Former MFA teacher spills

[Fishbowl Helmet]

Here's an article by a former MFA teacher that some might find interesting.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Interesting maybe, but I'm not sure I agree with him about everything. He seems rather intolerant of his students' weaknesses. And it's rather hard to say that because other writers have produced good work under difficult circumstances his students should too and have no right to complain. He doesn't necessarily know how difficult their life is.

Also the idea that if you don't start young in the game you should give up is just balderdash! (I would use another word!)

On the other hand I do wonder about young people writing memoires. Are they egotists? Or narcissists as he terms them? To an extent I think he may be right on this. We live in a generation where everybody seems to want to be famous, but no one wants to do anything to be famous for. I mean have the Kardashians actually done anything? Paris Hilton? To my mind you write a memoire when you've done something. Living a few years for most of us isn't actually that great an achievement. So why would I want to read about it?

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

He seems rather intolerant of his students' weaknesses. And it's rather hard to say that because other writers have produced good work under difficult circumstances his students should too and have no right to complain. He doesn't necessarily know how difficult their life is.

I think the point is that it doesn't matter. Either you're going to write or you're not. Both are choices. Making excuses, no matter how valid the user thinks them to be, is a waste of everyone's time. Also, remember the context. This isn't a hard-arsed forum poster here, rather it's a teacher in a graded class.

Also the idea that if you don't start young in the game you should give up is just balderdash! (I would use another word!)

Yeah, that one's a bit troubling. I think the criteria of having a life-long love of language is true, but probably not the need to have already started trying to write by 18 to have a shot. It would certainly make it easier, given the ever increasing amount of obligations and responsibilities one accrues as they age that would make developing as a writer more difficult, though I wouldn't say impossible.

 

[Hex]

That's the one that bothered me, when he says:

If you didn't decide to take writing seriously by the time you were a teenager, you're probably not going to make it.

There are notable exceptions to this rule, Haruki Murakami being one. But for most people, deciding to begin pursuing creative writing in one's 30s or 40s is probably too late. Being a writer means developing a lifelong intimacy with language. You have to be crazy about books as a kid to establish the neural architecture required to write one.

Is it really the case that you can't develop an intimacy with language without writing fiction seriously from the age of 16? And who says that being crazy about books as a kid maps directly onto starting writing when you're a teenager?

The logic there breaks down a couple of times (but I would say that, since I don't want to believe him...)

I can see he's got a lot to get off his chest. Kind of glad I've never been taught by him, though.

 

[The Judge]

I was reading an article about Kazuo Ishiguro this morning, and apparently not only was he not writing books as a teenager, he wasn't even reading to any great extent, either, so that knocks the "crazy about books as a kid" idea on its head. He "discovered" Dostoevsky and Charlotte Bronte in his early twenties which is when his reading took off, and after that he went to the UEA and its creative writing course (and had Angela Carter as his tutor!). However, he was apparently writing songs in his teen years, which presumably set up his neural architcture, whatever that is.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I was reading an article about Kazuo Ishiguro this morning, and apparently not only was he not writing books as a teenager, he wasn't even reading to any great extent, either, so that knocks the "crazy about books as a kid" idea on its head. He "discovered" Dostoevsky and Charlotte Bronte in his early twenties which is when his reading took off, and after that he went to the UEA and its creative writing course (and had Angela Carter as his tutor!). However, he was apparently writing songs in his teen years, which presumably set up his neural architcture, whatever that is.

@The Judge - Sorry slightly off topic, but did you see the interview with Kazuo Ishiguro on Mark Lawson talks to... on BBC4 (it was on 22nd Feb 8pm)

I think that's where they got the info in the article because he talks about his song writing and all sorts of book stuff for an hour. I'd highly recommend watching it - he looks like a really nice person! (it's available on iPlayer - at least the BBC website says so for me)

Apparently he's got a vampire novel somewhere in his unfinished works!

 

[Brian G Turner]

Is it really the case that you can't develop an intimacy with language without writing fiction seriously from the age of 16? And who says that being crazy about books as a kid maps directly onto starting writing when you're a teenager?

I'm presuming the intention is to iterate that those who have always been driven towards a certain interest, may be especially minded to ensure they succeed with it.

Those who have a fancy to try something - especially as it seems easy - may be least likely to push themselves to succeed with it, because their heart was never in it in the first place.

 

[The Judge]

VB -- Can't stand Mark Lawson on the radio, so never tried watching him on TV!

I've not read any Ishiguro. I only read the article this morning as I'd seen a review about the new novel he's got out, and I was mildly interested in finding out a little more about it. I can't see me rushing out to buy it, though.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I've not read any Ishiguro. I only read the article this morning as I'd seen a review about the new novel he's got out, and I was mildly interested in finding out a little more about it. I can't see me rushing out to buy it, though.

