Thursday night I went back to school. It was the first night of my 6 week Creative Writing class at Madison College. As part of my decision to do more fun things I pulled the trigger and registered. I knew if I thought about it too long I would make excuses to not sign up. The class said it was for all levels so I figured why not start somewhere.
All day before class I was extremely nervous. I had no idea what to expect. I haven't been in school in 6 years. Some may not believe this but I enjoy blending into most situations. Yes I love bling, crazy wild and large jewelry, big hair and sparkly things but other than that I don't exactly like to be noticed in group situations. Thoughts kept running through my head like... what if everyone brings their lap top and I'm sitting their like Elle in Legally Blonde with my pink flower patterned notebook and pen?
Ever since joining the working world I have had to force myself to do things that are out of my comfort zone and I have found that with prayer and some self talk I can do almost anything... ordering a pizza, not there yet. I walked into the downtown campus of Madison college 10 minutes ahead of class time and not wanting to stand out from the crowd of 20 somethings with backpacks and sweatpants pretended I knew exactly where I was going. Obviously I had no idea so I just followed the flow and finally found my classroom. Upon arrival there were 5 other people sitting in various areas of the class ages ranging from a little younger than me to my mother's age. I figured this was it! I sat down and introduced myself to the girl closest to me. She smiled and said her name back. I then realized that most people probably don't jump in and introduce themselves to their classmates. I guess it's just a habit from attending to so many networking events and seminars.
Class began and we were asked to write the following on a piece of paper and hand it in.
Name?
Email?
Where are you from?
Why do you write?
What are some of your favorite genres, authors or books?
The first 3 were easy questions and then I got to the 4th. Why do I write? I sat their stumped trying to come up with a good answer. I could feel everyone else writing and all I could do was stare at the blank page. I finally just wrote down "for fun." I still can't come up with a better answer. The last question was even worse. I like to read so many things and like certain authors but for some reason I felt embarrassed putting down J.K. Rowling because she can tell such an amazing story. I mean I'm 28 years old in a creative writing class and I like Harry Potter. Instead I wrote down that I like memoirs, fiction and self-help. HONESTLY! I wrote down self-help... what the hell! What I meant by that was I enjoy reading things that inspire me to live a better life but instead it came across like I have some sort of mental problem that I need to read psychology books for. I'm sure if I got graded on this question I would have failed.
The teacher collected everyones pages and proceeded to call on each of us to discuss them. He never mentioned by last questions answers and I thank him for not embarrassing me. Next we had to discuss what we would like to accomplish at the end of 6 weeks. I guess when signing up for the class I never really thought of that. Some of the other answers where; write a children's book {that sounds like fun}, write a science fiction novel {I will probably not be doing that}, write a romantic fantasy book {that's a new one}, write my memoir {I would love to write one of those but don't have very many interesting things that have happened to me}. I started to panic... I have no idea what I want to accomplish. WHAT AM I GOING TO DO! Do I want to write a novel? {that could take years and with my attention span...} Do I want to write a short story? {about what? how short is a short story?} Do I want to write a poem? {no} Do I want to write a memoir? {again, not interesting enough} I'm still deciding this. Any ideas?
For our last exercise we had to write for 15 minutes and create a scene based on a premise that the teacher gave us. This was fun, I enjoyed just getting words out on the paper. My problem with writing is I over think it. I want to write the best thing I possibly can and therefore spend all my time trying to decide what to write instead of simply getting the words on paper. The teacher said this is a common problem and so to get over that we should simply sit down and write. You never know where it's going to take you. Maybe once you begin writing something it will lead you to something else even better.
Once we finished writing and he called time he then disclosed that we will be sharing our writing out loud. Oh crap. After I read mine I felt as though it wasn't that bad. In my opinion others were better and some were worse. I would say I'm in the bottom half.
It turned out to be a pretty fun class. My assignment for next week is to write about my significant other. I'm supposed to put them in a fictional conflict and then resolve it according to how they would act. For those of you who know Luke... this should be easy.
