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.