I have signed on to do another series of creative writing classes. I swore last year when I finished up that last set of classes I would teach no more. It was becoming a painful experience. I hope being gone a year will give me some enthusiasm for my topics. It's not that I dislike teaching. I dislike people's response to my teaching. It wasn't the material I presented. It was the way they took that material.
For instance, it is a simple statement of fact, that when someone sends in a manuscript to wait to hear three to six months from an editor is standard. One student thought that was ludicrous, literally threw a two-year-old fit, got up and walked out of class. I was sorry he felt like that, but nothing I could do. I was the messenger, not the message.
Through the years, I have seen many such incidents. I've learned that those individuals probably won't make it in the business. They want things their way and right then. Publishing, I'm sorry to say, doesn't work that way. Wouldn't it be a perfect world if it did?
My goal when I teach or take on a new client is to see him succeed. Some of my students have, some haven't.
Tomorrow, we'll talk about why certain writers succeed and others don't.
Til Then~