Literature as a high art

I am currently taking English 161 through the community college. It is an analytical literature class where elements of story are broken down and picked to pieces. Since I have almost worked up the courage to tell my family that I want to be a writer when I grow up (at 31 and the mother of 2 I would have thought this would have already happened- growing up, I mean).




Patience has suggested I share what I am learning. Which I will happily do, though I promise no great insights or comprehension. For today, I will make a list of what I have learned in the last couple of weeks.



1. "Real" literature is depressing. Okay, I already knew that, I hated everything they made me read in high school except "To Kill a Mockingbird".



2. What a short story consists of. Everyone else in the world probably already knew this, but I couldn't quite piece together a complete tale that wasn't full on novel. I think that a short story is more than just a scene out of someone's life, but a scene or compilation of short scenes that holds some true human meaning. That's why a guy driving to town isn't a story, but a guy driving to town to kill a bunch of people at the mall and and accidentally shooting his own daughter is.



3. Reading Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" I learned that you can not only write in the collective We, but you can also skip around in a story without making the reader feel confused. (You know the sensation, "Wait, when am I again."



4. I am really not as smart as I thought I was. I am glad about that. I like learning. Learning gives me hope. Stephen King once wrote that a bad writer will never be a good writer and that a good writer will never be a great writer. While I do believe that you have to be willing to work hard and have some aptitude toward the written word, He is wrong. At least a bad writer can become good. And how many "great" writers are there anyway.