XML VB.Net

Imports System
Imports System.Xml
Public Class Sample
  Public Shared Sub Main()
     Dim writer as XmlTextWriter = new XmlTextWriter ("out.xml", nothing)
     Dim tag as string = "item name"
    try
     writer.WriteStartElement("root")
     writer.WriteStartElement(XmlConvert.VerifyName(tag))
     catch e as XmlException
        Console.WriteLine(e.Message)
        writer.WriteStartElement(XmlConvert.EncodeName(tag))
     end try
     writer.WriteString("hammer")
     writer.WriteEndElement()
     writer.WriteEndElement()
     writer.Close()
  End Sub
End Class