Writers Round Table
The lights are bright as the smell of the coffee and bagels fill the area around the shop. There are two men both are good friends. Steven is an English professor for a major institution; Hank is going back to college to earn his master’s in business. Both decided to meet up at the café to get together and talk about how their lives are going. Steven brings up the conversation of writing process due to the fact that he can’t understand why his students don’t understand the meaning behind the books “Zen in the Art of writing” by Ray Bradbury, “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions On Writing and Life” by Anna Lamott, and “How Can You Create Fiction When Reality Comes to Call” by Carolyn Chutes are simple to understand.
Steven: I always wonder why some students come up to me at the end of class and ask how you commence to start to begin to an almost new type of writing.
Steven: What I tell them is it’s like trying to scale a glacier. It’s hard to get your footing, and your fingertips get all red and frozen and torn up.
Hank: They don’t understand what you mean by it’s like a glacier. That’s like me going in to a sales meeting and saying, ‘As you can see our sales are going Bang! Bang! Bang!” it’s not describing anything.
Hank: The problem for any writer in any field is being circumscribed by what has gone before or what is being printed that very day in books and magazines.
Steven: While I can’t argue with what you just said there is a certain point that is not getting across to my student.
Hank: Well one of my co-workers Anna Lamott said E.L.Doctorow once said that” writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as the headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way” even you must understand that.
Steven: So a student can only see as far as the professor wants them see, but they can still understand it at least.
Hank: Exactly
Steven: I mean I have bright students like Ray and Carolyn that understand the base of the meaning but still can’t grasp the full meaning of where the meaning comes from.
Hank: that is something that I can’t help you with not to be mean but they are just getting to know you give it time and I guaranty they will understand it in due time.
Steven: yay I guess your right about that.
Steven: Oh, one more question if you have the time?
Hank: I would be happy to answer one more question before I have to get back to class?
Steven: How do you know so much about the writing process?
Hank: when you had a professor in college freshman year who used analogies to describe his lessons you can learn a lot from someone like that.
Steve: You don’t say and who would that be?
Hank: Someone who has his mind in the right places and wants his students to become better writer not only grade wise but in general so that can succeed in life.
Steven: wonder who that is?
The lights are bright as the smell of the coffee and bagels fill the area around the shop. There are two men both are good friends. Steven is an English professor for a major institution; Hank is going back to college to earn his master’s in business. Both decided to meet up at the café to get together and talk about how their lives are going. Steven brings up the conversation of writing process due to the fact that he can’t understand why his students don’t understand the meaning behind the books “Zen in the Art of writing” by Ray Bradbury, “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions On Writing and Life” by Anna Lamott, and “How Can You Create Fiction When Reality Comes to Call” by Carolyn Chutes are simple to understand.
Steven: I always wonder why some students come up to me at the end of class and ask how you commence to start to begin to an almost new type of writing.
Steven: What I tell them is it’s like trying to scale a glacier. It’s hard to get your footing, and your fingertips get all red and frozen and torn up.
Hank: They don’t understand what you mean by it’s like a glacier. That’s like me going in to a sales meeting and saying, ‘As you can see our sales are going Bang! Bang! Bang!” it’s not describing anything.
Hank: The problem for any writer in any field is being circumscribed by what has gone before or what is being printed that very day in books and magazines.
Steven: While I can’t argue with what you just said there is a certain point that is not getting across to my student.
Hank: Well one of my co-workers Anna Lamott said E.L.Doctorow once said that” writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as the headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way” even you must understand that.
Steven: So a student can only see as far as the professor wants them see, but they can still understand it at least.
Hank: Exactly
Steven: I mean I have bright students like Ray and Carolyn that understand the base of the meaning but still can’t grasp the full meaning of where the meaning comes from.
Hank: that is something that I can’t help you with not to be mean but they are just getting to know you give it time and I guaranty they will understand it in due time.
Steven: yay I guess your right about that.
Steven: Oh, one more question if you have the time?
Hank: I would be happy to answer one more question before I have to get back to class?
Steven: How do you know so much about the writing process?
Hank: when you had a professor in college freshman year who used analogies to describe his lessons you can learn a lot from someone like that.
Steve: You don’t say and who would that be?
Hank: Someone who has his mind in the right places and wants his students to become better writer not only grade wise but in general so that can succeed in life.
Steven: wonder who that is?