Back in the Saddle
I started back at my writing class last night. It was good to be back around heady writing types again. We're a motley bunch, but we all understand each other. We encourage each other, point out our redundancies, point out our redundancies, give each other hints and point out our redundancies. It is a great climate to work in. No one is overly critical in part because Kathie won't have it. She said we need to be critical, without tearing down. No one benefits when a person gets insulted to the point where they question their ability.
We've got a little of everything in the class. Memoir, poetry, and lots of fiction. It is fascinating to follow the stories from week to week and see how they develop. It's a bit like I'm reading 10 books every week. (Or a chapter for 10 different books each week.) We listen as characters get killed, experience death and divorce, morph into zombies, grow old or die young.
While we work hard, we have a lot of fun in class too. The conversation often (sometimes too often) drifts off subject and we end up talking about a crazy side topic. Last night it was about the popularity (or not) of the e-readers (Nook, Kindle and iPad). People have definite opinions about whether they like them or not. I personally don't like them, only because I'm a bit old-school. I want to be able to put it down without knowing that it might get legs and I'd be out $120.00 or so.
At the same time, I recognize that they're here to stay and are a very efficient way to store many books. My fear of course is that it will one day supplant the written form and that would be sad. Infinitely sad. Fahrenheit 459 kind of sad.
We also got off on a tangent about the source of the phrase "God never gives someone more than they can bear." The closest source we could find was that it was Mother Theresa, and even that was not a direct quote.
The tangents take the edge off of class a bit, but the can get a bit far afield at times. Kathie is pretty good about keeping us on track though, so it's all good.
There were a couple of new students last night. Kim is writing her memoir, so is a kindred spirit of mine. She's starting from birth though, so goes back much further than me. Laura was the other new face and I think she's writing fictional short stories. Then there's the usual suspects, Mario doing poetry, Stacy and Mud doing Young Adult Fantasy, Ellen doing memoir, Sandy doing fiction, and Michael doing mystery. As I said, it's great diversity and makes for an interesting literary cocktail. They're great people. I love 'em.
Blogging off...
We've got a little of everything in the class. Memoir, poetry, and lots of fiction. It is fascinating to follow the stories from week to week and see how they develop. It's a bit like I'm reading 10 books every week. (Or a chapter for 10 different books each week.) We listen as characters get killed, experience death and divorce, morph into zombies, grow old or die young.
While we work hard, we have a lot of fun in class too. The conversation often (sometimes too often) drifts off subject and we end up talking about a crazy side topic. Last night it was about the popularity (or not) of the e-readers (Nook, Kindle and iPad). People have definite opinions about whether they like them or not. I personally don't like them, only because I'm a bit old-school. I want to be able to put it down without knowing that it might get legs and I'd be out $120.00 or so.
At the same time, I recognize that they're here to stay and are a very efficient way to store many books. My fear of course is that it will one day supplant the written form and that would be sad. Infinitely sad. Fahrenheit 459 kind of sad.
We also got off on a tangent about the source of the phrase "God never gives someone more than they can bear." The closest source we could find was that it was Mother Theresa, and even that was not a direct quote.
The tangents take the edge off of class a bit, but the can get a bit far afield at times. Kathie is pretty good about keeping us on track though, so it's all good.
There were a couple of new students last night. Kim is writing her memoir, so is a kindred spirit of mine. She's starting from birth though, so goes back much further than me. Laura was the other new face and I think she's writing fictional short stories. Then there's the usual suspects, Mario doing poetry, Stacy and Mud doing Young Adult Fantasy, Ellen doing memoir, Sandy doing fiction, and Michael doing mystery. As I said, it's great diversity and makes for an interesting literary cocktail. They're great people. I love 'em.
Blogging off...
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