ballroom with honest to god, AWP approved, poets with thier best work tacked to their chest and you wouldn't necessarily find the next Yeats, so what kind of challenge is that to make, honestly...and when he suggests that all workshops do not try to make a student write toward a particular aesthetic and he's dead wrong because some do try to break your story into being what the instructor wants, and to just sidestep what is a big problem with workshops is a bad idea for a workshop-busting essay to dodge...that's like vacuuming around the 500 pound gorilla in the living room, you know it's there, but you'd just as well not bother).
But he said something about the mindset it takes to be successful in a workshop (which he says should redefine an author's relationship to his/her work and that's it...that's a little shortsighted because not all writer's need the same help and workshops are a great way to individualize their education but hey, whatev). And it got me thinking about what I believe would be the right mindset for going into a workshop and I settled on a quote. It's the advice Crash Davis gives Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh. Nuke has just been called up to the big club and Crash gave him this parting words of advice:
"You gotta play the game with fear and arrogance."
That just seems right to me.
Now, here's a clip from Bull Durham I found on YouTube. It's not the line I quoted above, but it's one of the iconic moments from that movie:
viva el mustache y workshops
March 3, 2008
Lollygaggers (Lightly Revised)
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3 comments:
See, those were two points where I agreed with him. There were others where I didn't really, but I think he was right on the talent part. And what you said is just an extension of it. Shouldn't matter whether it's a high school or AWP, talent would be a constant. It's the desire to continue that makes a good writer (or basketball player, or musician). Pure talent will only get you so far. You have to want it, and that's his point.
And you can't make the argument that all workshops try to make a student write toward a particular aesthetic. That's an oversimplification (one of those logical fallacies, my friend) and not all workshops try to make the writers bend toward the instructor's aesthetic. The good ones require the writer to find and develop his or her own aesthetic. Unfortunately, statistical mean dictates that good workshops fall in the minority. And just as many have to be downright awful. The majority are average at best.
If you want to pick apart his argument, how about when he says the problem with teaching creative writing "is that the way we teach creative writing...suggests that there is no way to teach creative writing." That's kind of starting off on the bad foot if you ask me--and you didn't.
Okay, maybe I misread his point about talent vs. desire. It looked to me as if he was discounting talent in favor of desire, as if desire trumped talent. Ultimately, I'm with you, it's a tandem thing between talent and desire. Being awesome alone won't get you anywhere, nor will desire alone.
And I probably should bold or highlight or something the word "all" in that sentence about workshops designed to fit into the author's aesthetic. Because you're right, not all workshops do that but some do. Early in the article he dismisses those workshops where the instructor tries to make your story the round peg that fits into his round hole. And that is a big problem with the workshop model and to just be kind of blase about it was a mistake if he's trying to take the piss out of the workshops in total.
His point about "creative writing can't be taught" hinges on that idea later where he says in Rumsfeldian fashion that good writing can't be indentified objectively, which I disagree with. And it was here where I lost my footing on the first try on the post. So, I'm going to bed.
The reason he doesn't address that time-and-time-again point is that P&W runs that same article pretty much every year at this point. It would be kind of like making argument for or against abortion--you're not making any headway in either crowd.
He's trying to address a different problem, the idea that anyone can and should be a writer. And he's not alone on that idea. When asked if she thought the academy stifled too many creative writers, Flannery O'Connor said, "They don't stifle enough," or something to that effect. And I tend to agree. Not everyone can be a writer--or encouraged to be a writer--in the same way not everyone can be a painter or an athlete. Whether or not I fall into that group of people who should've been stifled is yet to be determined (by me anyway).
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