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Undoing my "creative" writing class.
Dear f-list,
I need your advice.
A month ago I finished a creative writing class. The class went very, very badly, and I don't think I need to go into details now since I've spent many posts describing it.
What I need your help on is the after-effects of the class and limiting the damage on my writing. The symptoms are as follows:
From the antagonistic and undermining comments of the teacher (such as the classic, *snort* "and you wanted to NaNoWriMo...") I'm struggling with a separation between myself and the story, killing it with over-criticism before it can be written. How do I get rid of that?
From the heavy-handed "rules" orientation of the class, rules that I had to follow in order to survive the class with my grade intact, I'm now hyper-aware of "adverbs," and to a lesser extent, "summary," and "visual detail" in such a way that it's distracting and hard for me to finish a first draft without killing it. How do I remove those three months of training?
From the personal animosity he directed at me and at science fiction, I feel defensive and on the spot, focused on whether a story is "good" instead of just enjoying it as I have in the past. How do I counteract that oversensitivity to audience reaction? I've always written for the reader -- my first stories were oral, told to my friends as I made them up.
He did a lot of damage, more than I realized, and I'm not sure how to shake off the negativity.
Frankly, based on how he treated us, I have to assume that he's really not that good of a writer. How can he be, if this is any indication of how he squeezes out a story? If this is what he does to himself... *shudders* When I talked to him he had no writing projects going except for a creative writing thesis that he hadn't begun.
That's not a writer. That's someone who's "learned to write" and has found they "are good at it."
A writer needs to write. A writer can't stop the stories nibbling at their toes, or else they're bemoaning about writer's block and wanting to write. Or else they're stalled in that monolithic story.
I feel like I have had some sealant poured over my skin and I can't breathe.
There are several stories starving for lack of oxygen at the moment:
They're scratching and clawing to get out, they have complete outlines and they're started, but I can't seem to give them air.
I need your advice.
A month ago I finished a creative writing class. The class went very, very badly, and I don't think I need to go into details now since I've spent many posts describing it.
What I need your help on is the after-effects of the class and limiting the damage on my writing. The symptoms are as follows:
From the antagonistic and undermining comments of the teacher (such as the classic, *snort* "and you wanted to NaNoWriMo...") I'm struggling with a separation between myself and the story, killing it with over-criticism before it can be written. How do I get rid of that?
From the heavy-handed "rules" orientation of the class, rules that I had to follow in order to survive the class with my grade intact, I'm now hyper-aware of "adverbs," and to a lesser extent, "summary," and "visual detail" in such a way that it's distracting and hard for me to finish a first draft without killing it. How do I remove those three months of training?
From the personal animosity he directed at me and at science fiction, I feel defensive and on the spot, focused on whether a story is "good" instead of just enjoying it as I have in the past. How do I counteract that oversensitivity to audience reaction? I've always written for the reader -- my first stories were oral, told to my friends as I made them up.
He did a lot of damage, more than I realized, and I'm not sure how to shake off the negativity.
Frankly, based on how he treated us, I have to assume that he's really not that good of a writer. How can he be, if this is any indication of how he squeezes out a story? If this is what he does to himself... *shudders* When I talked to him he had no writing projects going except for a creative writing thesis that he hadn't begun.
That's not a writer. That's someone who's "learned to write" and has found they "are good at it."
A writer needs to write. A writer can't stop the stories nibbling at their toes, or else they're bemoaning about writer's block and wanting to write. Or else they're stalled in that monolithic story.
I feel like I have had some sealant poured over my skin and I can't breathe.
There are several stories starving for lack of oxygen at the moment:
- A Christmas fic called "Silent Night" where John plays guitar for his team under the stars on an alien world
- The latter half of a story where John sleeps his way through half the Pegasus galaxy and the dire consequences come home to roost
- The next scene of Out Of Bounds, where John and Rodney make dinner and play
They're scratching and clawing to get out, they have complete outlines and they're started, but I can't seem to give them air.