to write or not to write

that is the question.

a friend and fellow classmate brought up an interesting question in capstone today: why shouldn't those wishing to enter the creative writing major have to submit a portfolio, just as with any other fine arts major? art majors certainly have to. so do interior design and prospective architecture students. those wishing to major in theater or music must audition. so why is writing any different? it is an art, like any other. it takes craft, wit, and artistry to construct - so why can any rejected business major declare their major as such without so much as a single word of theirs being evaluated.

if i told a med school that i wanted to apply without any previous medical experience (save a few trips to the e.r. or an episode or two of grey's anatomy and one awful cat dissection), but i really really wanted to be a doctor (oh, mcyummy/mcdreamy/mcmuffin!) do you think they'd let me in and say, "yeah, she's no good with a scalpel but her heart's in the right place." hells no! they'd most likely laugh at my face, tell me to stay as far away from hospitals as i could, and issue a restraining order. just because you think you should do something, or it seems like a good idea, or the only option, doesn't mean you should or it is.


writing is the best and most difficult form of self-expression. you cannot merely splash words on a page. (i suppose you can, but with slightly less success than pollock.) and how can the english department say anyone can do it?

aaaaaaaaand step off soap box.

quote of the day: "as she sat on the shiny, wet, white, somewhat slippery lifeguard chair, and the cool silver whistle hanged from her slightly unmoisturized lip-gloss covered lips, lizzie-mae looked up at the beautiful yet damaging rays of the sun and thought, 'dang, i'm tan.'

paraphrased, but that's the kind of stuff we're getting in advanced writing workshops.
yay.

you look like such an ameteur, you're not fishing!

i think everyone likes having something that defines them. at dull company christmas parties, when you meet bob vance, he tells you he works at (and coincidentally, owns, manages, and advertises for) vance refrigeration. first things that qualify you. when you meet someone, you tell them, i'm an investment banker, i'm a doctor, i'm the clown at your niece's birthday who can't make a proper poodle balloon.

but don't we love the classifications? things that let the mind take short cuts into discerning who someone is? you say, "i'm a student," and automatically, someone will label you as several things.
-you have worked hard to get here.
-you are of a certain socioeconomic class.
-maybe you party.
-maybe you knit.
-but you're going somewhere in life.

but then, why do any stereotypes exist? it's so people can make the connection.
stereotypes exist for a reason - they're not all bad - it helps you remember and compress information.

take, for example, the stereotype that all blondes are lacking in brain cells. how'd that one get started? by a lot of people meeting women of flaxen hair who couldn't pronounce words like "epitome."

generally speaking, of course.


i really need to finish this paper on 18th century feminist lit theory.


quote of the day: it's one of those yellow shorts kind of days.

national novel writing month

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Word count: 675
Flesch-Kinkaid Reading Level: 0.0


i am out of ideas.