JMS on Usenet

Message

Subject: Re: House of M #3: Brief thoughts...
Date: 23 Jul 2005 18:57:49 -0700
From: jmsatb5@aol.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe

Robert Wiacek wrote:
> "scott34494"  wrote in message
> news:1121480813.100137.262390@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> >
> >
> > Robert Wiacek wrote:
> >> "scott34494"  wrote in message
> >> news:1121458666.085618.224050@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > marti285@umn.edu wrote:
> >> >> In article <1121442433.525783.318020@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
> >> >>  "scott34494"  wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> >
> >> >> >   "Those who can,
> >> >> > do, those who can't, teach."
> >> >>
> >> >> Repeating this phrase is a stunning display of ignorance.
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> > No it's not.  There's a lot of truth to that phrase.
> >> >

Since my name is being bandied about here I'm going to jump into this.

> >> > JMS on college writing teachers:
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > "I do agree that the majority -- not all, certainly, but from what I've
> >> > personally experienced and encountered from others -- of college or
> >> > university writing classes, where they tell you how to write, are more
> >> > or less useless, and can even hinder a writer's development. For
> >> > starters, there's a very special kind of literary writing or style --
> >> > very nihilistic, eschewing anything as crude as plot or (gasp!)
> >> > commerciality -- that is in vogue at most universities that is utterly
> >> > useless in the outside writing world, unless you choose to make a
> >> > career going on and teaching this same kind of writing, and placing
> >> > little literary structureless stories in college literary magazines,
> >> > which pay in copies and are sucked into silence thereafter."
> >> >
> >>

Yup, that's what I said.

> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Michael_Straczynski
> >>
> >> "Straczynski is a graduate of San Diego State University, having earned
> >> degrees in psychology and sociology (with minors in philosophy and
> >> literature). While at SDSU, he wrote prolifically for the student
> >> newspaper,
> >> at times penning so many articles that the paper was jokingly referred to
> >> as
> >> the 'Daily Joe.'"
> >>

Yup, also correct.

> >> First he retconed Gwen Stacy's history, now he's doing it to himself.
> >>
> >

And that's when you start to go off the deep end of the discussion.
Sorry, but there's no contradiction, no retcon except the one you are
trying to create by conflating two things and distorting what I said to
set up a straw-man argument.

> > What exactly are you claiming he's retconned, idiot?  There's nothing
> > you quoted there that contradicts anything he said.
> >
>
> Idiot? Me? Wow Scott, you really established your dominance among the herd.
>

If you're making long-distance value judgments about me, why can't he
make one about you?  Or do the rules only allow you to engage in this?

> To requote your  JMS quote "...that is utterly useless in the outside
> writing world, unless you choose to make a career going on and teaching this
> same kind of writing, and placing little literary structureless stories in
> college literary magazines, which pay in copies and are sucked into silence
> thereafter." And yet "While at SDSU, he (JMS) wrote prolifically for the
> student newspaper, at times penning so many articles that the paper was
> jokingly referred to as the 'Daily Joe.'"
>
> Do you actually believe for one minute that all of those articles that he
> wrote while in college didn't help once he start off in his career?

Never said t hey didn't.  I'm on record, at conventions, online, and
elsewhere urging students at universities to write for the college
paper, magazine, TV station, radio station, theater, anyplace they can
to get the experience they need and the credits they need to break into
the profession.  I've never said anything else, and I'm on record
hundreds of times of saying this very clearly.

That's straw man number one.


> Putting
> thought to paper is not an innate skill, but rather learned and developed
> through practice.

Practice is something you get in or out of a writing class.  And my
comments you quoted at the beginning of this have NOTHILNG WHATSOEVER
TO DO with working at a college newspaper.  Zero.  Further to the
point, you are totally conflating two different disciplines, journalism
and creative writing.  The first deals with the relating of facts
(which is clearly why you're confused since you seem to have some
difficulty with that) and the second is where you make stuff up
(clearly your strong suit).

There wasn't any necessity for me to be a creative writing major, or
even a journalism major, to write for the San Diego State University
Daily Aztec.  It was an open door through which I was able to gain the
practice you note above by turning out articles nearly every day.  (My
one foolishness was in declining to accept payment for my work, unlike
everyone else on staff, because I thought it would help somehow to make
the work more pure if there wasn't money involved. I was an idiot.)

The one -- the paper work -- and the creative writing thread have
nothing -- let me repeat since you're obviously kind of unclear when it
comes to subtlety -- NOTHING to do with one anther in terms of the
discussions being undertaken at the time.

What I've said about creative writing classes is not to get trapped in
them, in the sense of people telling you how to write.  A first intro
class is fine, especially since most universities require them before
you can move up to workshkops, but the workshops are where the real
writing happens, where you learn to find your own voice and to defend
it in class as other go over it.

> Universities only provide an education, not marketability
> in the job force.

Where on earth do you get these notions?  For writers, you can acquire
the skills and credits that get you in the front door at local papers
and the like.  That's what it did for me.

In addition to writing, I also used to be a peer academic counselor at
SDSU, and I can tell you up front that your statement here is not only
false, it is breathtakingingly false.

And YOU are retconning your own argument by saying on the one hand that
I "forgot" that my work on the paper paved the way for later credits
(even though that's exactly what I said) and then here saying that you
don't get any marketability from universities.

> JMS forgot this and you obviously don't know this!


I've forgotten nothing.  My statements stand, and I've repeated them
just as noted here over twenty years of being online and appearing at
conventions.

Creative writing classes have nothing whatsoever to do with working for
the college newspaper, or with journalism as a discipline.  Any
academic counselor will tell you that.

So clearly, the solution for this discussion is for you to speak to a
counselor.

jms