Nov 18, 2011

3 years later...

Yesterday I got the really cool chance to go back to my college (College of Charleston) and talk to one of the classes I took when I was a student there. I was a creative writing major and during my senior year I took a class that was entitled: "Writing the Novel." The class lasted only a semester, and I only produced 60 or so pages of actual story, but the class was pretty instrumental in getting me started on writing projects outside of school. The professor, Bret Lott, has been very supportive of my writing endeavors and I've kept up with him for the past three years that I've been out of his class. When he heard about my news, he immediately invited me to come and talk to the class I'd once been a student in (which is, ironically, the class my brother happens to be taking at the moment. You can see him in the pink shirt and bow tie two seats down from me!)


It was a little more... I don't want to say intimidating because I really wasn't that nervous... but we'll use the word anyway... to talk to college age kids as opposed to high schoolers. This could also be because they were slightly closer to my age. But I did enjoy being able to share my journey with them. Three years seems like an eternity when you're in it, angsting on whether or not your book will be published. But sitting in that circle and staring into all of their faces, remembering when I too was going to this class every week to talk about writing... I realized that three years really isn't that long. I have been so, so blessed. And I can't forget it.


6 comments:

  1. Thanks. I've decided that I could get used to being a professor. Sitting outside in the nice weather, eating pastries and talking about writing... Not a bad life!

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  2. This is true, and one of those things that I don't plan on thinking about in my daydreams...

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  3. Cool beans. =D What kind of questions did they ask you?

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  4. A lot of the usual questions: How long did it take you to write? How do you go about finding an agent? What books did you read when you were younger?
    The last one was a bit more personalized: What was it like growing up with Jacob as a brother? Then they made me dish embarrassing stories about him. I was merciful and spared him the worst one.

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