Undoing my "creative" writing class.

[icarus]

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:

- 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.

Comments

[sarka.livejournal.com]

Issue number 1:
Do you have a story which you HATED when you were writing it, but every time you read it you're surprised because it's actually pretty decent? Go read it.

I also know that you've got some fics you didn't like while you were writing, but got a good popular reaction - go read those reviews.

In short, undermine your own criticism. You're not the be-all end-all authority on what's a good story, not even your own stories.

Issue number 2.
My advice to this would be to keep writing. Just write, and focus on the "I can always beta it later."

Personally, for this I'd read some Icelandic sagas, but maybe that's just me... it's just that they are somewhat stunningly lacking in both adverbs and visual detail. It is also a very thorough course in the use of subtext.

Issue number 3.
I sometimes get hung up on this. When I do, I try writing until I'm completely bummed, then send what I've produced to one of my writing oriented friends to get their opinion. Usually, their opinion is somewhat better than mine ;)

Also, if you can get someone to sit on the other end of a YM convo and feed them bits and pieces of story as you write it, that helps.

Since you introduced me to salixbabylon, for which I owe you a depth of gratitude, btw, and she is the one who usually does this for me, I'll just tell you that she's really good at this ;)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Issue 1: Yes, and I'll do that. The story I hated while I wrote it was Cursed Artefacts For Sale. Miserable experience and I almost added an apology to the top when I posted it. Most of my stories I think are pretty mediocre when I write them, but hey, good enough for government work. Every now and then I think a story's onto something good -- those are almost always the ones that are ignored, heh.

Issue 2: Okay, that seems to be the universal consensus.

Issue 3: I'll write the next part of Out Of Bounds and email it around, see what people think. I've left myself in a bad position with that one because I stopped pretty much halfway through a scene. But I'm re-reading it, hoping to pick up the thread of it again, listening to the music for it (which really helps).

salixbabylon is awesome. I'll never forget that flippant BlameSomeoneElse challenge fic Animagick where she did so much research.

Icarus

[salixbabylon.livejournal.com]

*smooch*

Soemtimes I think I'm better at helping people write than actually writing my own stuff.