Lies They Tell Writers, Part 50: Enroll today! You, too, can learn to be a writer!

There’s one thing that’s sorely lacking in my career as a writer: an education.

Beyond what they taught us all back in my day with those dreaded “Themes” in high school (and elementary school and junior high) I am unschooled in writing.

I confess a reasonably good grounding in journalistic-type scribbling, as I earned a degree in the subject in college (between rodeoing and activities best not mentioned).

Still, I can put together a passable assemblage of words now and then. Don’t ask me how or why. But it certainly didn’t come from attending one of those fancy creative writing programs where so many people who want to write enroll, lured by all manner of lofty promises. I know people who have done that, and they tend to hem and haw, fuss and fritter, plan and procrastinate, and talk about writing rather than write.

I read something some time ago about creative writing programs that might help explain that. It references poetry in particular, but I think it applies to creative writing in general. This quotation pretty much sums up what a fellow named Louis Menand wrote in the New Yorker:

Creative-writing programs are designed on the theory that students who have never published a poem can teach other students who have never published a poem how to write a publishable poem.

Sounds about right to me. As I have opined before, you can learn more about good writing by reading the writing of good writers.

Pay attention. They know how to do it.

Lies They Tell Writers, Part 48: The only way to learn to write is to write.

If you want to be a writer, you have to write. It’s pretty hard to argue with that. But how do you learn to write? Or to write better?

I’ve heard tell the only way to do it is to write. And write some more.

It certainly can’t hurt. But there’s that old saying that says if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. In other words, if you just keep writing, you could keep making the same mistakes over and over again. That won’t help.

You could take a course. Go to a writers conference. Enroll in a writing program. All of which will most likely do you some good.

But there’s an easier way: read.

You can learn to be a better writer by reading good writing. At least it seems to have helped me, as I have never learned anything about creative writing (which my journalism degree did not cover) anywhere but in books. I love to read. I do a lot of it. And when I find a writer or a book that I especially like, I will read it again, and sometimes again and again. Once you’ve read a book enough that you don’t get caught up in the story, you start noticing how the author does things—how he chooses words, how she builds phrases, how he makes sentences, how she moves the story along, or pauses to let you catch your breath.

All those things, and many more, get embedded in your mind and when you sit down to write, they affect how—and how well—you do it.

And when it comes right down to it, reading is a lot more enjoyable way to spend time than sitting around in a classroom talking about writing.

Lies They Tell Writers, Part 11: Get an Education.

I am all for learning. You can never learn enough, and you should never stop learning.

Education, however, is something else again. At least some of the time.

In our society, every attempt has been made to make education synonymous with job training. And, to a large extent, it has been successful. Forget about learning how the world works and why, or about people and why they do what they do. Instead, become a number cruncher of one kind or another and earn big bucks.

But that’s another story. Before I wander too far afield, let’s remember that this story is about writing, and education plays a role here, as well. (Unfortunately, the part about jobs and big bucks is not transferable.)

If you want to be a writer, they tell you, get an education. Enroll in a creative writing program at a highfalutin university and keep going until you get all the degrees they offer. Get accepted at a prestigious academy for a few weeks or months of intensive training.

I know people who have done this. And keep doing it. Trouble is, they never seem to get around to writing much of anything, or finishing anything they do write.

It’s as if they examine and evaluate and assess and scrutinize to the extreme, resulting in analysis paralysis.

There are, of course, exceptions. Still, most of the published writers I know seem to get by with degrees in pedestrian pursuits such as journalism, or history, or law, or accounting, or business, or education, or agriculture, or—well, you get the idea.

Some of them have no degrees at all. But they are learned. And they keep learning.

And they keep writing. 

Cowboy poetry goes to college.

A while back the people at the University of Utah Division of Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning tracked me down and asked me to develop and teach an introductory course on writing cowboy poetry. I agreed before they had a chance to realize the error of their ways.

Wednesday evenings from March 25 through April 29 (2015, of course) from 6:30 to 8:30, I will be watching (and, I hope, helping) the participants who show up wrangle the alphabet into words, words into lines, lines into stanzas, and stanzas into poems.

What could be more fun?

If you’re within driving distance of the University of Utah Continuing Education campus in Sandy—or can afford the airfare from elsewhere—join us for adventures in poetry. I’m looking forward to going back to school and learning a thing or two. And, teaching a few things as well.