ya know.... (ooh, we haven't had an Amy rant in ages)

[sublimatedangel]

I'm really starting to think I'm never going to enjoy the fiction writing class I took. I still think I can manage to do fairly well in it... but besides his approach not being what I was hoping to get (read: it's the way I do things now, and it doesn't work particularly well for me), we haven't gotten to do much creativity stuff.

Assignment 1 was to write a true story and a fictional story, and write them in a way that it would be hard for people to tell which was which. The idea being, this will teach us to make our fiction sound realistic. Problem: it makes the fiction sound like non-fiction. I personally do not care much for non-fiction, at least not the way I (& most people) write it. So woohoo, I got to write a fictional piece without any of the fun stuff. And I got to write non-fiction. Yeah, that's why I took this class....

Assignment 2: Write a story about something that happened to you as a child, using the language of a child, and untainted by future reflections/whatever. Peachy. This of course is supposed to teach us about using different 'voices' in our writing. Normally, I'd be just fine with this, but...
Why the hell are we writing a true account?? Why aren't we writing fiction from the point of view of a child? I mean, I know I can't *always* have *everything* my way... but if I take a fiction writing course, I kind of expect that to involve writing fiction... Call me crazy. Sigh. Amy is a frustrated kitten right now.

On the up side, my assignment 1 went really well... I feel good about that. The rest of the group is mostly a talented bunch of people, so I didn't have to put up with any bad writing... I am grateful for this. I do count my silver linings. I may not get what I wanted from this class, but I should get a good grade and credit towards the degree, which is the important part. And honestly, I'm liking my Anthro class much more than I had any right to expect. Sigh. It all balances, I guess... I'm just disappointed.

Comments

[horrorvenus.livejournal.com]

Drop the damn class and write what you want. I've never heard positive feedback from anyone whose ever taken a fiction writing class. Reminds me of the textbook from "Dead Poets Society".

[sublimatedangel]

If I thought I wouldn't get a good grade, I would drop it. But there are going to be plenty of classes that I need to take, that aren't going to be fun happy stuff. I might as well get used to it now. So no class dropping, and hey, maybe it will get better (though I'm not holding my breath).