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/lit/ - Literature

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6874299 No.6874299 [Reply] [Original]

Okay so riddle me this:

People who write usually have something to tell, yet I imagine only very few young (~20yrs) people have anything of interest to say to the public, hence they should have no aspiration to write at all.

But then so we can observe two things:
a) People do get into writing at that age
b) People who don't get into writing at that age won't have the necessary authorial and literary skills once they enter the age when enough things have happened to them that they might have anything of interest to say (I'm excluding writing for prose itself or poetry here, which may not require a certain experience of life).

So my question is this: Are most undergrads who go to college explicitely for writing some sort of prodigy with extraordinally meaningful things to say, or do said people just get coaxed into writing classes because they like the idea of being an author?
Have most authors even taken writing classes, or did they just come from tangential literary backgrounds (i.e reading lots of books) and at some point found out writing instead of reading is fun too?
Or do successful writers just _feel_ the urge to write at a young age without any particular goal in mind?

Sincerely,
Anon.

>> No.6874316

>People who write usually have something to tell
I reject this premise
>yet I imagine only very few young (~20yrs) people have anything of interest to say
I reject this premise
>to the public
I reject this premise
>People who don't get into writing at that age won't have the necessary authorial and literary skills once they enter the age when enough things have happened to them that they might have anything of interest to say
I reject this premise

nobody who has gone to college to learn 'creative writing' has ever produced anything of value ever

>> No.6874324
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6874324

>>6874316
What about the DFW? He even studied under Nabokov.

>> No.6874345

>>6874324
i wouldn't know i haven't read him
btw it was Pynchon who studied under Nabokov at cornell

>> No.6874355

>Or do successful writers just _feel_ the urge to write at a young age without any particular goal in mind?
I think its mostly this.

People who go to school for writing make me sick. Get a real job, assholes.

>> No.6874359

>>6874345
DFW too, he says so in "A supposedly fun thing I'll never do again".

>> No.6874376

>>6874355
>People who go to school for writing make me sick. Get a real job, assholes.
this

>> No.6874388

>>6874359
i fail to see how this is possible seeing that Nabokov died when he was 14

>> No.6874391

>>6874388
Oh shit maybe I mixed something up.

>> No.6874396

>>6874391
it's okay anon we still love you

>> No.6874401

>>6874376
ya, I know right? Fuck those people.

tfw I secretly always wanted to go to school for writing but never had a chance

>> No.6874415

>>6874401
>yfw I have been published multiple times, yet went to uni to study engineering and then English

>> No.6874456

>>6874415
Oh yeah? I bet you're really fucking proud of yourself, but you know what?
you should be
asshole.

>> No.6874474

>>6874299
It's not a matter of "meaning" but you're correct that a lot of young writers are very bad at getting outside of themselves and seeing the world from different perspectives and with different levels of complexity in mind. It's an art that you develop as you do it. Most authors over the last 50 years went to MFA programs and all that but many of the folks thought best of in the 20th century and prior weren't taught how to write fiction or poetry in a classroom.

Your last question is usually the most accurate with successful writers who end up writing a long time. Don DeLillo once described writing Underworld as being its own reward. Like a lot of other arts that seems to be the mindset you have to have unless you somehow end up thrust into the limelight at an early age (oh hi there Dave Wallace) and most of those people don't end up as consistent big dog writers. It's a craft OP and it honestly tends to turn out best when you create something that you're very happy with. Everyone needs direction for how to read critically and how to understand the medium they're working in, but after that it's a matter of doing what Don D. and Don B. did: sitting in a room for several hours a day and fucking writing.

>> No.6874939

>>6874299
Your first premise is wildly off base.

>> No.6875294

When people are very young and are forced to have something to say about any random subject, it's usually clear which ones are capable of expressing what malformed complex of ignorances clearly and effectively, and it is these that have the most chance to then go on to be able to express themselves in an engaging and captivating way once something of value does come along that they feel needs to be said.

Of course not all writing needs to say something.