Back in school

I visited a high school creative writing class this morning. I forgot how early kids around here go to school—7:20 a.m. It’s an elective and today is the last day before spring break, so it was a smaller group than usual, but they were very eager and seemed receptive to my ramblings. The teacher had distributed copies of my story “Harming Obsession” from The Harrow to the class earlier in the week, and they had apparently discussed it. The teacher told me she asked them if they felt they could have written this story and reported that, though they thought at first it was something they might have been able to do, they ultimately decided there was a voice in the writing that they hadn’t yet mastered. I found that interesting. Early on in my writing career, I was part of an online critique group and my colleagues told me they had identified something in my writing that would allow them to identify one of my stories if they read it blind. I have no idea if that’s true or not—I didn’t test them on it—but I was flattered all the same.

I went to the forty-minute class without any prepared notes, just a general idea of what I was going to talk about. I ended up talking a lot more than I intended, but it seemed to go over well. They had questions and a couple of them came up to me afterward to tell me how much they enjoyed “Harming Obsession,” and how much it had disturbed them. It’s my first published story, but I’ve received more feedback on it than from most of the others combined.

Last night’s challenges on Survivor demonstrated how badly off the Ravu tribe members are doing physically and emotionally. Even the big guys got knocked around with the cushions. I agreed with their choice for a member to expel, though. Looks like some interesting changes next week. No, not next week, two weeks from last night. No, wait, let’s really confuse people and air it on Wednesday night, instead. That’ll make it easy on people…