First Endeavor

This background makes me feel Irish. And somehow quieter and more writerly. Maybe its serenity and thoughtfulness and suppressed turmoil will rub off on me somehow and grace my words.
I can always dream.

I have to confess that this blog is created via class assignment, which led me to a new discovery. I always knew I had no interest in blogging, but now I realize, I actually had interest in not blogging. I didn't know I cared. Or anti-cared I guess in this case. Already I am dismayed by the number of decisions to be made, the customization. A normal person would just opt for the default and choose to not care, but not caring goes against my nature. And yet I still don't want to put the time in to make it perfectly what I want. So I think I'll just continue to whine a bit and be disgruntled.

Off to a great start. First blog post and there's already whining. But this is not the point. I was asked to blog my thoughts on writing. Fears, difficulties, discoveries, successes. Lord knows I have enough thoughts on this topic.

Despite the fact that I do believe I am supposed link this blog to my professor, therefore I think I can safely assume that he will be reading it, I feel that the place to start is discussing the class itself. There's no point in having a blog if you can't be honest (at least when you want to be) so hopefully I'm not shooting myself in the foot, but here's my honest opinion of the class so far.

I must admit that I am disappointed. Really disappointed actually. Now it may just be that I built this class up too much in my head, that it never could have lived up to my expectations. I wanted it to be the culmination of my entire college experience. The class that everything else was leading up to. But in truth, it's just another class. Some of my classmates seem genuinely interested- no, more than interested, determined- in becoming better writers, but as always with creative writing classes, many people are there just for fun. That annoys me. Especially at this level. 204 is for fun and exploring, 498 should be for honing and perfecting (well if there was such a thing as perfecting).

I have an extremely hard time understanding the professor. He has a strong accent, but I think the bigger problem is that he just doesn't project or articulate much when he speaks. It's often like he is talking to himself. Then you add in that what he is physically saying doesn't always seem to quite make sense. He has a strong tendency to contradict himself and his syllabus, which I at least have trouble following.

In this class I somehow feel forced in directions I don't want to go, yet simultaneously am annoyed at the lack of real structure. Its like he gives specific assignments that are rather limiting at times, but then doesn't seem to have a solid plan for how the semester will be set up. Or at least not a plan he can convey to us. I'm pretty sure the syllabus has already been shot. Then again it was missing a week and had the final in December anyway, so...

I will admit that sometimes being forced is an ok thing. (Wow. Insert terrible sex joke here.) I originally wanted to keep on working on a story that I started in Advanced Creative Writing and was told that it was inadvisable and that if I wanted to do that I'd have to wrap up the entire plotline in 20 pages or so, thus making a novel into a short story. I still fully intend to keep working on that story later, but I refuse to amputate its legs for this class.

So yeah, that wasn't a great way to start. However, as I said before, it may have been a good thing. When forced to start fresh, I think I came up with a really good premise. Or at least I'm excited about it, which in my mind is half the battle. I fear that it is way too ambitious and I think I may fail horribly, but I think that is ok too. Or at least I say that now. Closer to presentation time, maybe not so much. But I'd hate to not try because it may not turn out like I want it to. So maybe that's a merit of this class being so underwhelming; that I might actually chill out some and not worry as much that things wont be perfect or that I wont write the best thing I've ever written.

So no real insights yet. Just a start. (Good Lord I have a blog!) More writing in the future.

And Oh the rambling.