I must say that class on Tuesday was great. It was really interesting getting to meet Richard Rubin and here what he had to say about writing and answer all of our questions. First I liked how he asked us what we thought what was drawn from his real life experiences and what was imagination and to my surprise most of the story was taken, bits and pieces from real life experiences or people he had met. Then as we asked him questions he had great answers that were not what I would have expected. When the class contrasted whether or not each person created their story around a character or a plot. That really made me think because I’ve never looked at my writing like that and I guess I would have to say I typically develop the story around the character, I don’t begin with the plot. This gives me ideas of how I might start trying out new techniques of writing.
I have really been struggling with this last paper just because I am trying to really take into consideration the criticism from the last workshop and trying to avoid the same mistakes, which is trickier than I had expected. During the last workshop when everyone made their comments on my paper, I thought at the time…yea your right I need to not do this. More easily said (or thought about) than done. When it’s a whole new story its hard to take criticisms from the last one and apply them but the new ideas that Richard Rubin helped provide in class were exactly what I needed. I hate to say it but I feel like I lucked out by having writers block because now I have a little more to go from.