How to Become a Writer
You will hate writing from the beginning. Absolutely hate it. Your eyes will nearly overflow with tears when you hear the word "essay" slip from the mouth of your high school English teacher. You will whine and moan and throw a fit and write it at midnight, but pull out an A as usual. Your classmates may resent you for it. But you still hate writing. You'll hate it so much that you major in Nutrition once you get to college. You'll soon realize you'd write a thousand and one essays for your high school English teacher if it meant you didn't have to write another lab report. Sometimes you have to go to the dark side to realize you were in the light all along.
Suck it up and accept your destiny. In a whim of spontaneity, switch your major to English. At least you have time to finally take French classes again. Just don't major in French or suddenly you'll find yourself trying to pay your own tuition. Start wearing more scarves and skinny jeans. Don't be afraid to carry coffee to class, either. It can only help. But be prepared to regret everything when you find yourself trapped in a room by the professor with the tight plaid pants and swoopy hair. Take a deep breath...you were never here for the British Lit anyway. Leave that for the thick rimmed glasses and frizzy hair. You just want to write. Get a gig writing for the school newspaper so you can convince your parents you have some kind of future in writing. Damage control like this will frequently come in handy when people give you the "ick" and "have fun being poor" looks after you tell them what you're studying.
Whenever your writing is shared in class, always remind everyone that you wrote it late at night when you were exhausted so everyone knows you can write even better. Whenever you receive compliments, shrug them off like you think your awesome alliteration is no biggie when you really you're squealing with delight on the inside. Always stay calm, cool, and collected.
Most importantly, stick with creative nonfiction. Now no one has to know that you still have no idea what Shakespeare was talking about. Don't let the professor in the plaid pants fool you...thoroughly understanding Chaucer's deep down love of misogyny will get you nowhere but tenured in approximately 7-10 years. No thanks. Someday they'll be reading your works.
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I really enjoyed your piece better than the one in our book. I felt like I could relate more intimately because I am in this English world too. I feel like if another student with a different major read this they wouldn’t pick up the humorous parts and would probably be confused to the purpose but I feel like you did such a better job to relate to other people in our department. Although this prompt wasn’t in the insight chapter, I felt like I understood everything that you said. Not only because I am in classes with you, but because even if I wasn’t in the English department, I feel like anyone and everyone has had professors like the one you described. I liked this a lot.
ReplyDeleteThis was great. This would be a good thing for high school kids to read if they decide to go into English as a major in college. My favorite part was when "you realize you were in the light all along" Once I dropped Music as a major and came back to English, I realized I had made the right choice. A+
ReplyDeleteUgh....THIRD time commenting on this post. I keep forgetting about the dang CAPTCHA. Anyway, great job! It made me laugh out loud. I thought it was very ~insightful~. I especially enjoyed the imagery concerning the stereotypical English students and professors; with their hipster-esque styles and such. I'm pretty sure I have seen those exact people many times over during my college career.
ReplyDeleteI like the way this piece shows somewhat of a transformation. Even though it's short you still are able to tell a nice story. Its also nice to see that this is most likely creative nonfiction.
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