A Writing Class

I am taking a writing class.  Some of you reading this are saying, "It's about time."  Others of you are asking, "Why?"  In answer to both the statement and the question, I offer this, I am taking it to learn. 

I do this once, or twice a year, take a class, or attend a writer's conference.  It is great fun when I speak, or teach, because I learn by doing so, but I always try to attend other sessions because in my experience, everyone, and I mean every individual in that class, or session knows something I do not.  If you think about it, that is very exciting. 

In a previous life, I taught automotive technology, and I had done the same classes so many times, I could do them without notes.  I really knew the stuff, and it had become a challenge to teach these classes because it was becoming mundane.  There was a point that I thought I just might know it all.  Wrong, I knew very little.  If I listened, the individual in class who had the least experience always knew something I did not, or had forgotten.  The key word is, listen.

If there are ten people in the class, then there are ten things in that room that I do not know.  The trick is to get the things I don't know out of the ones who do.  How, do you do that?  You get them to talk, but since it is a writing class/conference, you first get them to write.  Writers love to write, or they wouldn't be writers.  The saying is that writers live to write, while authors write to live.  I guess I am both, but whichever the case, I need to learn.

A writing class is to write, so this column is part of the class.  I will turn it in as an assignment, killing two birds with this stone.  You will see what the class gave me, and what I learned in two days.

Dr. Kevin Rabas was the guest lecturer for, as he labeled it, the Intensive Creative Writing Workshop, offered by the University of South Alabama, Baldwin County, and I do mean intensive.  The term "lecturer" is a real misnomer.  Kevin was more of a masterful drill instructor as he led us from one creative exercise to another.  There was much time allowed for sharing and discussion, but when it was time to move on, we moved.

The class was challenged to write in multiply genres including poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, flash fiction, play writing, and the writing of plays for the screen.  No genre was left unexplored.  I found myself, whose taste in poetry runs more to the, "Roses are red, violets are blue…" class, tempted into wanting to try my hand at free verse.  I have not, not yet, but I am tempted.

I did learn where a short story or two of mine could be adapted to ten-minute plays.  I've never considered such before, but now I am an aspiring playwright to go along with being an aspiring columnist, and novelist, and let us not forget poet.

There were eight in the class, which was a surprise to me that so few would take advantage of such a wonderful opportunity right here in Baldwin County.  The real surprise was that of the eight, four others were my age, or older.  I had expected a much younger crowd, but the vast and diverse pool of experience from those who have live life, loved, and lost, was something we all gained from swimming in.

The class being small was to my advantage, because it allowed for much sharing of written work and critique from fellow students.  These sessions were the real pearl of the oyster for me.  This is where I gained my desired diamonds of wisdom from everyone, and I did.  When I wasn't flapping my gums about my work, knowledge gained from writing and life's challenges poured from my fellow students. 

It is hard to write and not put some of you into every piece, it just kind of flakes off like DNA at a crime scene.  Our writing leaves bits and pieces of who we are scattered wherever we are read.  Souls were bared and experiences shared, and we were all strengthened by having come together and shared ourselves.  I came out feeling enriched and rejuvenated.

There were only two men in the class, which, I thought at first, said that women were more creative than men are, but as I re-think it, I'm guessing that women are more willing to share their life's experiences than men. That is such a shame, because we all have a story to tell.

My first novel, Where the Mockingbird Sang, exist because my great-great-grandfather kept journals.  He told his story.  If he had not thought it worth telling, our family would have been deprived of a wealth of family history, and our getting to know him. 

We ALL have a story to tell…tell it.  It doesn't have to be published, but it needs to be told.  Someday, you too will have great-great-grand children.  Will they know who you were?  Not if you don't write it down.  Tell us your story, enrich us…we're waiting.