From muse to manuscript

"To me, writing is not a vocation, but an avocation," says Laurin Manning, a Wofford student who has just enrolled for the new program and is writing a novel about her time as a high-schooler at South Carolina Governor's School for Science and Mathematics. "It's a 'Bridget Jones's Diary' kind of thing," she says.

While many grads never intend to become professional writers, some writing "coaches" see a definite return to idealism by a student corps that recently seemed more intent on making millions than mastering meaning. One study found that about 15 percent of college students say that pursuing the writing craft is a worthwhile endeavor.

Many of the students who took classes with Susan Hubbard at the University of Central Florida are now driving taxis or working in restaurants. But they call to tell her about sending stories off to The Paris Review.

"It goes against what most university administrators preach, but you cannot equate career success with salary," says Ms. Hubbard, an associate professor of English at the Orlando school. "There are millions of Americans making plenty of money but who are not happy with themselves. But you can never take away from a writer the feeling of accomplishment that comes from having crafted a solid story, novel, or poem. The pride in creation, to me, is the real reason why students are gravitating toward this field."

And bemusing as it may be to weary working writers, the young fantasize that, with a Hemingway-esque flourish, writing will bring them eminence.

In a "fireside chat" with about 50 Wofford students last week, even New Hampshire poet Donald Hall acknowledged that "getting chicks" was a factor (albeit a minor one) in his desire, as a 14-year-old, to "grow up to become Edgar Allan Poe."

"The cynical side of me says that everybody wants to be famous, and writing is the way to do it," says Ryan Grover, the editor of The Journal, Wofford's literary rag.

In many English departments, literature professors have squared off against their "soft writing" colleagues.

"English departments, as you can imagine, can be very volatile places," says Mr. Lane, the Wofford professor.

Mr. Hall, a frequent visitor and mentor for writing students, says he understands why some professors worry about a decline in "classical education" and its deleterious effects on the quality of writing today.

He even goes so far as to say he doesn't read today's young poets. Why? Because they "seem to think that poetry began with 'The Wasteland,' " he says. "The best century for poetry is, in fact, the 17th century."

Even neoformalism, or the return of meter to poetry, is a misguided idea, he told the group, because the rules are constantly broken. One student wrote a line of a sonnet with too many syllables; his defense was that he needed the extra "foot" to say what he wanted. "That's not the answer Yeats would have given!" Hall thundered.

Aware of these concerns, many creative writing programs are incorporating more classical texts Â- mining the great books for, as Hubbard puts it, "craft-plagiarism."

Students on the creative writing track are often exposed to a broader, though less thematically ordered, range of great works than in the standard English curriculum, Mr. Grover says.

Those who come with a notion that writing is easy are quickly rebuffed. In Wofford's class on the novel, there are weekly deadlines. In the personal-essay class, students are more "coached" than "taught," as they strive to transform rough texts into publishable manuscripts.

"Typically, they don't fawn over each other's work. Typically, they tear each other to ribbons," Conroy says, referring to the critique process.

All this creative energy is indeed turning out some good writing, and renewing interest in literary clubs and small presses such as the nonprofit "Hub City" press here in Spartanburg.

Beyond publishing novels or poetry collections, students can use their skills of argument, exposition, and description in such arenas as healthcare and the courts. If nothing else, Hubbard says, writing is a way for just about anyone to achieve deeper self-understanding.

As last year's Wofford Prize winner, Josh Hudson, puts it in his story "We rest. We rise": "It was a small notebook, but big enough to pour my soul into."

The growth of creative writing classes, teachers say, comes from that impulse to shackle words together to make poetry out of life.

Of course, a budding writer doesn't necessarily need four years of school to figure out some secrets of success. One tip, courtesy of poet Hall: "Find a personal gesture and stick with it."

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