ADVENTURES IN CREATIVE WRITING - WEEK SIX

The bulk of the Center for Active Seniors, Inc. and Midwest Writing Center series of creative writing classes is over. The first three weeks we covered creative writing basics: getting into a writing practice, types of creative writing, and creative writing elements such as energy, insight, etc.

This past few weeks I enjoyed a nice break while speakers took over for me. December 4th, Lilly Setterdahl, author of sixteen books including two historical novels talked about nonfiction. Lilly shared her fascinating life story of growing up in Sweden after World War II. We learned when writing a memoir, it's helpful to group stories by subject rather than chronologically, include everything you remember, and insert pictures wherever possible. We also learned all of us have interesting stories which can be learned from, even if they are just shared with family members and future generations.

On December 11th, Dick Stahl joined us to talk about poetry. Many of his poems are autobiographical and we were encouraged to look inside ourselves and our own memories for poetry. Dick made experiencing poetry accessible and writing poetry less mythical. He shared many insights into poetry through others' quotes, including Roald Tweet's telling, "What?    Of course." If someone says this after reading a poem, the work has done its job. Dick also used fortune cookies to do a fun poetry prompt with us; I am definitely stealing that idea.

This week, Jon Riplinger, retired English teacher and author of several young adult novels joined us to talk about fiction. Jon shared his journey through finding an agent, getting published, having the agent drop his genre, finding a new agent, finding a new publisher, having the publisher go bankrupt, and finding another publisher. And dozens of revisions. He showed us that novel writing is not an easy or quick process but if you love the process, as he does, it is still worthwhile.

After a holiday break, we'll meet again to talk about editing, revision, and the publication process. I've enjoyed leading the class even more than I thought I would. And along with the attendees, I've immensely enjoyed our guests. I'm looking forward to a new session starting in February and I'm hoping to tweak it enough with more in-class writing that the current participants will be back.

Happy Holidays!

From The Wordsy Woman