I read an interview with a writing teacher in Forbes. Trust me, I don’t read Forbes. The article came up when I Googled “ridiculous things writing teachers say.” He said creative writing courses were a waste of time, because 99.5% of his students didn’t have what it takes to succeed as authors. DUH. Of course they don’t. 99.50% of all people who study art, or music or acting or ballet don’t either. That’s why we so admire the ones who do. But, unless he’s a terrible teacher (serious possibility), his students should at least end up better writers. That’s worth a lot, I think. Don’t you? 
Carol, based on my years of being a productive visual artist, and our common high school education in the basics of writing, I am certain that just about all of us can learn to write and make a decent drawing. These are skills. Making art is about metaphor and the willingness to make mental leaps and bounds. It is unbelievably infuriating to me when well meaning folks say to me, “I can’t even draw a straight line!” Really! I use a ruler, is my automatic answer. It should be that most adults can construct a coherent paragraph with appropriate punctuation and a reasonable stab at spelling. [Our inability to spell re: English orthography is a different rant for a different post, eh?]
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