Cool & Crazy

I’m so happy to be reading Elbow, again. I have missed him. For me, it would be absolutely fascinating to partake in a teacherless class. I’ve learned more about my writing from creative writing circles then any other place. You really can tell when you have written something good, or when you have not. Often, what I thought was my best work was not, and vice versa. This never made any sense to me, except maybe I was trying to hard. Clearly, I have never been in a class like Peter Elbow mentions, but I would love to.

Elbow states, “It is not true that tons of adjectives always make writing boring; it’s not true that the passive voice is always weak; it’s not true that abstractions are always vague; it’s not true that examples always make things clearer. In writing, anything can do anything” (97). This contradicts most of what I have been taught, however; I agree with it. Elbow really embodies the idea that writing equals freedom, which, to me, is a breath of fresh air. At the same time this idea kind of confuses me, because I was always told what makes good writing. Now, I’m not so sure what makes good writing. There is no right recipe or formula, which makes it even more challenging. I guess it is all about the experience the reader goes through, and that is the point of his teacherless classes.

I was always told that writing is about showing not telling, but I didn’t know feedback was the same. Elbow says, “To help you in telling, pretend that there is a whole set of instruments you have hooked up to yourself which record everything that occurs in you: not just pulse, blood pressure, EEG, and so on, but also ones which tell every image, feeling, thought, and word that happens in you” (90). Wow! That is a lot to think about, and I believe it is much easier said than done. Yes, I can do an activity like this, but I don’t know if I can do it in front of the writer. I believe this would take A LOT of practice. The human mind filters so much information that I think it is nearly impossible to show the writer what you are truly feeling. Nobody wants to be the person to tell a person that their writing sucks, and no writer wants to hear it. Elbow explained how this would be difficult in the first few weeks. However, I don’t think it would be any easier a few weeks into the teacherless class.

I think Elbow’s ideas for showing, are kind of silly, fun, and slightly crazy. Can you imagine walking in on some of these activities? I definitely would want to try them before I dismiss them, but some of his ideas are extremely wacky. If I were the writer, I’m not sure what I would get out of it. I mean if one part of my story was like my big toe and another part was similar to my head, I would be confused. Is that a compliment? I did like some of his ideas, such as the drawing and the ten-minute writing exercises.

Overall, I do believe this type of class can be very beneficial for improving writing, if the right groups of people are put together. I believe I am rather open-minded and I enjoy Elbow for stepping outside the box with his ideas.