Grades, Summer, Writing
Got my grades back, B-ish in everything. I'm a bit annoyed that I only got a B+ in Creative writing. The class seems so trivial, and the grading system used entirely arbitrary. I might try taking a writing class at State in a few semesters, but I have a feeling that writing isn't one of those skills that can be taught easily. Sometimes I worry that I'm trying to bypass some crucial and very basic stage of writing, move straight to something that actually matters, but then I spent a few mental moments cussing, and everything's okay again.
Something I've figured out about the type of writing that works for me - I really hate any conjugation of the verb "to be". Seems to slow writing down.
Trying to keep myself occupied over the summer, really want to spend some time sitting on rooftops.
I've been reading a lot of Hemingway's short stories lately. He's pretty cool, and a very strange thing to be reading right after Kundera's "Book of Laughter and Forgetting".
I'm never quite sure what to make of Kundera. I really enjoy many of the stylistic elements of his writing, but something about the guy bugs me. It's like the bastard's cheating.
I'm still working on writing something which isn't crap. It's a slow and painful process.
Something I've figured out about the type of writing that works for me - I really hate any conjugation of the verb "to be". Seems to slow writing down.
Trying to keep myself occupied over the summer, really want to spend some time sitting on rooftops.
I've been reading a lot of Hemingway's short stories lately. He's pretty cool, and a very strange thing to be reading right after Kundera's "Book of Laughter and Forgetting".
I'm never quite sure what to make of Kundera. I really enjoy many of the stylistic elements of his writing, but something about the guy bugs me. It's like the bastard's cheating.
I'm still working on writing something which isn't crap. It's a slow and painful process.
posted by Fifth at 12:15 AM
9 Comments:
THe only way to get better is to practice.
Fucking writing classes, you don't need them. Read more, write more.
And Hemingway weirds me out.
Why does Hemingway weird you out?
I just don't really get down on his whole manliness, chest-hair, minimal, one-trick pony deal.
I dunno. I read some stuff, then I read Snows of Kilamanjaro or something like it, and I just assumed the manliness was a joke.
It is most definitley not a joke.
Why do you think Kundera's cheating?
Also, part of my distaste for Hemingway may be that I jsut have no desire whatsoever to write like him, or think like him, or live like him.
You know how, in a traditional novel, characters' thought processes and goals are usually left pretty hidden? Kundera goes the opposite route, trying his hardest to make his main characters perfectly clear.
Like a cheating bastard.
But the world's leading authors haven't really been writing traditional novels since Proust. Even the big modern authors who are closest to the traditionalist side (Roth, Updike, Chandler, Cheever, Bellow ect) delve heavily into their characters' thought processes.
I'm no huge Kundera advocate, but I think he actually adds philosophical complexity but giving the readers a view of the character's thoughts.
Yeah, I agree.
It's interesting because he gives the reader a great deal of information about his characters, but it's still basically impossible to really understand them.
I feel that way about people in general sometimes.
Yeah, no doubt. It seems like the closer you look, the more complex and strange everything is. Kinda like in Ulysses, how Joyce throws us into the character's heads, but they are still impossible to fully figure out with 100 percent certainty.
That's one of the things I disagree with Dr. Taylor about: she always wants things to be slight and minimal and just descriptive of what teh characters' actions are, because she doesnt want the story to lose its power. But I think there's so much more shit yuo can do, and alot of my favorite writers write about things other than just small personal problems. So if you want to explore anything really big (Sex, Death, History, Fate, yada yada) then you kinda have to break all the rules Dr. Taylor insists on.
What are you reading now? Need any recomendations?
Oh, and like I said, I still have some big problems with Kundera for other reasons, but part of that may be reactionary: since Wirth tought a class on Kundera at OU everyone is always going around and creaming themselves over him, but they never read anything else, and it annoys me. Kinda like kids who think they are badass for reading Fight Club.
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