Writing class 2

This past week, I have had my second session of a writing class.  It is interesting in that the students are a very diverse group.  There are professionals,  bloggers, and artists, almost all are middle age, but we have a couple of seniors and one particularly young 20 something young woman. 

I have to write quite a bit for my job.  The writing that I do for that is very fact oriented.  Basic statements, no embellishments, no picture words, metaphors or similes.  This class is for creative writing.  I have learned that I am not very creative in my writing style.

The other big issue that I’ve found is that I apparently have a very fuzzy memory.  We are writing memoirs.  I am working on a piece about a place that I visited less than 3 years ago.  I am expected to describe details, embellish them, paint a picture.  The problem is that I really don’t have a clear picture in my mind anymore.  I don’t remember most of it.  I suppose I can make it up, but then it sort of loses its sense of being a memoir, right?

One of the things I was trying to describe was a town that we visited.  I have  a few pictures in my mind, some general impressions that it was a beautiful place, and a wonderful memory of an experience I had there.  It does not transfer well to paper.  I am struggling to make it work.  The writing is stilted and seems fake.  Maybe it is just that I am not feeling comfortable with it yet.  I don’t own it.  I am trying.  One of the things that bothers me about it is that it sounds like some of the things that my dad wrote.  He always wanted to be a writer.  But I couldn’t stand reading most of his stuff.  I don’t want to be that way.

For some reason, I have not had problems in feeling comfortable writing this blog.  It may not be great writing, and it certainly is not flowery and descriptive, but it is me.  I have felt that I own what I write.  I am sure that it is obvious that I don’t prewrite most of it.  I don’t have an agenda.  Most of the blogs that I have seen are much more formal.  I may do a blog like that sometime.  For now, it is mostly just thinking about stuff in life.

Other than allowing the instructor to read the draft, I feel very uncomfortable with anyone reading it.  Somehow I feel that when I wrote something, I would be doing so with the expectation that it would be read by others.  Maybe when I have it finalized, I will feel as though it can be shown to my husband, at least.  He has been a pretty good sport in that he hasn’t asked about it-I know how had that has been for him. 

I had hoped that the class would be a confidence-booster for me.  Now I realize that it is actually going to be work, and the work may be uncomfortable for me.  That’s not going to be easy.

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