TITLE: How Do You Know If It Is Good?  You Don't.
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: July 29, 2015  2:10 PM
DESC: 
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In the <EM>Paris Review</EM>'s
<A HREF="http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1551/the-art-of-humor-no-2-garrison-keillor">
   Garrison Keillor, The Art of Humor No. 2</A>,
Keillor thinks back to his decision to become a writer, which
left him feeling uncertain about himself:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 Someone once asked John Berryman, How do you know if something
 you've written is good?  And John Berryman said, You don't.
 You never know, and if you need to know then you don't want to
 be a writer.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

This doesn't mean that you don't care about getting better.  It
means that you aren't doing it to please someone else, or at least
that your doing it is not predicated on what someone else thinks.
You are doing it because that's what you think about.  It means
that you keep writing, whether it's good or not.  That's how you
get better.

It's always fun to watch our students wrestle with this sort of
uncertainty and come out on the other side of the darkness.  Last
fall, I taught first-semester freshmen who were just beginning to
find out if they wanted to be programmers or computer scientists,
asking questions and learning a lot about themselves.  This fall,
I'm teaching our senior project course, with students who are
nearing the end of their time at the university.  Many of them
think a lot about programming and programming languages, and they
will drive the course with their questions and intensity.  As a
teacher, I enjoy both ends of the spectrum.
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