What I learned

I sent this to the teacher of my creative writing class. We had to send her an e-mail saying what we learned in the class, I think we were supposed to write a critical review too but I didn't do that.


What I learned this semester in your class. I've never written much before in the format that I did in class, which I guess is nothing more than traditional writing. Usually I write in screenplay format, which is not very descriptive (other than notations explaining what the set might look like and what the characters should be doing) and dialogue (I often got comments in your class over how well written my dialogue was, I've had more practice writing that than writing descriptively). So first and foremost I learned how to write fiction rather than movies. I also learned that short stories are really good practice and they can be just a deep and meaningful as longer ones. I learned the importance of rewriting your work once you've finished, fixing up clunky sentences, changing phrases when you accidentally use the word 'because' 4 times in the same paragraph (or the like), taking out scenes that distract from the story, or ones that are completely unnecessary. I've learned that I should have more faith in what I write, even if it doesn't turn out the way I expected. I learned that sometimes stories practically write themselves and sometimes your characters can surprise you. I learned that time writing is time well spent and that having people to read your work is awesome in so many ways. I learned that not everyone will like everything you write but you can please everyone sometimes. I learned more about black holes than I'd ever need to know. I learned that writing a book isn't as unreachable a goal as I once thought. I learned that there are many good writers in this class and a few I didn't like as much, but most importantly I learned that everyone should write even if sometimes others will think it's terrible. I learned that you learn more from bad reviews than good ones. I learned that stories will come from anywhere at anytime (I thought up that Yin and Yang story just from standing on my friends balcony, and I thought looking down that this wouldn't be a good balcony to kill yourself from and then a story just popped into my head). i learned that people born 5 years after me are all a little weird. I learned that it's easy to fall, but it's also easy to get back up again. I learned that if you write one story that's sci-fi after that everyone will write back to you 'this isn't in your usual style but..." as if you wrote in sci-fi all the time. I learned that most people don't take writing very seriously, but that's fine because I don't take anything else very seriously. I learned that practice might not exactly make perfect but it at least makes you better.