Talkin' bout my education

I got a couple of questions the other day relating to my education as a writer so I thought I'd address those today.

I grew up in a house of educators. Both my parents are teachers and I went to a school where academics was everything. Your SAT score was more important than who you were taking to the prom. I worked on the school newspaper. I wrote poems and songs and short stories in my spare time.

Then I went to college and majored in English with a concentration in creative writing and graduated in three years.

Then I looked around at the real world and decided I didn't want any part of it.

So I went back to school for another year and a half and got my MA in creative writing. I wrote a collection of historical fiction for my thesis.

Then I graduated. Then when I decided to become a teacher less than a year later I had to take more classes. And I have spent my life since in a classroom teaching.

So education's nice and all, but I'm retardedly sick of it. No more classes. Except Spanish class because I'm sick of not being able to talk to parents.

I learned a lot about story while I was getting my degrees. It was really valuable and my thesis director was awesome, but when I left that school I was still a beginner. I learned much more by hanging out with writers and reading blog posts and screenplays and writing.

And more writing. Writing is the answer. Every time you write something you get a little better and relax a little more about the rules and expectations. And after a few scripts you start to figure out your style.

I'm choppy. Oddly enough I kind of hate Hemmingway's work, but here I am emulating his style. Fragment sentences, short paragraphs. I'm not sure how it happened but it's my style so I embrace it.

And the day I embraced it I found it much easier to write. I don't stop and start much, I just go straight through. I start on page one and go to page last, and then I go back and fix the things that need fixing.

And I'm done when I a) feel satisfied the cohesion of the script, can't think of any ways to improve it, and the criticism from friends is nothing but tiny tweaks here and there; or b) when I dread working on the script. If B happens I move on to a new project and chalk the previous disaster up to another script that will help make me a better writer.

Because there's no point in working on something if you don't like it. I write because I enjoy writing; why would I want to write something that feels like boring work?

That's why I write action. I ain't the kind of girl who's going to win Oscars for deep, emotional dramas that make you cry. If you cry in my film it's because you're really sad that the funny guy got his head blown off.

It's taken a lot of false starts to get there, but I'm pretty sure of who I am as a writer.

And as for my education, I enjoy sitting in on lectures sometimes at the Expo, but I'd much prefer to sit around with a bunch of writers and talk one on one than sit in another classroom.