does the thing tell a good story? Does it illuminate some facet of life? Heck, if nothing else, did it move you to some authentic emotion--even if it was just being so mortally offended that you threw it across the room?

YES.

And there's that mention of instinct again, oblique. At what point, between the litcrit and the fifty navel-gazing reference books and the professor who wrote a delicate little novel in which he almost managed to sustain his own interest for a hundred and eighteen pages and is still bitter because no one wanted to review it in a university article, do we, not only as writers but as readers, begin to trust our own reactions without the whole "you must do it this way or you are invalid" crap?

begin to trust our own reactions without the whole "you must do it this way or you are invalid" crap?

Oh, gosh, that's the hard one. People get trained to believe that their opinions will be given to them, and too many people bow to a stronger personality. If that person is on TV or is speaking from the pages of a book, then that person must, somehow, have higher status and therefore be followed. The "Yeah, it worked for you, but you're special" thing. I dislike the whole "building self-esteem" thing you see in schools, but it's needed in some areas.

I honestly believe that there are forces in society that like people to not trust their own opinions, to accept what they are told. People trusting their own voices leads to people questioning what's going on around them. An educated, eloquent populace is a threat to entrenched power.

Connie, that last post of yours should damned well be framed and hung over most university lecterns.

And that's one of the main things I was getting at about the One True Way stuff. It's Cult of Personality crap, and the major danger of Cult of Personality stuff, whether it's a question of charisma taking over or whether it's a carefully engineered effort for mass mind stuff, is the destruction of the individual reaction and the individual belief that they can do what they feel inclined to do without that specific set of parameters.

People get trained to believe that their opinions will be given to them

And that's what I mean by feeling like a Martian. I was very specifically trained to believe that if I took my opinions from other people, I was a moron. So, well - Martian.

Well, Deb, all that means is you had competent parents. Not enough of those out there, either.

Family thing; uncles aunts cousins older sibs (most of them) et al. Family vibe on both sides: "You sound like that blahblah idiot. Got a brain? Use it!"

Lucky you. My extendo-family was more of the "Do we have to talk about that?"

You know, there was a part of me that was very good this morning: I sat down and did (I just counted) sixty seven pages worth of editing on manuscript for a friend. I typed the edits. Then the computer decided to have a minor temporaryn aneurysm or temper tantrum and it burped and ate the email with all the edits. And since I was doing everything onscreen, there's nothing written down. So I have to do it all again.

I am taking this as divine proof that I'm supposed to take a long hot shower, go out in the garden, and put all my carefully nursed, now two-inch tall varietal tomato seedlings into pots.

Less of a writer? So be it.

So, I'm the only one who studiously avoided anything remotely resembling a lit class that so much as mentioned Aristotle, Plato and the utilitarians? I'm the only freak out there who just sits down and writes?

t raises hand

As said earlier, mileage is so individual on this one that there are no specs to be found.

Big heapin' word, to this and to what everyone's said about the "One True Way".

Many of the books I read early on were big on outlines, systems, and the idea that if you're not driven to write every single day, you're obviously not cut out for this.

"Driven" to write? Eesh. Ideas keep burbling up out of my head, but organizing them into actual stories? It's an awful lot like work, so it's an awful lot like "choosing" to do it...

I never took a creative writing class in college; my favorite English prof recommended against it.

Have I mentioned how I was accepted into Bennington on the basis of my writing and then turned down by the creative writing profs? And how I'm not bitter about that at all?

I'm the only freak out there who just sits down and writes?

Four hours a night, six days a week... up until January when everything went haywire. I miss it, now. I'm getting back on the horse as soon as I cut this job-and-a-half down to one job.

Timelies, all. Sleepytime for me.

Have I mentioned how I was accepted into Bennington on the basis of my writing and then turned down by the creative writing profs?

Kill them.

A lot.