Wednesday 7/3/24
C: I'm looking at a Carolyn Kuebler short story.
C: These people really write--at best--like someone doing their first assignment for Creative Writing 101, a class they had to take or was chosen because it fulfilled some elective component. A kind of "Oh, I'll try that" or "I heard that class is easy." Not because anything aligned with their interests or they have the slightest sliver of talent or they've always written or love the written word or have even ever been around it much.
C: I've seen this for almost thirty years, and it still surprises me. It baffles me, no matter how well I know these people, how much I know what they're all about, and despite the thousands and thousands of times I've seen what I have.
C: You want to ask, in all honesty, "How can you not be better at this?" Anyone who does anything, pretty much, a bunch of times, will be better at whatever that is than a Carolyn Kuebler is at writing. There is nothing in the work. There's nothing happening, and it's so basic. It's seriously like the first thing someone without any predilection or knack for the written word, any experience in creating a story, would come up with if they tried to write a story. You could easily pass off what I just read by Carolyn Kuebler as a homework assignment turned in by an average high school sophomore because they were told by their teacher to write a little story. No one would challenge you if you presented this that way. They wouldn't respond, "Wow, what a talented high school student." They'd just be like, "Yeah, okay."
