Something For Me

I LOVE my current writing class! It's the right amount of work and challenge. I LOVE having homework and assignments and work I need to get done. AND having something I'm proud of to submit.

My teacher also really likes my work! The first week she was giving everyone super high praise. So I wasn't sure I could trust her with constructive feedback. But she's made some cool comments that have made me feel really good and given useful feedback as well.

(If I'm being honest, I've had to critique some classmates work that I absolutely didn't like but was able to find good parts and comment on them. So I know that positives can actually be veiling "this sucks!")

But I'm going to choose to believe that I actually have some good stuff I've turned in! It's been so fun.
The topic of this class is "Emotion into Art: Infusing your Writing with Feeling" and our assignments are only 800 words--pretty manageable. I usually start writing a paragraph or two, then write about something else for a couple paragraphs and then something else, three or four or five times until I hit on something that I can run with. I know it when I get it. And I know if I keep writing I'll always find it.

I write it up, then have to go through and add the sensory detail. That's been a fun focus of this class and something I need practice at. I think I'm pretty good at it, IF I take the time to go back and do it! "Show, don't tell." I also have to find new words to replace words I've repeated a lot. That's hard and takes a lot of time. Often I have to edit, edit, edit, which is also hard because often I have to cut whole sections I'm in love with. And reword and rework. I keep an original in a separate file which makes it easier to edit when I know if I think it's really good, it's not gone forever.

Our assignments have been: 1) Write about a childhood experience. 2) Write about something that was life-changing. 3) Write something funny. 4) Write about a first love. 5) Write about an experience  that moved you deeply using either understatement or full-throttle. 6) Revise one of your assignments to make it better.

My stories were about: 1) Grandma Regan 2) Marty's car wreck 3) A young child's perspective on "doing all the work" 4) Dan and I meeting in Geology class (with made up parts) 5) Still working on this week. 6) I'm going to revise #3 because it was actually pretty funny, but I was being ironic and some of the class didn't perceive it, so I need to do it better. (Only the girl who has 5 kids of her own got it since they say that to her all the time, "You only had kids so you could make us do all the work!")