writing, creatively.

Lately I've really wanted to take a creative writing course. I'm not aspiring to be some professional writer or anything, but I think it could help me broaden my writing spectrum and break up the monotony of academic writing. Because, really, I don't do any sort of casual writing, apart from what I write in this blog, and lets be honest, it doesnt take much to write about amusing (or not?) tid-bits about my day. I sort of feel like my writing style has suffered a bit in the last year or so, and its has become convoluted with latin writing style. anyway, since I can't take a creative writing course at the moment, I ran across some exercises online that I think should be fun and relatively harmless that I can do in my spare time. 

but this gets me into a whole other topic of writing fiction. when was the last time I even wrote anything fictionally? In school, I write paper after paper but its all academically driven--with a main thesis, support theses, evidence and analysis--and occasionally, if I'm lucky, I get to add some artistic flair to the introduction and/or conclusion. This is what I know. This is what I do. But fiction?? That is a foreign element my friend. 

I think the last time I did anything like this was 4 or 5 years ago, when I was taking a lot of literature courses, and I was convinced I was going to be a writer (oh, the aspirations of youth). but the thing is, the thing that I like about writing fiction and what separates it from the writing that I do now, is that while I may be passionate about the subject of my thesis, it doesn't translate into my writing. But thats just how it goes. To do anything else, narrative or otherwise, somehow detracts from the credibility of my argument, making it no better than the kind of history those pop history authors preach from their 5 minute debuts on late night television; the kind those "talking heads"--those experts-- on history specials are so confident is the "truth." so academic writing is just that. all business. 

But I also know the feeling of an idea, small at first, conceived at a random intersection of time, in the most mundane of circumstances-- crossing the street, waiting in line for coffee, listening to your professor lecture in class--and having that idea blossom in your imagination of everything that it could be, and would be, if you penned it on paper. Of that idea, having reached its full potential, consuming all your creative efforts and straining to burst forth from your hand like a wildly erratic heart bursting from the chests of those cartoon characters stricken with the first blush of love. and how relief can only come once its scribbled out upon sheet after sheet, indiscernible to anyone else but yourself. then comes the revision of that raw idea, the editing and perhaps the restraint, that comes with the second, third, fourth draft. the struggle to make it perfection and drawing on everything you know about the English language, about the feelings of humanity, and the course of human events, to make your idea come to life for someone other than yourself. and finally, finally, the finished product sits in your hands like a newborn which you so protectively want to keep from critics and cynics, but also want to share with the world.

I have to say, fiction writers have it rough.