On Writing School

Stephen King, who is currently my favorite American writer save Twilight guru Stephenie Meyer, advises not to show your work until it is finished, and even then, to select only a few people whose opinions you trust to read what you have. In his book, "On Writing," King says writing school is unnecessary--just write he says!--which makes me regret paying thousands of dollars for USC when the King School of Writing is basically free. More troubling, is King's assertion that writing schools are filled with people who think they know what they are talking about but, really, are just as ill-equipped to write as you are. Writing entire books--highly suspect. While I have met and made friends with a number fabulous writers, whose opinions I respect, and without whom my own book would still be in my head instead of on 136 Microsoft Word pages, King has a point.

Writing school, I've found, is little more than a bunch of people with big dreams to be famous writers who meet at certain times on certain days, read each other's unfinished work, and then give their uninformed opinions about them. In a field where we are made to put our hearts on paper and allow people to scratch at them with their pens, the constant critique is wrenching enough. Trying to weed through the comments, that sometimes can have more to do with either personal biases or jealousy that they didn't come up with your idea, is frustrating in that you don't always know who is biased, or jealous, or just plain moronic. The instructors don't always know either.

While I don't want to seem like I am biting the hands that feed me (critiques and comments, yum!) each week, I also don't want to lie and say that very person (or teacher) in every writing class--in both New York and Los Angeles--I have taken actually belongs there. Heck, I don't even know if I belong there. Which I perhaps why I was grateful that this semester that I got a spot in White Oleander writer Janet Fitch's fiction class. I was in love with her within minutes into our first day of class after she declared, "Unlike the majority of writing instructors, I believe writing can be taught." She spoke of toolboxes, complete with wrenches and hammers. We needed full sets in order to write well. We needed not just the flathead, but the Phillips too. She said that while we may not use both, or we may prefer the flathead, it was important to at least know how, so we could make that choice. Tools sounded a lot better than passing out pages and hoping for the best.

Finally, this semester, I am learning to become a writer. A real writer. I feel distinguished just thinking about it.