I haven't either - but he talks about his writing process and his thoughts about genre and things - so I got sucked into watching it as it doesn't matter who the writer is, I really like to see how they go about their writing!

 

[Hex]

I read Never Let Me Go, and then had a wild enthusiasm and read others (except An Artist of the Floating World, I think). He's a very clever, very skilled writer with interesting ideas (although beware The Unconsoled).

I was a bit unpersuaded by the idea of needing to develop the appropriate neural architecture when you're a child -- though I agree it helps to, you know, like books, and read them. But I imagine if you sign up for a writing course you're at least sort of committed. And all that stuff about the books being too long and the stuff being too hard and please couldn't he explain something to make it easier is a factor of education, not specifically of creative writing.

One tragic thing is, one can be an excellent, hard-working student and still be bad at whatever one's trying to do.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Especially something like writing, where it can be a dream for so many and seem so blinking easy when you're at the reading end of things.

 

[Venusian Broon]

But I imagine if you sign up for a writing course you're at least sort of committed....One tragic thing is, one can be an excellent, hard-working student and still be bad at whatever one's trying to do.

One of the things Ishiguro said about the UEA and the UK's first creative writing course was that Malcolm Bradbury set it up to give people the chance to have a 12 month period where they could solely concentrate on just being a writer - without having to worry about income, jobs etc...

And what was just as valuable as finding out if you had a talent for writing was finding out given this freedom to try and be one that you were just not a writer.

So it was just as rewarding to be a failure, assuming that you the student came to these conclusions I suppose! Because then you could go and find something that suited you better. (There are always going to be the diehards who just can't get disillusioned I suppose.)

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

I was reading an article about Kazuo Ishiguro this morning, and apparently not only was he not writing books as a teenager, he wasn't even reading to any great extent, either, so that knocks the "crazy about books as a kid" idea on its head. He "discovered" Dostoevsky and Charlotte Bronte in his early twenties which is when his reading took off, and after that he went to the UEA and its creative writing course (and had Angela Carter as his tutor!). However, he was apparently writing songs in his teen years, which presumably set up his neural architcture, whatever that is.

You are aware that being able to cite one counter-example does not disprove a generalization, right? That would be like saying because you ate food today therefore there is no hunger in the world.

 

[Hex]

Of course we are, Fishbowl (and let's stay polite, please), but there's another exception to the writer's rule about older writers not being successful (am I right that Richard Adams is another?) and it suggests that his "neural architecture" blah may just be, you know, blah.

 

[HareBrain]

You are aware that being able to cite one counter-example does not disprove a generalization, right? That would be like saying because you ate food today therefore there is no hunger in the world.

Doesn't disprove it, no. Then again, the article's author provides no examples at all of people who've failed to write a book because they hadn't established the relevant neural architecture through a craziness about books as a kid.

 

[The Judge]

Er... I'm not quite sure why you feel the need to be so aggressive about supporting the article, but I was making the point that if I, a not very well read person, had heard of a counter-example only this morning, it didn't hold up very well even as a generalisation, did it?

 

[Hex]

Actually, it's 2-0 because the writer mentioned Murakami.

It should be: of people who do the course on which I taught, those who had come to writing after they were teenagers did not tend to be successful in terms of what I believe to be success, within the time period when I taught on the course (plus possibly as much as a year after, depending on how long it took to find a place to publish the article and actually publish it).

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

Of course we are, Fishbowl (and let's stay polite, please), but there's another exception to the writer's rule about older writers not being successful (am I right that Richard Adams is another?) and it suggests that his "neural architecture" blah may just be, you know, blah.

Not defending the article, as I said above, I disagree with that piece of it. I just find the notion that providing one counter-example dismantles entirely a general statement to be such absurdly bad thinking and such wide-spread nonsense that it must be called out and stopped.

 

[Hex]

I think maybe you misunderstood the significance The Judge was attributing to the example, and I'm glad we clarified that. I agree (and often insist, in crowded places full of people walking past me at great speed and pretending they can't hear me) that single counter-examples do not disprove anything ("But I've smoked for sixty years and I'm fine..."), but in the absence of any examples supporting his statement, one might assume that counter-examples could further undermine it?

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

I think maybe you misunderstood the significance The Judge was attributing to the example, and I'm glad we clarified that. I agree (and often insist, in crowded places full of people walking past me at great speed and pretending they can't hear me) that single counter-examples do not disprove anything ("But I've smoked for sixty years and I'm fine..."), but in the absence of any examples supporting his statement, one might assume that counter-examples could further undermine it?

So you want the MFA teacher to name and shame several of his former students as a means to support his case? Or name and shame other writers who had failed? Easier to simply acknowledge the scant few writers who make it compared to the masses who do not.

Again, I disagree the the article on that point, but it could very well be up to his assessment as a teacher, and his knowledge of his students over however many years he taught. I don't know. But calling for him to 'prove it' seems a rather Quixotic task.