End of the Semester

Finished with the semester, finally. Got my papers in and done and glad to have a break from going to class. Two courses is a bit much in addition to work, so I'll likely just do one from now on.

My Tristan course was a lot of fun. Our professor, Paul Oppenheimer, is a really great guy. His lectures are always interesting--he should be doing this on TV or something so everyone can benefit. Every session I brought some new piece of knowledge away. He was also very generous with his time. Helpful to students and cares about their work, which has been rare in my graduate school experience. Hope I have the chance to work with him again.

The other course, a writing workshop, was a mixed bag. My classmates were a nice bunch and I wish them all well. My professor was an adjunct and seemed constantly harried. He was late every time. Sometimes he read stories just before, or in class, and didn't always give me written critiques. Writing workshops are hit-or-miss affairs. Platitudes abound: I didn't like this because it was too ______. It should be more like Avatar. I think we have a slippage in narrative.

Then there are the inevitable and unhelpful comparisons. This is just like a story Joyce wrote. F. Scott Fitzgerald did a story like this. David Foster Wallace too. You should read him. Maybe so, but that doesn't tell me much about the piece we're discussing now.

Problems in the writing were rarely if ever addressed. People turned in stories with serious grammar and syntax problems that were never mentioned at all. Story development was hardly ever talked about.

I think what these courses teach you is to have a thick skin, to have a cold eye toward your own work, and to read closely. The most important thing a writer can do to improve (aside from writing) is read constantly and widely. If you like science fiction and want to write it, you still should read Faulkner and Jane Austen and all the classics you can get your hands on to see how it's done. Beyond that, hearing people critique your stuff can be interesting, but I am not sure how much you can trust a bunch of unpublished writers, many of whom view the workshop as a competition. There were good critiques with the bad, but you have to be able to sort them out and believe in what you're doing instead of writing based on sixteen different opinions.

All in all it was a bit exhausting, and I'm glad it's done.