writing

I had my first creative writing class yesterday.

And it was... AWESOME!

The space was awesome. The teacher was nerdy, but awesome. There are fifteen very supportive and friendly other students in the class. There is one black guy and one woman from the Ukraine, otherwise not a whole lot of diversity but I feel like we all have a lot of different backgrounds and will all bring a lot to the class.

The teacher is actually a writer. He teaches and writes. Which isn't always the case. You know the old adage, "Those who can't do, teach." He does both. We went around at the beginning of class and introduced ourselves and said a little something.

The girl next to me actually majored in creative writing but then went on to sell bonds. "Ah, that's what I did wrong!" my teacher joked.

Then later we talked about some guy selling his writing and again my teacher piped up, "Again, that's where I went wrong! Why didn't someone tell me these things earlier?"

We did a bunch of exercises. We started by coming up with the blandest, most boring sentences you can think of.

The dog ran.

He drove to work.

It's cold outside.

Close the door.

I did my laundry.

And then we had to change them to make them more interesting. You can do it by just changing a word.

He swam to work.

Or by adding an adjective, adverb, pronoun, etc.

Close the trap door.

Or by just totally expounding on it.

It was fun. And so easy.

I love to be writing again. It makes me so happy.

I know that I write all the time on my blog but it is not at all the same thing. I know that my readers have limited time and energy and don't want to read ten pages about each little thing that happens in my day. So I make it simple. I used expository (telling language) rather than showing language.

I simply tell you that I loved my class. I don't take you through each step of it. Don't tell you about the nervous laughter at the beginning. Or the warm glow that spread through me when the teacher praised my idea. I could write three paragraphs on each of those things.

And I wasn't even nervous. I never even got butterflies. It just felt like returning home. It was where I belonged and where I wanted to be.