Where Have I Been? Man, Let Me Tell You...

I hadn't planned on being unplugged from 'Da Muse for an entire week. But like my writing, life rarely works out as planned.

Today is the beginning of a new series of posts. I am currently enrolled in a class about writing short stories, and I intend to chronicle my thoughts on each Thursday (for the next 8 weeks, anyway). I promised my teacher I would not discuss the details about the class, I wouldn't post the work of others, and I would make this just about me. If you get anything out of this (even if it's laughter at my feeble attempts), the posts are worthwhile.

I arrived barely on time (maybe even a minute or two late), which is not a good thing for me. Arriving fifteen minutes early was burned into my brain before I even left the womb. Being late made me a tad bit nervous, which I didn't need since my stomach was already doing flips.

The class was already involved in an exercise to get to know one another, and ironically that helped make me feel better. It was fun, I got to see how similar and different we all are, and I didn't feel THAT different. There are some people in the class who are very experienced (maybe) and there are those like me who need more guidance. The range of personalities is across the spectrum too, which is cool. Me, I'm not the quietest of the bunch but I don't think I'm the most vocal either. Another guy holds that title.

After we got to know one another, we read a short story and discussed it. I like and yet don't like this type of thing. I like the fact that I get to hear so many different perspectives. There were things I didn't notice when I read the story that others did. That was interesting. What I don't like however, is trying to discuss why the author wrote one thing as opposed to another. That type of discussion just bugs me, primarily because I don't think that's a question anyone else can answer. But overall, it was still fun and useful.

The last thing we did was a writing prompt. We were given one sentence and told to write the rest. I'm going to post what I wrote on the next entry (since this one has dragged on a bit), but I'd like to say this was the most enjoyable part of yesterday's class. It challenged me to write without thinking. I did a very good job of not editing, and I kept typing the whole time (pretty much anyway). And despite the first draft nature of the writing, I like what I churned out. It has potential anyway. I now have some homework to work on, which involves some reading AND some writing. I'm really excited and looking forward to next week.