I have about five different topics cooking in my skull right now, but am too scatterbrained to focus on any one of them. I’m taking part in a writing workshop this week, and thought about discussing workshopping and critiquing, a topic that I have many rabid opinions about which I’m always happy to share. I’ve also been wanting to write about genre, writing in different genres, writing in one genre when you think you’re writing in another, and how it’s all just marketing anyway. But there’s time for all that later. What really got me going this week was reading a couple of other blog posts about art, what it does, what it’s supposed to do, etcetera. And that reminded me of the creative writing class I took in college.
I was a sophomore, and on the very first day the professor said, “Science fiction isn’t real literature.” This was devestating to me, because I was a literature major — I loved books, I loved reading, I loved figuring out how books work. And I loved science fiction. “There’s nothing science fiction does that you can’t do in regular literature,” she explained. I was too young (19) and insecure to point out that she had uttered the contradiction to her own argument: science fiction produces the same effects as “regular” literature. Ergo, science fiction is regular literature. But like I said, I was 19 and floundering a bit. So I didn’t write science fiction and fantasy for a whole semester. It totally sucked.
To be fair, I did produce one meandering semi-autobiographical angst-ridden story of the type that was so popular in college creative writing classes at the time, and it went on to win me a bit of contest money, which was cool. But I also expended the entirety of my childhood angst in that one story, which meant as far as college and university creative writing classes were concerned, I had nothing left to write about.
But I learned something. By the end of the semester, I realized I was having a terrible time writing what the professor wanted me to write. I didn’t want to explore my own angst. I didn’t want to delve into the minutiae of psychological realism. That wasn’t why I wanted to write. I wanted to write about unicorns and spaceships. Why? Because it was fun. I read for fun. I write for fun. I want to get excited, explore strange new worlds, have adventures, get swept off my feet, laugh, cry, etcetera.
What I also learned was I can do all that, have my fun, and still speak truth and write art. I also realized I wasn’t going to take any more creative writing classes. My degrees are in English literature. Essentially, I majored in reading, and had an absolute blast doing it, while writing about unicorns and spaceships on the side. How cool is that? I got to have my cake and eat it too.
