Today I attended the first class of a 6-week course called, Pilfering Our Way Through the Great Personal Essays. The course is one of many writing courses offered at the Richard Hugo House, a Seattle literary arts center that supports writers of all ages and backgrounds. There were 9 women in my class this morning, with varied levels of writing experience. Some have been crafting personal essays and memoirs for years and others, like me, were there to try something relatively new.
I look forward to having this kind of opportunity -to take a course just for personal pleasure. I think I will enjoy investing myself in the hard work of developing my skills as a writer. It gives me the push I need to actually put pen to paper. I'm that person with a very long mental list of things I'd like to do and a very poor record of following through. I've decided that now is probably a very good time to pursue my interests (in earnest). Having a job isn't the only way to be productive after all.
2 comments:
This is great. Maybe you might end up writing a book instead! Here is an idea- write a book about Denmark. Apparently you still cant get it out of your mind! lol..
Well, it actually came up in our round table already. My experience in DK is certainly one possibility for an essay topic for me. Writing personal non-fiction is tricky though. We all have stories that are interesting and yet, writing with honesty (about our feelings, struggles, family, past...) is not what everybody is ready and willing to do. I keep thinking "well, in 15 years when I'm in my late fifties -maybe then, I can write about x". Sometimes distance is necessary. Writing fiction is less of a risk in many ways.
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