Collegiate Foothills

For the aspiring writer, there are many valleys and hills and other landscape metaphors that he must cross.  One decision he must make is the route he plans to take in his formal education: what college and what major.  Is it worth the investment of time and money to study creative writing in college?  do you need to? So let's look at successful writers and their decisions about their education:

• Ray Bradbury: His formal education never went farther than his high school diploma.

• Dan Brown: He graduated from Phillips Exeter, his high school, and continued into Amherst college.

• Meg Cabot: She attended Indiana University.  She made a point not to study writing there because a young man, whom would later become her husband, said that, "studying creative writing as a major sucks the love of writing out of you ". Taking his advice she studied studio art instead, however she did take a few workshops in creative writing.

• John Grogan:  Went to Central Michigan University and graduated with a double major in English and Journalism.

• Daniel Keyes: After he finished his service in the U.S. Maritime Service, he Graduated from Brooklyn college with a B.A. in Psychology.

• Stephen King: Graduated from the University of Maine with a bachelors in English.  He wrote a weekly column for his college newspaper while he studied there.

• Jean Kwok:  After moving to America from Hong Kong, Jean attended Harvard and graduated with honors in English and American Literature.  She went on to get a masters in fine arts at Columbia.

• Stephenie Meyer: Graduated from Brigham University in Utah with a bachelors in English.

• Jodi Picoult: Studied Creative writing at Princeton, then continued to get a masters in education at Harvard.

• Nicolas Sparks: He graduated from his high school as valedictorian.  Then he went to Notre Dame on a track scholarship and majored in Business finance.

Of course, there are many more writers, but from the lot we have there is an array of stories.  However, English seems to be the most popular.  Though school and learning the technicalities of writing is important, learning through life is even more important.  Even in the strangest fiction, life is the basic subject matter.  (I already wrote about learning through life in my post An Education).  Ray Bradbury, mentioned above, is very adamant about this also calling himself a "student of life".  Yet you can be a student of life and a student of the book simultaniously.  It's just that the value of learning from what's around you is often overlooked.

No writer is the same as they come from so many different types of backgrounds.  What you choose in your education will affect that.  In the end, I believe it doesn't matter what you get your degree in, so long as it's something you enjoy and if possible practical.  Because you do need some means to pay for your writing habit.  The diploma on the wall, whatever it may be, won't get you published.  It's the things you learn and apply to your writing that will.

References:
http://www.stephenking.com/the_author.html
http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/bio.html
http://www.nicholassparks.com/AboutNicholas.asp?PageID=1
http://www.megcabot.com/about-meg-cabot/frequently-asked-questions-about-meg-cabot/#college
http://www.jodipicoult.com/JodiPicoult.html#kudos
http://www.raybradbury.com/bio.html
http://www.danbrown.com/
http://www.jeankwok.com/author.shtml
http://www.johngroganbooks.com/marley/about.html
http://www.danielkeyesauthor.com/dksbio.html

Shoes with Toes and Writing Prose

   So the other day I was at a friend's house and we were eating lunch.  I happen to glance under the kitchen table to see her wearing the oddest pair of tennis shoes I ever saw.  The shoes looked like a pair of water shoes but molded to the shape of her foot, toes and all.  I immediately questioned her about them.  She smiled and casually explained they were the latest in running shoe apparel.  My friend is a dedicated morning jogger and fitness fanatic, so she's into that type of stuff.  Yet, I still don't know why she was wearing them in the kitchen.  She continued to give me a sales pitch about her foot's fashion statement.  The regular tennis shoe, though is soft on the feet, isn't very soft on joints in your hips and knees.  See, the human foot in biologically designed to run and support our body and absorb shock instead of our hips and joints.  The regular tennis shoe inhibits the foot from doing what it does naturally and it causes unnecessary wear and tear on joints and hips.  With this new design it's like running bare foot, but better.  That's what she said anyways.
   So how did I apply the mechanics of the shoe to writing?  Ever writer has a voice in which they share their ideas, whether that be through poetry or prose.  Some would call it a person's writing style but I prefer to call it a writing voice.  No one can tell you what you voice is like and it doesn't appear on demand once you begin the road to being a writer.  You alone must spend the large amount of time strengthening your voice.  It's frustrating.
   The worst mistake a new writer can make is copy another writer's unique style.  It doesn't work because that's not their voice.  In the end they just mix up their writing into gibberish and their writing was worse than it was before.  Studying another author's voice and mimicking it are two separate things.  So like the way the shoe conforms to the natural shape of the foot so must a person's writing conform to their natural style and not someone else's.


   Have you ever mimicked another author's voice? How did that go? Have you ever worn these strange shoes with toes? My next post is going to be my 50th post. Are there any ideas of something special I can do?