Monday, November 3, 2008

I Wouldn't Call Myself a Superstar, Exactly, Just Possessing of Superstar Qualities

I had my mid-semester meeting with my writing teacher today, which I was dreading, if for no other reason than that per my experience with the format, it resembles something like a pop quiz ("What takes your attention? Circle it! Circle it!"), something that normally just makes me feel stressed out.

Instead, it turned into a free-form discussion of my writing, what I want to accomplish, what works, what I should rethink, how I should think about where to take things from here.

He asked me how I felt I ranked in the class, and for a flashing moment I considered a numerical ranking ("somewhere ahead of chick X, but way behind dude Z"), but I just said that I thought I rocked pretty well at the sentence level, but that I thought I needed help with the bigger picture and where to take things, how to move the story along, and so forth. Have a few people cut you off as you run off on a tangent while telling a story, and you develop a complex. Anyway, he told me he thought I had it all down and was one of the strongest writers in the class.

So, I have been given special dispensation to shelve the big project for the class (my small-town U.S.A. yarn) in favor of completing a couple of stories that he thinks I can get into publishable form. Which is awesome by me.

3 comments:

Toby said...

Hey, congrats! When you're a famous novelist, can I get a bit part in the movie adaptation of your first book?

But seriously, that's excellent to hear.

Unknown said...

Glad he recognizes your fabulousness !!

Laura said...

I'm working on my speech for the Academy. It's really all about the little people.

But it is all kinds of awesome to have a teacher who things my stuff is worth nurturing. I've been learning a lot, at any rate.