My Mumbling Thoughts

I'm a writer, it's what I do. I can't yet say that it has taken over my life completely, but if I want to be halfway decent, then I'm hoping it happens soon. At least, according to my lecturer that's what I have to do.

Today was my very first college class and I have to say, it was quite liberating. I didn't feel anything special or see any kind of fireworks, but I did feel like this is where I'm supposed to be and saw a lot more fellow writers who are just young tadpoles like myself. We are marching together getting our writing groove on and by the end of this year hope to be at least a tiny bit better than we were when we first signed up.

Three hours I sat in a stuffy classroom and listened to a poet/painter/writer/chain smoker talk to a small group of young adults about what it is to be a writer. He gave us tips, some of which I already do, talked about what's expected from us in the class and made me think that even though he does come off at first like a drugged out mad man, that he's brilliant with his words and I'm going to learn a lot.

For the first hour, he said he would be doing some general lecturing and rambling, the second hour would be a writing exercise that he gives us and the final hour would be where we get into our "editing groups" and critique our peers. He wanted us to be truthful but not absolutely ruthless. We needed to quickly develop thick skins because it is a cruel world and if we can't accept when others say that our words are shit then we'll have a much harder time being a writer. It's inevitable that we're going to write absolute crap, we all think that, but we have to work our way around the "inner judge" who jabbers on and on about how horrible we are. And most importantly, writing is an art, it's a craft. Don't write nonsense bullshit just because you can, but do your best to represent everything you write to the best of your ability.

It was a hell of a lot more fun going to my Life Writing class instead of sitting in traffic and going to work where I would end up writing anyway. At least this time I'm surrounded by people who want to do the same thing as me, which is create good writing and send it out ino the world.

My first order of business is to write every single day. He told us that we have to write a little bit every day until we die. We can't be sick of writing or simply don't want to do it anymore. We must eat, breathe and live it every day. It's more important than our boyfriends/girlfriends, more important than our cats/dogs/gerbils, more important than going out and hanging with our friends, more important than our mental health. Sure, it sounds a little melodramatic, but to some degree, he's right.

So I'll be writing every day. I'm not sure if I'll be posting it all the time, but hopefully I'll be a lot more consistent then the past few days. The second thing I must do is start reading. A lot. I have to get into reading books. Sure, I read magazines and all of my regular blogs, but in order to write in the future, I need to know what's already happened in the past. Besides, you always hear about how the great writers of the world are big fans of reading. Sean (my lecturer; he hates being called by his last name) said that we should always be reading for two reasons: first is because how can you write books if you don't read them? And the second is so you can nick writing styles from others. He did make it clear that he wasn't proposing plagiarism, but simply how some people write certain things and if you can add your own different twist to it.

It is my longest class and luckily he smokes as well so I get two ten minute smoke breaks. I saw him when I went outside for my second break. He likes to walk around, check his cell phone every ten seconds and seems like he's clearing his mind of things. Or, I could be completely wrong and he's just trying to remember lyrics to a certain song that he can't get out of his head. Whatever the reason, part of me just wanted to run up to him and ask if we could talk about writing for the rest of the afternoon while we drank many cups of tea. I wanted to tell him that I was really excited about the class and how this is what I've been searching for ever since I discovered that Corporate America was not my bag of marbles.

But I didn't. I just stood in the same place, finished smoking my fag, walked upstairs and sat back in my chair until he returned. I never really was one for randomly bombarding people and being over enthusiastic.

Tomorrow is my second class for the week. Writing Contexts: Thinking like a writer. It sounds interesting and if it's anything like today's class, then I plan on spending many nights holed up somewhere, anywhere quiet and writing for hours until my eyes are completely red and swollen to the point where I can't even see what I'm writing and reach a new alternate state of consciousness. I don't see why everybody doesn't want to be a writer.