Friday, February 22, 2008

Very Pleased Indeed

I've been feeling rather dry and uninspired these past couple of weeks. We are beginning the 'short fiction' part of my writing class soon, and my daily exercises have been one dull disaster after another. Until this afternoon, when my mind seized today's writing prompt and ran merrily along with it.

Never mind the fact that the writing prompt, er, prompted me to write in a completely different direction. I wrestled with that a bit before saying, ah the heck with it, and just let the piece go where it would. The effort it takes to break out of the rules and constraints that you've unconsciously built up and simply let your creativity flow is substantial, especially for those of us with a perfectionist nature.

This unit is going to be quite a challenge since almost all of my writing up til now has been observational/experience based rather than character interaction and plot. To be completely honest, it's a little scary. Because there's no guarantee I'll be any good at it. The other side of the coin is that it's also exciting to be doing something new.

For now I take comfort in the fact that a major component of being a good writer is to keep writing (which I can certainly do)- practicing, exploring, figuring out what works and what doesn't. Our professor says that a lot of the time, new writers don't allow themselves enough 'play' (the writer equivalent of doodling), or don't write for a while and then expect to sit down and come up with something brilliant.

She would say something like that. Everything I come up with should be brilliant! Though admittedly, things that work shine brightly against all the scribbles on the page that don't. And when I consider that...

Happy doodling everyone!

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