Being a writer

Do you think that people who major in literature go on to become great writers? I know a lot of them don't. A lot of them who have the potential of becoming great writers. They know too much about literature. They're made to read about the 1000 years of literary geniuses that the world has produced. And inevitably, they'll compare themselves to these great writers. I mean that's just plain unfair. They're comparing themselves to the greatest writers and that too over a huge period of time. A person like me reads a book like, say The Cather in the Rye and it strikes me as something which even I could've written. When a literature student reads that, he knows the history. He knows how revolutionary the book was and how fresh it was for its time. All the time when they write something, they're comparing themselves to the Dostoevskys and Eliots of the world. Sometimes in life, you just have to start writing. All that you have to produce is something that you can like. It doesn't have to be perfect, it never will be. Know that and the pen will start moving. If you can write something that you are very pleased with, chances are you will find people in the world who will like it. It may not be a literary masterpiece. You can't know for sure how anything you write will be received by certain people who have degrees from fancy colleges and call themselves to be the judges of what is good writing and what is not. So I suggest you stop worrying about that.

P.S. - Written in my Literature class today