Writers’ Galore
(Wrote it for another challenge but forgot to post. It is perfectly R Rated. Enjoy.)
Some students were looking with mouths slightly open (and drooling, may be?), following her every move. She felt a bit uncomfortable, self aware. This was her first class after achieving teaching credentials. A kind supe (supervisor) lurking in the back of the room had been making encouraging faces. She looked around, smiled, took a deeper “let’s begin” breath..- the recently painted room could have been aired a little better (and they should have probably used a different paint, how unconsidered, after all, these are kids in here!)... - oh, well, let’s get on with it now.
“Hello. My name is Ms. Dorothy. I will be your Writing teacher (or an instructor? or a guide?). Although this class is called ‘Composition Theory 1’ in the catalogue, we’ll leave this and some other formalities outside of this room. Let’s think of our subject as Writing, with a capital W. A process and result that precariously hinges on the two questions, also starting with capital Ws: What? and Why?
So, What is writing and Why? What makes it engaging, effective? How does it trick the readers into the thick of lines and valleys of letters even as some of us must brave optical challenges (or deficiencies?)?... These are the questions to scratch the surface of during this semester…
By the way, we will not take your attendance today. For the next two weeks, feel free to roam around among the classes and decide what you’d like to do and why.
A queer (or strange? or novel? or even revolutionary?) feature of this class is that rather than asking you questions and telling you what you already probably know, - or rather have a perfect capacity of figuring out on your own, - I am hereby presenting you with the following challenge. During our entire time together, you will be the ones asking me questions which I will attempt, during the class hours, to answer. You are to formulate your theories and ideas about Writing in a binary form to which I will answer either “Yes” or “No.” If I provide no answer at all, that could mean: “may be,” or “may be not,” or “may be it is not relevant altogether,” - those distinctions are not essential, so I won’t bother.
As during any creative process that exerts pressures and causes frustrations, the quality of your language and purity of your thoughts might give. I don’t mind. Every missed class without a valid excuse will cost you a grade. Your only paper will be a short essay of no more than two hundred words on this topic: “Writing: What and Why?” This was my last full sentence (word sequence?) addressed to you this semester.”
The mouths have shut. A cloud of silence started pouring cats and dogs as it encountered a cloud of confusion. The supe was beaming with excitement, scanning the class, and taking motion pictures with an iphone.
The magic (or wonder?) of writing may or may not draw upon expressions (or suppressions?) of doubts either in author's’ inability to make right decisions for protagonists or their actions or through uncertainties of outcomes as understood by readers (including the author of the same). A chance plays a huge role in both.
Red guy: “WTF, also starts with a capital W.”
Green girl: “Wait.” To the teacher: “Thank you. May I speak?...” Silence. “Oh, yes, I got it.” To the rest of the group: “I think that I understand this challenge. The key is for us to work together…”
Shiny guy: “Let’s walk together. I am out of here…”
Green girl: “Well, wait. I think that if we work together and organize our thoughts, this can be a great opportunity…”
Commotion as some started to leave.
Green girl: “I will wait.”
On a larger scale, doubts play a role in the entire process of writing’s creation and consumption. For example: what to write/read, when is a good time to do it, how many ideas per word or sentence, where to stop, color contrast on the electronic devices, food and sleep, and finally why to write and most importantly read. These points of bifurcation determine who we are and who we will never be.
Red guy, to the teacher: “May we also fart when enraged at our own failures to get a word from you?... Silence. I guess it does not matter, which means we could...”
Beaver girl, interrupting: “Only when you are solo, may be you can ask her to stay after class to ‘clarify something,’ but not while the rest of us are in attendance...”
Green girl: “OK, wait, wait. Let me just say now that this is great. I mean what could have been better? Essentially, aren’t we learning from reading and from each other, our peers, anyway? Or aren’t we supposed to be learning this way if we weren’t for some reason? When we’re done with the class, how else can we grow…”
Yellow girl: “You better make it interesting for me.”
