A Beginning...

My very first blog - certainly a new experience.  If I'm not careful, I'll be tweeting next.

Started taking a creative writing class.  Great fun.  I am still very excited about the prospect - giddy even - like a teenager anticipating spending time alone with his girlfriend.  I love being around other people with a similar interest in writing.  It stirs the creative juices.  I think I crave the attention/adulation received from a well written or clever piece of prose (rare though that is); as well as the support from a group of self-conscious novices (like myself I hasten to add) that are loath to step on other people's toes for fear of retribution.  Nothing I write could ever be shit in the eyes of someone who awaits judgment on their own bared soul.

I took some creative writing classes/subjects many years ago, and in all modesty, I was good.  I can see that now.  At the time I was still striving to relegate Shakespeare and Wilde to the pulp fiction shelves.  I would spend hours working and re-working a single sentence, wringing every last rhythm and connotation from the words.  (Almost like Douglas Adams, passing his hard worked manuscripts to his publisher one line at a time.)  Thankfully, the English language is robust and forgiving.

I read a Stephen King short story some years back.  It's okay, I got over it.  Anyway, the character was an aspiring writer who suffered a similar inferiority complex with his own literary heroes.  At some point in his career (and I am assuming this character was at least a partial self-portrait), he just let go and decided his job was to write.  Simple.  He didn't have to compete with the greats; just learn from them.


At nearly forty, I hope I have learned enough to shine.