first drafts are shit...hemingway said so!

Creative Writing class is interesting and intellectually stimulating until you find yourself at the receiving end of the stick - by stick I mean constructive critcism (from henceforth, it shall be abbreviated to Concrit) on your work. Most authors, or to be precise, most amateur, unprofessional (not in the derogatory sense) authors fear the criticism more than the Soviets feared Stalin. It can make or break a writer's confidence, stimulate or wear out his/her writing muse. Which is why I think the way we word our concrit is imperative - it should be insightful and it should assist the writer to improve on his/her work. There should be plenty of positivity involved when critiquing someone's work. If you continuously say, "This is bad, I don't like this, the grammar here is atrocious, this character is shallow and I wouldn't be caught dead hanging out with your protagonist," it reflects more on your personality than it does on the writer's. It highlights your personal insecurity on your writing than the person you are critiquing.

On the other hand, touching your critique with a handful of compliments (like, "I really like this line!" or "the wordplay here is excellent!") can boost the writer's confidence and inspire him/her to produce a fantastic work of art. It also provide a level of personal satisfaction, knowing your inputs helped someone to overcome their literary barriers and create something beautiful, something lyrical, something...you get the idea. My classmates (and Professor) were extremely helpful in phrasing the exact questions I had in mind about my own writing, and spoke it out loud. For my benefit. Whenever I write, I like to ask myself a barrage of questions - about the overall story, the individual characters and specific plot lines. As a writer you know the beginning, you know the middle, and you know the end - which puts a damper in asking these lists of questions. You end up censoring yourself. For example, if you wanted to know if your character comes across as someone sympathetic judging by a sequence of actions in the beginning of the story, your mind will be inclined to say yes if you know at the end he does something that is worthy of sympathy.

I enjoyed today's lesson thoroughly; I'm seeing my Professor tomorrow and we are going to go over the details and some additional bits of prose I wrote on my way home (Yes it takes me one and a half hours to get back home). Right now, I have no motivation to study, which, I hope will go back to the purgatory it came from and leave me, my guilt free mind at peace.