Bistre guy: “Have you read the list of materials? It says: Google. Shouldn’t we get a summary at least?...”
Green girl: “This will limit us…”
Bistre guy: “I got it but at least some direction. We are paying money, mind you…”
Beaver girl: “Oh my, you’re kidding, I’ve managed free tuition, thank goodness...”
Bistre guy: “Not I…”
Green girl: “That’s the point, we got ourselves, we pay to work together…”
Bistre guy: “Why not just go on that same google and look for writing groups and join them for a weekly virtual get together, it’s free! Or join that thing, what it’s called… ah, the Prose, or something, online…”
Green girl: “The captive audience, dummy. Those online are here today nowhere to find tomorrow, all busy with commitments, some are losers, with unknown goals, or anoraks altogether, you’ll waste your life. How many times have you started an online game with a stranger just to find yourself hanging in the cyberspace waiting for new partners? We pay to the school to guarantee some kind of meaningful collegiality for some time. You heard the punishment for not showing up without an excuse…”
Red guy: “Right here, everyone, stop. I got it. Let’s just cry. Right now, everybody, together. With an utmost sincerity.”
The supe stopped filming. It was an unexpected move. A forbidden knack that could threaten this wonderful experiment… What was Ms. Dorothy thinking now? May be we shall call in boxes of kleenex to show our imperturbability, like we’re ready for anything? Like we’ve expected this turn of events? Or may be we shall transform this space into a preschool, bring in toys, diapers, and a music boombox? Who will lead the circle time?...
Red guy: “You, Beaver girl, do you think you have a chance in a world to become anything but a stay home mom or an expensive escort?
The truth is that if one of us becomes someone remotely read online or offline, the best we can count on is technical writers for a computer application or travel guides or cooking books may be. Some will be forced to slave away as erotic or pornography writers. The smartest will become lawyers, who are mostly the readers of technical nonsense. You should have lived differently, had other interests. You should have not indulged yourselves in excessive reading, empty dreams, instead develop yourselves into leaders or learn useful skill which you could put to work.
The red guy turned... purplish. The tears showed in his eyes.
Ms. Dorothy was ready to stoically withstand any abuse expected by the academic who donated this “Writing: What/Why, Yes/No, Google” class to the school. But no one had prepared her for this aggressive expose of an extreme emotion right away, without any build up, a sharp, grotesque deviation from the expected, logical steps, skipping right into the crazy self-deprecating act....
No one else showed any emotion. They were just sitting there looking at him.
Yellow girl: “I must say, you’re quite inventive in your invective; very artistic and... masochistic. Why have you even joined the class?”
Green girl came up to Red guy, she wrapped her arms around him in a tender but firm grip and said: “It’s OK, you can fart. We are a family now. At least for another three months.”
Beaver girl: “Thank you for a high praise but I think that you underestimate your peers a bit.”
Bistre guy: “Hey man, no, things are not that bad at all, nowhere near... You shall see.”
A (deep?) sigh of relief from the supe and instructor. They thought that this class included various child prodigies… Who was this Red guy… Supe scrolled through the roster and clicked on his name. Ah, dah! They counted on him to leave among the first batch. He was one of “controls,” a favor to the economics professor, his nephew.
Another bout of silence has set in. It seemed like the students who remained in the class have accepted the challenge. They flung their laptops open.
Google: “what to write?” 893,000,000 results; “why to write?” 540,000,000 results. They understood and closed their laptops.
The supe went back to beaming with happiness and filming with a phone.
Green girl: “Does writing provide answers?”
Silence.
Bistre boy: “Is writing an act of self indulgence?”
“Yes.”
Beaver girl: “Is writing an expression of a doubt?”
“Yes.”
As these young prodigious minds embark on a major literary discovery of their fictional lives, we could only imagine where it may take them, what else we might see if we decided to listen in. Ms. Dorothy said that she was expecting the purity of their thoughts to give. Are you?