Self Evaluation

Yesterday in class we did a quick evaluation of ourselves as writers. I mentioned the 3-legged stool of writerly success: Skill, Talent, and Passion. The idea was to get you to take stock of yourselves as writers and come up with some plans for how to a) improve upon your flaws and sharpen your skills b) make use of your strengths / talents and c) write out of your passions.

How do you feel, having done that? Inspired or intimidated? Most writers that I know feel about equally inspired and intimidated by the task that lies before us: writing the best story we possibly can.

This morning as I sat down to compose this post to you, I caught the following Facebook post from Alan Heathcock (we're reading his short story collection, VOLT, this semester, and he will be here for a reading in October) that seemed perfect to share with you at this juncture:

Even though I'm not on campus this semester, this time of year naturally pushes my mind toward teaching. If I were teaching, here's what I'd tell my students on the first day of class: There's never a reason to think anyone is smarter than you, but only that someone knows something you haven't yet learned. The most successful people I know are very clear-eyed about what they don't yet know, and are passionate, voracious, uninhibited learners. More than anything else, including that ambiguous slippery thing some folks call "talent", your capacity for success as a writer (or anything else) is most determined by your capacity for learning.

Well said, Al. I couldn't agree more.

So now I want you to take a minute and make a comment below that tells me some of what you wrote yesterday. You don't have to list everything, but try to name one or two things from each question. I will add a comment first so you can see what that looks like.

1. What are you flaws, as a writer? How do you think you might improve upon these flaws?
2. What are your natural talents? What are your strengths / skills? How might you showcase these skills and talents by what you write?
3. What are your dreams as a writer? What are your long-term and short-term goals?
4. What are your passions, those subjects that inspire you and trigger you to write? Are there any of these passions that you haven't explored yet in your writing?

I am eager to see where you're at and get working on writing the best little story you can.

See you Friday.

Welcome!

Welcome to Creative Writing 404: Writing for the Professional Market!

If you're reading this page you are enrolled (or have been invited to participate in) this advanced fiction short story course at Pepperdine University.

I'm Cynthia Hand Struloeff, the instructor for the course (aka Dr. Mrs. Struloeff, aka Cynthia Hand, please just call me Cynthia and we'll avoid a lot of confusion). See the Professor page for more information about me and how you can get in contact with me throughout the semester.

Also, please take a minute RIGHT NOW to subscribe to this page, so that you will receive notice whenever I post anything you need to know. Just put your preferred email in the Follow By Email section in the column on your right.

Then take a minute to purchase your books, if you haven't already (they should be available at the BSU bookstore), which you can do by clicking on the books on the Required Reading list at the column on your right.

So, a little basic information about the course. In this class we will:

• Write. In the next fifteen weeks you'll write and workshop two literary short stories, the goal being that at the end of the course you will have revised one of them to be good enough to submit it to a literary journal. We'll also do a bunch of writing exercises along the way to producing those two short stories.

• Read. A lot. At the end of this class you'll have read 24 published short stories, a book of the craft of the short story, and 14 unpublished stories written by your peers. Your eyes will be tired.

• Learn the ins and outs of publishing, across the different genres. Every week we will discuss a different topic that's related to publishing.

• Talk to the pros. We'll get to Skype with a literary agent and a real-live Big Four publishing house editor. Come with questions.

• Discuss a writer's education in its many forms: MFAs, crit groups, conferences, mentors, and good books and references for self study. 

• Learn what literary journals are, how they work, and why that's important. We will study all kinds of different literary journals, and you will research them yourself and pick one to submit to at the end of the semester.

• Actually try to get published. Yep, that's right. When your portfolio is due at the end of the semester, you'll bring your polished-up short story in, along with your submission letter and a SASE to be MAILED OFF to a journal after it's graded.

Eager to get started?  Check out the Syllabus for more information.

See you in class! Be sure to bring some paper and something to write with, because oh, yeah, we'll be writing on the first day.