Weather, Integrity, and Moral Imperative

I hate rain. I love snow, but not when it could be confused for rain. I am not a fan of the "wintery mix." It's like everything that's bad about rain, plus it's Hella McCold, and it stays on your body longer. Ew.

Anyway, enough chatting about the weather. I'm supposed to be working on my short story for my creative writing class, and I am absolutely uninterested in writing it. I am being forced to compromise my original vision of the story (where the main character is forced into making a bad choice) into one that's much more "American" and ends happily ever after.

I don't know what I expected when I signed up for a creative writing class, but somehow I thought all of my weird bad habits would be okay. It turns out, they're not... at least not in a classroom context. I would argue however, that almost all of my favorite short stories are not structured in a "crisis, conflict, resolution" fashion where everyone's choices are clear cut and the ending is emotionally satisfying.

I much prefer stories like Richard Matheson's (or any episode of the Twilight Zone, for that matter) where the ending isn't necessarily happy, but there is a clear moral imperative, even if that imperative is demonstrated through its not being met.

Well, unfortunately for me, artistic integrity is a distant second on my priority list to the number one priority of getting a good grade:

1. Get a good grade.


2. Artistic integrity. (Do work I would be proud of.)


So, I guess I'll be telling the gangster story with the happy ending. My sister suggested that I write my stories twice, once for me, and once for the teacher, a solution she arrived at when she was in a creative writing class herself. Of course, that would be a great suggestion. But I think artistic integrity is actually placed third, behind:

1. Do as little work as possible
2. Get a good grade



3. Do work I would be proud of.


It may be possible to do all three of these things, but the best grade I've gotten so far in the class was on the assignment I just said "fuck it" to, and half-heartedly wrote a series of sentences that would best fit into a nice chick-lit story. It is possible that I do my best writing while mocking something, that is read and interpreted earnestly. But somehow, I doubt it.

Maybe the best writing I can hope to do is dimestore romance novels. I guess someone has to write them. I won't mind being at the cover shoot for the photos either. And I'd probably get to watch lots of Cinemax for research... Okay. That's enough. I'm going to stop writing now, before I turn into the next Danielle Steele.