Dear Readers,
Just to switch things up a bit, for the month of April I will be in the Writing 101 class. They’ll have us doing various writing assignments, one each weekday with nothing on the weekend. I thought it might be interesting for you to follow along and see how I do.
I’ll still intersperse some updates on the fiction, my recovery, etc. and we’ll do another thread where you can promote your blog. So a lot will be happening. If you have any questions or suggestions, contact me at lilypup1922@yahoo.com.
Feel free to leave comments and feedback on these assignments.
Day #1-
To get started, let’s loosen up. Let’s unlock the mind. Today, take twenty minutes to free write. And don’t think about what you’ll write. Just write.
Keep typing (or scribbling, if you prefer to handwrite for this exercise) until your twenty minutes are up. It doesn’t matter if what you write is incomplete, or nonsense, or not worthy of the “Publish” button.
And for your first twist? Publish this stream-of-consciousness post on your blog.
Well, okay, I’ll take this challenge…I’m watching the clock and I’m ready to start.
I’m not totally excited about taking a writing “class”. Honestly, it sounds like it could be a bit dull. I only have a bad experience to compare it to and that was in college, quite a few years ago. I took some class, called something like Comp 101 where I had to write papers the whole semester. We got there the first day and the professor didn’t look so good. As in, he looked really, really sick, So the next time we came back and he was gone! Some other professor was there and he told us the old professor had died! And he introduced us to our new grad assistant who would be teaching us for the semester.
He gave us our first writing assignment which was a paper on something…can’t recall what and he gave me a D. I think that was just about the first D I had ever earned in my scholastic career! I was unhappy, to say the least. Not that I thought I was some great writer…I just didn’t think I was in the D category. So on my next paper, I took it to the tutoring center. Two people there fussed over it and fixed it all up and I turned it in. They also got a D. They were unhappy. So we all complained to the Department Head. (I was a brave soul.) My two D’s were erased and I wound up with a B in the class.
So you can see that my writing experience didn’t start out well.
Then I told some of you about the fiction I wrote endlessly while manic. A few of you are reading that today. Fortunately that was never edited or graded….it just kind of literally fell out of my fingers at the keyboard. Most days I couldn’t type fast enough. But even thought there was a glimmer of interest in that writing, nothing ever came of it. But it was fun. The best thing about writing for yourself, though, is that no one cares. You can give it any friend or family member and they will say “Wow! This is really good!” whether they have read it or not. They have no dog in the hunt, so they don’t care.
It’s sort of the same way with blog writing. You have a wide unknown audience out there. You can write whatever you want and you don’t truly, honestly know what the thought is. Sure, you may have a few faithfuls speak up and tell you it was good, but you may also have 300 read and say nothing. They may have been bored as hell or just hated it. I haven’t run into anyone on the blogs who has stated a negative opinion of my blog so far. And I seriously know those people are just staying quiet and moving along, which is really as it should be. I will confess I’ve seen a number of blogs I didn’t care for out there….and yes, I just moved along. It’s someone else’s self-expression…not really my business to judge.
So we’ll see how this writing experience goes. We’ll see if I can hold out And more importantly, if you readers can hold out. It’s a brave new world.
