Ruminations, continued.

III

 

 

After the complete waste of the first year in the program, I actually contemplated leaving the program  Here I had achieved the dream of getting into the program and learning to be a writer, gone through my first class, and it was an utter waste of time.  I had sat at the feet of an award winning author, so to speak, and I had learned absolutely nothing. 

 

I decided to stay, and hoped I would have better luck in the coming year. I began to think about what kind of teacher would be best for a Creative Writing Class.  I came to the conclusion that perhaps a writer is not the best person to teach writing.  Maybe what would be best was an editor, someone who knew how to take an idea or a manuscript and mold it, or perhaps slash and bash it, into a better work.  Someone who knew how to make a good idea better, who could say "this is good, this is not," and perhaps explain why. 

 

That is what I hoped for.  But, in the days before the internet, we could not look up our professors online and see what others said about them or what their experience was.  And, besides, we were stuck taking the classes that we could fit into our schedule.  Even if I had been able to look up the professors assigned to the classes, it still would not have helped me as the teacher listed for my class was simply a TBA: To Be Announced.  I signed up for the course- prose writing- and hoped for the best.   

 

'The best' was not what I got.  Actually, it was quite the opposite.