Having an author come in to talk to us was such a pleasant surprise! I found him to be a very engaging speaker and clearly a talented writer. I know he kept making jokes about how many metaphors he was making but I felt that demonstrated just how good of a writer he was. His metaphors really opened my eyes to ideas about good writing. Listening to him speak so passionately about his work made me want to be a better writer. I also really enjoyed reading November because of how much reality was put in it. I did not realize at the time I was reading it that so much of it actually came from real life. I noticed that I too do that in my writing. Through the class discussion today I learned just how acceptable it is to write non-fiction fiction. Richard Rubin was right, real life is very ironic, insane, and fascinating so why not use it?
His suggestion to open your eyes to detail was also incredibly helpful. I have always paid close attention to detail in everyday life and occurrences and I never realized just how much it helps while writing but it really does make a difference.
Finally, his advice about cliches brought a lot of comfort to me. I loved his improvisation to answer Erin's question about her seemingly boring story. His advice in addition to Theo's advice about being very specific to make it your own was what I found to be the most useful. I'm looking forward to writing more after today's class because of how inspiring Richard Rubin was.
No comments:
Post a Comment