Advice on a Writing Program at Whitman

What does that mean? If you want something official that certifies you as a an "official writing student," we can't offer that . . . unless you want to design your own "writing major." (If you're interested in doing that, check out Jeremy Engdahl-Johnson's description of his writing major. Such majors are tough to create and require a fair amount of commitment by several professors. I wouldn't do it unless you're really serious about it and can convince others that you are.

I'd point out that good writers or potentially good writers seldom become great writers simply by taking coursework in writing. For one thing, writers who need the structure of classes sometimes don't learn how to write on their own, how to set their own deadlines, how to survive without somebody else's assignments and artificial deadlines. (I see a lot of very talented people who will never become writers simply because they have no self- discipline, no burning fire, no system for themselves, no long-term goals of their own.)

So what do you do if you just want to become a good writer? I don't know, though I have some hunches.

1. For one thing, you should (obviously) take what writing courses you can. Do the work and if you're really committed, do more than you're assigned. Obsession isn't necessarily a good trait, but it's indispensable if you've got big goals for yourself.
   
   
2. Seek out professors in all departments who are concerned with writing. Some of the best writers at Whitman are not in the English Department and don't even like literature. So ask around and find out who will help you the most. Ask the tutors in the Writing Center, too. They know a lot about professors who are interested in helping their students learn to write.
   
   
3. Seek out "theory" classes. If you want to write, you need to know how things work and how people talk about things. You need to know something about research in different fields. You need to know something about how we measure, recognize, and evaluate "facts." Check out courses in philosophy of science. Check out "critical theory" in the English Department. Check out music theory or art theory or Marxism or Feminism or rhetorical theory. Find out something about computers. Make your own web page.
   
   
4. Take a foreign language. Dana Burgess is doing something with grammar that could be very helpful. (Though there's no clear evidence that taking grammar will improve your own writing, it'll help you talk about language--and that could be valuable.)
   
   
5. Take a semester and go abroad.
   
   
6. Learn to spell. (Sometimes people don't realize that spelling is a finite problem. You can count the number of words in your writing vocabulary-- and you know how to spell most of them already.)
   
   
7. Study on your own. Learn to read like a writer--watch out for methods, ploys, traps, bluffs, lists. Learn something about comic writing, sports writing, political writing. Subscribe to New York Times and read book reviews. Subscribe to The New Yorker and read "Talk of the Town." Subscribe to Harper's. Read Dorothy Parker, Molly Ivins, Miss Manners, Seymore Krim, Joseph Mitchell, Annie Dillard, Joan Didion, Gertrude Stein, Heywood Broun, Red Smith, Russell Baker, Anna Quindlen, H. L. Mencken, I. F Stone, Dorothy Thompson, George Orwell, E. B. White, James Thurber, William Buckley, Edward Abbey, John McPhee, Calvin Trillin, Norman Mailer, A. J. Liebling, Robert Benchley, Roger Angell, Tom Wolfe, Pauline Kael, Ellen Goodman, Hunter Thompson, Camille Paglia, Hunter S. Thompson. (Very few English departments in the country will introduce you to many of these.) Explore all the texts on the WEB including all those free newspapers.
   
   
8. Take on summer internships at a local newspaper or law firm.
   
   
9. Bother your professors and bother them some more; think about ways you can get Sally Abshire grants to do some writing with your professors. If you don't like assignments or think you need more freedom or more ambitious projects, negotiate with your professors. (I've never known any professor who would consciously hold you back.)
   
   
10. Get a life.

11. Work for the Pio--if you don't have the time to be an editor, write pieces and see them in print.
    
    
12. Work on literary publications like The Blue Moon or the women's literary publication sponsored by the Women's Center. (Last year, it was called Embraces.

13. Push words. I'm always surprised at how many people think they can become great writers without paying their dues--without writing all the time. Write on the back of your hand; write letters; write irate memos to the phone company; start a newsletter; keep a journal or a journal; volunteer to write for some community service project; explore summer internship programs at newspapers; make a website and put your stories, advice or whatever out there for others to see.
    
    
14. Enter writing contests like the Harper Joy One Act competition.
    
    
15. Start collecting reference books--dictionaries, bibles, books on usage, encyclopedias, books of quotations, anthologies of famous dead people, literary histories, histories of wildlife, anthologies of famous newspaper columns. (Haunt thrift shops and used book stores for such things--they're often cheap.)
    
    
16. Start working on some kind of portfolio. If you want to go on with your writing, you'll need some proof you can write. Save the best things you've written and polish them up. If you get things published, save them and document them. If you've taken all the writing courses you can, seek out independent studies and try to put together a project you can save and show off. Or look for other writers and form a writing group.
    
    

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