Matt, I'm getting a little of that Abraham vibe from you. I have an MFA and I teach creative writing, so believe me, I know how tedious it can be, but everybody has to start somewhere. In my experience almost no one starts out as a genius, and the few who do rarely progress beyond that.
I don't know who this Abraham character is, but if this is a veiled criticism of me, I won't hear it and I won't respond to it.
But seriously, I was hoping my post wouldn't come off as know-it-all or superior, or anything like that; I'm certainly in the same boat ability-wise as all these people, and all their stories have had at least one moment that I found to be really great writing. I think I might have just gotten a little too angry about this "Wakefield" guy and decided to make an unfair statement about my writing class in general, which was wrong of me.
But, oh, this "Wakefield" guy, he got my goat good. We had an English class together last semester and "Wakefield" was one of the texts covered, so I know he's read it. It was plagiarism, pure and simple, and I think it's right to be upset about it, since everybody else had no problem bringing something new to the table. If Hawthorne could have read this guy's story, he would have beaten him with Robin's oaken cudgel. (Hawthorne joke!) So, I guess what I'm saying is, I'm taking the story-readin' out of the Hate Pit, and putting "Wakefield" guy in there instead.
I feel much better.
Abraham was the guy who got GOMPed the week before last - the whole actor thing? Obviously you're nothing like that guy, but I was referring to the criticism of people who haven't yet gotten where they're going, if that makes sense.
But I've definitely hate-pitted specific people in my writing classes.
I actually have a lot of very established writers in my hate-pit, mostly middle-aged white men who have achieved a great deal of success (as in Pulitzer nominations, plays on Broadway and/or made into movies) but whose work I don't like and who like to throw their weight around. I feel totally OK hating them.
