Listening to: The Notebook
So, I've officially finished my first week of classes for this semester. So far they all seem pretty good, with one possible exception. I'll detail them for you guys, just in case you are curious:
1.) Publication Editing: Pretty self explanitory. It's a class about learning how to edit things people write. Which I love to do, and I love the professor (he reminds me of my friend Zach in a lot of ways) and the class only has 10 people in it, which is great. So this one is probably gonna be pretty awesome.
2.) Lit for Adolescents: We read Young Adult fiction and get credit for it. Some of the books we're reading include The Giver, The Book Thief, The Hunger Games, Hatchet, and some other greats. The professor is new and she is super sweet and I already love the class.
3.) Media Ethics: I have this class one night a week for about three hours. The professor is from Kenya, which is pretty interesting, and it might as well be a philosophy class, because that's pretty much what ethics is - philosophy. I think it'll be pretty interesting class. It's all about what situations are and aren't ethical in reporting for the media and stuff.
4.) Intro to Human Communication: This is a required class that everyone has to take. Most professors teach it as a public speaking class. I'm not really sure how mine is teaching it, but I think she doesn't emphasize the speeches as much as other professors. Which is pretty nice. I took speech in high school, so I didn't really want to take this, but I didn't get much of a choice.
And last but not least...
5.) Creative Writing: This is the one that I'm a little skeptical on. I used to do a ton of creative writing in my spare time. My friend Lindsey and I would collaborate and help each other and bounce ideas around and stuff. And I took a really great creative writing class in high school. So I was really excited for this.
Except, the professor is new. She's probably in her late 20's and has kind of a hipster view on writing, where she finds obscure things terrific and main stream things terrible. She seems nice enough, but she's structured the class in kind of a weird way.
We have three different units: Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, and Poetry. At the end of the semester, we have to turn in a portfolio with one short story, one creative nonfiction piece, and 5-8 poems. We get to assign the weight each piece has on our total portfolio grade, and the choices are 35%, 20%, and 10%.
The trick is, the piece(s) that you give the highest influence on your grade you have to submit to a workshop, where the class all gets to read it and give you feedback and critique and stuff.
Which is fine. Except, she hasn't told us when anything is due if you aren't work-shopping for a unit. And she hasn't given us any ideas of what she'll be looking for when she grades our stuff. Which is confusing and frustrating to me, because I like to know my guidelines before I start writing something.
AAANNNNDDD you have to pick what unit you want to workshop for before you even write anything. Which is kind of bogus if you ask me, because I would rather wait until after I've written something to decide if I want to workshop it.
AAAAANNNNNNDDDDDD she doesn't actually teach us about different styles of writing. So far, we have read a few short stories (Fiction is our first unit) and she's pointed out some devices that were used in each, but she hasn't really taught us about the different styles of writing or different plot devices or anything.
Which is kind of lame. Because I'm in this class to learn stuff. And I'm not really learning anything (although, it has only been two classes...).
ANYWAY, I have a favor to ask you guys. I have to write a short story that is 8-25 pages. I like to write realistic fiction, but I have no clue what I want to write about.
So, I was wondering if you guys wanted to help me out and write the end of my story before I write the rest of it. Just a few sentences that seem kind of conclude-y, and then I'll figure out who my characters are and how to get them to that point.
An example: my friend Lindsey did this for me once, and this is what she gave me:
""It's only the beginning," I whispered to myself, turning away from his lifeless form, a tear sliding down my cheek. "Death is only the beginning.""
So I wrote kind of a ridiculous (but surprisingly popular) story about a girl who falls in love with a guy who is secretly a werewolf (it's way better than it sounds, I think, but I wrote it when I was 15, so I'm not gonna make you any promises) and has to fight crime and stuff because all these murders are happening.
So.
If you want to help me out and give me a final sentence or two, that would be awesome. It doesn't have to be deep or profound or meaningful. Just something that sounds like a good ending. And then when I'm done with the story, maybe I'll share it with you. :)
More later,
Me.
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