Teaching and writing, to me, is really just seduction; you go to where people are and you find something that they're interested in and you try and use that to convince them that they should be interested in what you have to say.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Teaching is a great complement to writing. It's very social and gets you out of your own head. It's also very optimistic. It renews itself every year - it's a renewable resource.
People say you can't teach writing, but I think that's nonsense.
Writing teaches writing.
I'm not a writer who teaches. I'm a teacher who writes.
The most important lesson my parents taught me is that writing is a job, one that requires discipline and commitment. Most of the time it's a fun job, a wonderful job, but sometimes it isn't, and those are the days that test you.
When I teach writing, I always tell my students you should assume that the audience you're writing for is smarter than you. You can't write if you don't think they're on your side, because then you start to yell at them or preach down to them.
I don't necessarily set out to teach or say anything in particular in my writing. Morals and themes come out as I'm telling the tale.
Teaching writing over the years intrudes on your own writing in important ways, taking away some of the excitement of poetry.
When I began to be published, people got the idea that I should 'teach writing,' which I have no idea how to do and don't really believe in.
No one can teach writing, but classes may stimulate the urge to write. If you are born a writer, you will inevitably and helplessly write. A born writer has self-knowledge. Read, read, read. And if you are a fiction writer, don't confine yourself to reading fiction. Every writer is first a wide reader.