The foundations of writing

Week 1

Being in a classroom with 9 other literary lovers creates a contagious creativity that is a lot of fun.
We learn new writing concepts and straight away can try them out in flash 10 minute real time exercises. Most exhilarating of coarse are the moments when we can share our inspirations and read out to the class our latest paragraph or short story.
I am learning about my style and have discovered that I quite like making people laugh, throwing in a few tidbits of irony or humor, a couple of times even making the whole class burst out in laughter. What a rush. So I have discovered that I am somewhat of a humorist. I suppose when writing about anteaters at the zoo or crossing the dessert on the hydration of camel drool your bound to get some kind of response.
    Its extremely refreshing to do this kind of schooling, so different from a standard university theoretical type course. However, after one week I am slightly less ignorant as to certain considerations when writing:
Audience, creating anticipation, defining characters, and tags, planting seeds etc.
We had a challenge to interview a co-student and write an anecdote of their lives, then we assessed them in critique groups and later went and wrote the second draft. What a challenge that was! The first draft felt like fun, easy peasy, just write and don't think too much. However rewriting is exhausting. Actually structuring things requires a lot of thought and consideration.
Next week we will learn about editing and how to do a proper interview. Looking forward to it, will keep you posted.