The writing class

So, for the past few weeks I have been attending a class in creative writing. Every Tuesday night we meet up, analyze short-stories, write in silence, read out loud and drink coffee. The coffee is rather dishwatery and decaffeinated, but I still have a cup or two. Or three.

So I have not written an entire short story since high school. Yes, I’ve had the occasional fit of inspiration, in which I will wake up in the middle of the night, feeling something so strongly that I just have to write it down, waking up the next day to a page of which I can interpret half of the words, however even those I can read makes no sense.

I did actually write a theatre script once. My childrens group were putting up a show, and I decided to write my own little thing. It was a good mix of fairytales and music (good music of course, unless the badness of the music were totally intended, as in the “candy kids” dancing to – come on, you know you remember it – I want candy by Aaron Carter. Oh yes.) It was a cute little play, full of colors and music and dancing, and a dead grandmother coming back to tell one last fairytale. Which was actually rather depressing and sad, but all in all it was a cute little play.

And then there is my blog. I haven’t written an awful lot – but it has definitely awoken my urge to express myself through words! So when Alex invited me to the class, I was game, for sure.

In the beginning, I was not sure where to go or what to do. My script was written for my kids group. My blog is written to tell everybody what I am up to. Now, I was writing to… Write? My first attempts were very out-of-nowhere, stream of consciousness style writings, just letting something inspire me and put pen to paper (read; fingers to iPad, though it does not sound equally poetic) and write, write, write until empty. The results were fairly decent, if I may say so myself, but they are not really stories, not really essays, not really memoirs – they are fragments and thoughts and random. Who knows, some day they might turn into something – but for now, they’re nothing.

Then, there is this story. It showed up as I was working on a character description. My character started taking on life. Then another character showed up. Then, conflict. And now, honestly, the story has taken on a life of its own and are dying to be put on paper/screen. However, I am slightly scared to let it out.

I fear it might be more brutal and dark than I intended and possibly am ready for. It has a Haruki Murakami meets Tom Waits meets Marquis de Sade feel to it – if that can make any sense to anyone. Dark, sad and rather disturbing.

So as of now, I am procrastinating putting pen to paper – sorry, fingers to iPad – trying to gather up the courage to explore the deeper layers of my character’s twisted mind. I really don’t think I wanna know. But I think I am going to have to.

I need coffee. Not the dishwatery decaffeinated kind. I am talking dark, hot, steaming coffee. It’s going to be a long night.