tossoff -- mostly writing about writing

My creative writing class used my piece for this week as one of its to-be-critiqued samples. While I know that we're methodically going through the class, and everyone's will be read once or twice over the course of the semester, I couldn't help but be a little thrilled inside. Prof Klinkenborg reads both of the selected pieces to the class aloud before we start in on the critique, and I was all nervous as I heard my words coming from some other part of the room.

That said, I was proud of this piece. I feel like I'd isolated some of the crap I do over and over again in trying to construct prose from the first three weeks and worked to cut it out. I went into his office to chat about things monday, and I think that helped too. So I guess I'm learning a lot in the class, which is 1. great and 2. surprising since I normally can't measure progress until after a course is over. By this, I mean that it never seems like I'm absorbing that much in classes until the next semester rolls around and I discover just how much I internalized from the reading I'd halfheartedly done a couple months earlier. It's a really good feeling to try to reduce what starts as an academic idea down to a tangible and lucid little chunk of prose (something I would be humoring myself to claim I've done successfully). And by that measure, I feel justified in glowing over my little essay like a proud parent. Come to think of it, I have no idea when I last felt genuinely proud of my writing. I'm pretty sure that was one of the reasons I wanted so bad to get into the class, and I'm reassured that this most rudimentary of plans is starting so well.

If you ask real nicely, I may try my hand at some editing and then put it up here. But sometimes it's better to take what you can from a positive situation rather than revisiting it, hacking it to bits, and ending up ultimately disappointed. Oh, and happy valentine's day.