So I found class on Monday to be really interesting. Actually meeting Richard Rubin was really neat and (in all honesty) I ended up liking his story more because of it. I guess it just impressed me how he used separate little pieces of his own life and sewed them together to make the story. I really appreciated that because that's what I try to do with my stories some of the time, but obviously not as well. I think that hearing him explain how he did that gave me new ideas about how I can try to improve my writing.
Then I really liked the discussion we had about whether or not authors come up with the character or the plot first. This is something that I hadn't thought about before and I'm not really sure which category I fall into. I know that when I have ideas it usually starts out as a plot, but then the main character seems to be there right away too. Of course that just might be because I usually put a lot of my own characteristics into my main characters so maybe I'm just imagining myself in that position at first. So I guess I kind of come up with the character and the plot at the same time.
All in all, I think having Richard Rubin come into class brought up a lot of things for me to think about when I'm writing.