The story of the elves and the aliens (for Lauren)

There was once a girl by the name of Candace who discovered that she loved writing. So she wrote. A lot. Then she participated in a writers' workshop and discovered that she loved those, too.

Candace was accepted to college and while it wasn't the one she really wanted, she consoled herself by looking up the creative writing classes that would be offered first semester. She pulled strings and made friends and got the application for the class in on time. A week later, she discovered she was third on the waiting list.

Candace was disappointed, because she loved writing and writers' workshops so much and wanted both of these to be a large part of her college experience, but she heard encouraging things from other writers who had been let in off the waiting list, so she did not despair. When the first day of class arrived, she hurried off to the writing class as fast as her sandaled feet would carry her (which was fast, but not fast enough to keep from being several minutes late). She took the last seat at the table and triumphantly said "Here!" when the teacher called her name a minute later.

The teacher (because to Candace it seemed very odd to refer to her as Melanie) began talking about writing and this workshop and Candace felt very much like she belonged.

Then, out of nowhere the teacher mentioned two words that generally make Candace cringe: "literary fiction." In her experience, these words were generally used by pretentious auteurs who wanted to make themselves feel better than people who wrote in genres as obviously deprived as fantasy and science fiction, which happened to be Candace's chosen field.

Imagine Candace's dismay when she heard the entire sentence in which the dreaded words had been mentioned: "Like in most college writing classes, we'll be focusing on writing literary fiction."

A hand at the back of the room was timidly raised, and a voice of reason asked, "What exactly is literary fiction?"

"It's not genre fiction."

The same hand. "What exactly is genre fiction?"

"Well, you know -- romance, mystery, fantasy, science fiction..."

Candace felt this as a knife through the heart. She was tempted to double over in expression of her pain. Instead she kept listening, hoping there would be some way she had misheard the teacher.

She had not misheard. With a smile and a sarcastic laugh, the teacher finished the discussion with, "Sorry, guys -- no elves, no aliens."

***

It's not a pleasant story. After hearing that, I sincerely had doubts as to whether I wanted to be in the class. I hate people who restrict me, especially in writing. But, I got in. I learned from the back of our textbook that the real, "literary" definition of lit fic is anything character-focused, while genre fiction is plot-focused. I've never written a plot-focused story in my life, so I feel fine about writing a wonderful work of literary fiction that contains marvelously developed characters...who just happen to be elves and aliens.

NaNoWriMo Bio

So here's the updated NaNo bio --

From a young age, Candace's career goals have destined her for poverty. A freshman English major at UC Berkeley, her greatest ambition is to make a living as a published novelist. She refuses to admit that this is an unreasonable goal, because it isn't. On days when she admits that making money as a writer will be difficult, she considers the idea of teaching English -- which, coincidentally, also doesn't pay. When not reading or writing, she releases her energies by knitting scarves, traveling with her family, and obsessing over musical theater.

And the picture to go with it -- can be found here. I'd post it in the entry, but photobucket is acting up.