The world of writing has changed greatly since Winston Groom wrote his novel “Forrest Gump” in 1986 and it found its way to the number one spot on The New York Times best-seller list.
In a quick interview before speaking with UA students in an event sponsored by The University of Alabama Department of English and Sigma Tau Delta, Groom shared some details from his life as a writer.
Groom started writing when he was eight years old, winning a short story contest where the grand prize was a book of Grimm’s fairy tales, about which he said, “I’ve been stealing from it ever since.”
But it was not until after returning from the war that Groom’s writing really began to take off. Groom grew up in a war generation, and this experience led to war writing.
In our new generation, quickly being dubbed the iPad generation, we have the world at our fingertips, which causes us to lose some of that experience essential to writing.
“The new generation is greedy,” Groom said in response to a question about today’s declining publishing industry as newspapers in states across the country, like Alabama and Louisiana, have reduced newspaper production to only three days a week.
Therefore, I asked Groom for his advice to young, aspiring writers. But I believe his three points actually apply to every student in every major as they take steps towards their future dreams and careers.
First, Groom said, “Read the great and steal from the great, but don’t plagiarize.” With the world practically in the palm of our hands, there is no excuse to be ignorant of the great influences from our past and in our present.
Not only should we be conscious of the great, but Groom also said to “be extremely aware of the world around you.” Schools and universities can teach us to become engineer or educators, but it is up to ourselves to be aware of what is happening around us.
Groom’s final piece of advice was this: “Create an experience to write about.” He had his youth in the South, the stories his father told him, the war. We too need to find out experiences in life that inspire us as writers or businessmen or whatever you so choose.
As Forrest Gump noted, “bein’ a idiot is no box of chocolates.” In that vein, being a college student is no box of chocolates either. As we ask ourselves questions of where to attend college, what to major in, whether to go to graduate school and the chances of obtaining a suitable job after graduation, perhaps we lose sight of the essence of life.
There is so much outside of ourselves that many of us have yet to experience. In his speech, Groom said it is through leadership, adaptability, dedication, risk, humility, persistence, failure and redemption that we can achieve our dreams. He notes that these qualities helped Alabama football win national championships, and helped him produce his novel “Forrest Gump.”
If we can adopt these qualities as we read the great authors and experience the world around us, then we too can find success and purpose in life. Then perhaps one day we can echo Forrest Gump as he said, “I can always look back an’ say, at least I ain’t led no hum-drum life.”
