"You'll Never be a Writer"
But, who's to say?
"You'll never be a writer"—that's what one of my undergrad English professors told me in a one-on-one meeting. Nearly 50 years on, I don't remember anything about the circumstances, but I do remember his name, Hubert McAlexander.
At the time, I wanted to be a writer, and more specifically, a poet. I suppose I had mentioned that to him, and something I'd written must have provoked his blunt summation. I thought at the time it was unfair, unkind and worse, unhelpful.
But what did he mean? He was a professor of Southern literature, so "writer," in his mind, might have meant someone like William Faulkner or Thomas Wolfe. Granted, I doubted I'd ever write at their level. But what about lesser luminaries, such as the poet and novelist Marion Montgomery, who taught in the same department as McAlexander? Would I ever write at even his level? In McAlexander’s estimation, probably not.
Or did he mean that I might not become that kind of writer but yet some kind of writer? Not a writer of literature, but still someone who could string together words in such a way to keep a reader at least marginally engaged?
“Writing” covers a broad landscape that includes any number of plowed fields, bramble thickets and fallow acres. It doesn't include just literary writers, but also writers of magazine articles, gossip columns, coffee table books, blogs and obituaries, as well as writers who do their best to plant some expensive boutique crop for the market but only end up with compost, however rich and useful. The term also includes writers who write without thought to publication or pay. Diarists, for example, and the retiree, working on his memoir, which stays locked up in a laptop that, upon his death, will vanish when his widow, unaware of its contents, does a factory reset on it and gifts it to a niece or nephew. (I make sure to upload mine to the Cloud.)
And what about the scene in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” in which Wendy goes to Jack’s typewriter and sees, with sudden horror, that his novel consists of just a single sentence that is pounded out over and over again, for countless pages? Was Jack a writer? If you didn’t know Jack, you might think he was just being avant-garde.
The memory of McAlexander in his office, toying with his pipe, still rankles. But I should get over it. After all, I am a writer of some kind. Not like Faulkner, though, nor like Jack. I’m somewhere in between, happy that writing helps me understand my world, and happy that sometimes I get paid for it. Any other judgement I leave for posterity.
I do find it troubling that your professor passed judgement so easily. 😕 My profession is teaching, and I don't think any of us have a right to make those kinds of calls about students.
Several writing professors of mine thought I had promise as a writer, although my poetry prof told me once, "poetry is a lonely occupation best discovered along untrodden roads and wilderness. It takes a lot of time alone, with nothing but words ... But I think you already know that."
It's nearly 20 years later and Im still not sure if that was sage wisdom or a commentary on my lack of an undergrad social life... 🤣