- Bomb Texas for freedom -

As I was working on a midterm today I recieved an email from one of the people that go to my class.

I won’t be continuing the class. I tried to communicate with the teacher after the last class I attended and he sent me back a nasty tirade that was more of a personal attack then anything bordering on constructive or encouraging criticism. Since he seems to have no respect for my ability as a writer, and I have very little respect for someone who thinks they know everything, I cannot subject myself to his class anymore. He also seemed to feel that I should be grateful that he was taking the time to answer me, because it was taking his time away from his “pressing doctorate thesis deadline.” As I write this I remember that several people in the class reported having bad experiences with previous workshops, so I am obviously not the first person to feel cheated out of the money spent on tuition. I enrolled because my previous workshops helped me and motivated me. I did not enroll to allow some twerp to abuse me verbally. I regret that I won’t be able to read more of the writing from the class, it was good to meet you all.

Oooh Kay? Whatever right, I can careless I have my own issues to worry about.

Then I get this email from the teacher.

More information than most of you probably want, but in the effort to be fair, I am forwarding along the response Randi refers to (her question(s) are below that–I could be mistaken that they are the same things she asked and said in class.) Please do not feel that you have to read this. There won’t be a “quiz.”
I don’t know if I’ve conveyed this or not–because I don’t think I know everything–outside of being a “twerp”–but I am of course concerned about how the class is going for any and all of you and want it to be a good experience. For all of us. That’s why I do try to get there a little early and hang around a little afterwards. You should all feel free to check in with me.

see you all next week (except for Richard and Chin-Sun–thanks to both of you for checking in with the class).
–Douglas

With this forwarded message
Begin forwarded message:

From: Teacher
Date: October 13, 2006 3:53:28 PM EDT
To: Randy
Subject: Re: last night’s class

Randy–

The majority of what was covered last night applies whether or not she was ugly before or different; what the issue is is beside the point that the issue is not on the page–it might be that it now is in the other pages that you’ve workshopped, I don’t know; I am sorry that the class defaulted to this so much, but it is partly a reaction to you not taking it in, obviously–and the mixed messages you are sending–it isn’t that important, it’s what the book is about (her appearance changing, not whether or not she was “different” before or “ugly”; she is something now, and I’m not getting a sense of what it means to her, the main character: I see her daughter react to that and I see her have sex; in the scene with her daughter, the dialogue needs work, particularly with the daughter, and most strongly the moments I’ve <>‘d; I see no one at the table, I don’t see the table, I don’t see the dining room or wherever they eat; the one and only one realist detail is Gabe eating chicken that has more of a quality than anyone here has bodies. And never has faces. (and realism is what you are writing and certainly what I make out to be your aims in what you are writing and the way you approach writing from what you’ve contributed to class on other students’ writing; go look at the work of any writer you like and find a scene over a meal and track how much information is given out side of the words said–that would be one suggestion, like you ask for)

I don’t see one expression on anyone’s face, let alone what that face looks like–ideally, at some strategic point(s) what that face looks like now compared to what it used to look like; when I talked about all this it was not about–and was and still is–a moot point whether the new face, the pretty face from the facelift (you’ve still not even said here, where you are explaining yourself, and to me how the world of appearance and egos operates, which I again take great offense to, what exactly she’s had done to her exactly, if it is her nose, if it is her eyes, a combination or what–please do not write back and tell me; that is not going to change that the writing needs work, to know it from your mouth; this is something the writing needs to be conveying despite how it is like in the real world or what people get done in the real world or think in the real world all the time; your job as writer is to make the reader you think is not understanding or getting it understand or get it–it is not the reader’s fault that they’ve not experienced the issue or some version of the issue first hand; that’s why we are reading the book, many of us, to understand things we haven’t personally experienced.

There are technical problems outside of the theme or the issue of the face; the writing is weak in the dinner scene. It gets better when she comes downstairs. It gets better when she meets him and goes home with him, though nothing makes her really read like an older woman and she seems to not be considering her age–you see, I’ve left the one thing and moved onto the other important issue that you’ve marked out below that you aren’t really letting the writing show, either–outside of one joke about the Oedipus Complex.

The sex scene is written in an idealized way at best, at worst, like soft-core porn; it does not read like a fully drawn character entering into a loaded issue for her. I will repeat myself yet again, this time putting aside any issues of what her face looks like; this has nothing to do with different or ugly or pretty now. You need to make it believable (a word you use in class and seem to value for writing) that this is the first time she is cheating on her husband. I talked about some of those ways last night. The class contributed there own thoughts about how it was weak and how it could begin to play more effectively or make more sense to them.

My sense is that the classes you are in are getting caught up on the premise because you are emphasizing it so much outside of the writing but it is not factoring into any EMOTIONAL CORES or PHYSICAL DETAILS, both of which you should be striving for more of, into the writing; it doesn’t matter–again, I will repeat, more strongly, in a slightly different way, something I am repeatedly having to emphasize in this class–what you’ve done with it on other pages or how many pages before–you don’t get a break now for however many number of pages of fully dealing with, rounding, the issue(s) of your book.
The way I see it working here, the “premise,” is almost exclusively as that; it remains too much of something were are supposed to understand the way you want us to understand before we read what we reading rather than writing in a way that what we are reading continues to provide subtext to the emotional issue(s) at hand. You need to maybe think about how to write so that your premise you really get into and explore.
Approaching this all from another angle, think of Ray’s work for a, not perfect, analogy: The difference between the Nightwalkers and Vampires is a premise. That difference not only determines how the characters conduct themselves in the scenes we see, but we are not expected to understand it, and those scenes show us the differences impacting how the scenes then play out.

Specifically, further, in my class, I feel you are disruptive. I don’t like having to stop class to ask people to pay attention; you can learn just as much from the discussions of other student’s writing, if not more.
Just like I’ve just given you an hour outside of class and outside of my own pressing deadline on my doctorate dissertation.

Finally, I’d say that writing, your own, you need to allow it to reveal things to you.
You need to stop thinking so much you know everything and what everything means before you begin writing whatever part or pages you are to be more open in your own writing to figuring out what things could mean, really, based on the way you are putting them on the page, evaluating fairly what you’ve now put on the page, and seeing if that does really convey what you thought your vision was or letting your vision be open to revision. Or, at the very least, the writing open to revision. This is probably not changing little things here and there. This is maybe change approaches.
How do you find those, options? You go read more books.
Lastly, lastly, some of the discussion in the class is frustrating because some people aren’t devoting time to the other student’s work like they should be, outside of class, preparing for class, like I mentioned last night.

Students do this the more they see that there own work is not being read well or thoughtfully by other students; it becomes a vicious cycle.

Please recognize that I have gone above and beyond the call of duty here.

-teach.

Yeah that forwarded email was a bit snotty, but still why should I care about their personal battles? I didn’t pay roughly 1800 for this crap. For christ sake this Randy chick is like in her 50s, a mature thing would be a polite bow out.

God I hate school sometimes. I think these will be my last workshop classes, and I’ll take some literature ones instead.

Of course, I say that every semester.