Go Smoke Some Crack!
For four years I studied Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago. Sometimes I fantasize about being a famous writer and being invited back to speak to the students there. This is what I fantasize about telling them:
Creative writing majors of Columbia College Chicago! Here is my advice to you: Go smoke some crack.
That’s right. You heard me.
Are you having trouble with your writing? Well after I’m done with this speech (and after the lengthy but captivating Q and A) you should leave this auditorium, go out into the city of Chicago, find some crack, and smoke it. That would be a story worth telling!
Can you imagine if 15 of you actually did that? What an amazing book that would make! 15 college freshmen leave the safe bubble of The Loop and set out into the big bad city on a mission to find crack cocaine and smoke it. We would get 15 totally different stories and they would all be fascinating!
Some of them would be really short. I bet some of you freaks know where to find crack right now. It would just be a matter of a phone call for you. The story would just be:
“I called my buddy Rich. He came over with some crack. We smoked it. It was nice.”
That’s a great story you fucking psycho!
For some of you it would be a much much longer story…
(point out a nerdy looking kid in the front row.)
Like you! I bet you’ve never smoked crack. I bet you don’t even know anyone who’s ever smoked crack. I bet that if you wanted to smoke crack you wouldn’t even know where to start looking! It would be an amazing journey for you. You would have to interact with people you’ve never interacted with before. Go places you’ve never dared to go before. And then, at the end of this long ordeal, you would actually have to smoke the crack that you spent so much emotional and physical effort trying to find, which is terrifying in and of itself. You would learn so much about yourself, and about other people, and about the city of Chicago! It would be scary and exciting and probably different from anything you’ve ever written. What a life experience that would be for you, and what a treat it would be for everyone else to be able to read about it and experience it with you!
Go smoke some crack!
“But it’s dangerous!”
You know what else is dangerous? Majoring in Creative Writing. You’re already throwing your life to the winds of chance, you might as well go all the way!
And sure, some of you might become addicted and/or die, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take for the sake of this amazing crack book we’re going to write together.
I mean honestly, what would you rather be doing?
Would you rather be at home, curled up in bed, safely editing your How-To assignment: “How To Sew A Blanket Which Is A Metaphor For My Relationship With My Mom”
Or
Would you rather be sitting at your laptop at 5 in the morning with a face full of bruises writing the story of how you got beaten up by a cop after the guy you were buying crack from tried to pepper spray him with the homemade pepper spray that he made out of chili powder and febreze!
Wouldn’t that be more exciting? I can guarantee it would be more exciting for your professors. I’m sure they would love a break from stories about shy kids having a bad time at parties and confusing fantasy worlds where inconsistently magical teenagers compete to see who can be the most sarcastic. (I’m not judging here. I wrote my share of sad shy kid stories and one time I wrote a 10 page story about a hotel room I had a dream in.)
LISTEN!
You wanna be a famous writer like me? That’s fine. Just listen to the lengthy but captivating Q and A. Ask the right questions and I’ll give you a ten-year plan to write the next Harry Potter.
But in the meantime, make your own stories. Let your life affect your writing, and let your writing affect your life. Go smoke some fucking crack.
