I was a bit hesitant about taking
this class. I took 262-95 the year before and wasn’t sure there will be
something new or different. I am very pleased that I did take it.
The two classes were very
different and each one presented different challenges.
The biggest one for me in this
current one was the prompts.
The themes were challenging but I
had practice from last year, the prompts however made me, at times, tear my
hair, and not one but three!!!
This class literally made me ‘squeeze’
my brain, that was good.
It made me write a lot which was
even better.
***
It has been four years of continues,
mostly non-fiction writing, through different classes and teachers. In the
process I produced hundreds of written pages (just the thought is enough to
amaze me) and dug out almost every memory I could think of.
Some memories were pretty obvious
and others caught me by surprise. Each one of those forgotten ones was a true
present from my memory to me. Lately it seems though that the stream is running
dry. The same things are surfacing time and time again and a sense of uncertainty
is descending over me.
Scary, is this end I see coming,
when one day of emptiness will stretch into another, and soon it will turn into
weeks of continuous dry spell.
***
It has been four years of continues
writing through different classes and teachers.
But what did I learn;
To begin with I learned words,
the tool of the trade, can’t do much without them.
Then I learned how to put them
together in many different ways to create the effects I desired.
But most important; I learned to
look at what I wrote, time and time again, and with a pain in my heart press
delete.
And then start again.
Thank you for this present.
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ReplyDeleteThere is a school of thought that sees writer's memory as capital to be husbanded and used and perhaps eventually to be exhausted. That's why you will sometimes see writers' biographies on book flaps like: "Ariela Zucker has been a soldier, a student, a globetrotter, a teacher, a motel owner, a yacht owner...." In other words, this person has a deep store of memories, a lot of capital, real experiences outside the libraries and offices your typical wimpy book reader is familiar with, so prepare to be whisked away, reader, to far-off Israeli deserts, to survivalist Idaho, and even to the exotic world of Ellsworth Maine!
ReplyDeleteI don't go for that myself, not at all. You write about yourself, explore yourself for your own and your reader's curiosity--but you are not drawing on a bank account with only a limited supply of money in it. I assume that there's a universe in a grain of sand, that what you see when you walk down the street is all of heaven (and hell) there is, and that words (not memories) make (and heal) the world.
Anyway, I don't think your writing days are over.
ReplyDelete