To My Knees April 16, 2009
Posted by Katie Oh in : Such As , trackbackAnd, oh, perhaps I am pretentious, but today my professor told me he couldn’t see me in the pieces I had turned in and I nearly wept. I know it is just these pieces, because I have been told on several occasions that I come through in my writing, but goodness, I nearly packed my bag and headed back to Pittsburgh just then.
Amanda and I picked our room: 305 Willoughby. She is going to paint a portrait of me. I am going to read her my words.
I have yet to actually cry after a critique, but I suspect it may come soon. It’s not that I have enough faith in the pieces that it’s heartbreaking to hear that people don’t like them; it’s just the knowledge that oh, goodness, I just have so far to go. It is what I am here for.
Eric Rosenblum (who, by the way, was attempting to describe a scene in a story in workshop that involved a woman shaving her pubic hair and used the word “genitailia” and we were all giggling, even him) gave us an essay by Amy Hempel to read. In it, she describes being in Gordon Lish’s workshop at Columbia.
She says this:
There is one last thing on this subject of How Hard. Lish says you must have a deep sense of how hard a job it is in order to have a shot at greatness, so that you are not satisfied too easily. Which is why, when one of our number says that it is too hard and she is going to quit, Lish says, Now.
“Now you are ready to begin.”
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