My favorite kind of writing (my own writing) makes me laugh. I think I have a funny turn of phrase or a silly character. That's when I enjoy what I'm doing and it flows.
I've signed up for a 10 week short fiction course at Grub Street. I've had one class so far, but I love it. I was really worried that I wouldn't belong, that all the other people in the class would be working on or have MFA's, have published stories, or that they'd be really smart and know a lot of technical writery stuff. The first class was really reassuring though. We will be reading stories and exploring them trying to "think like writers", submitting our own stories, and workshopping each others' stories. That last one sounds terrifying. However, in how we talked about the first story in the first class, I realized I have a few natural strengths already. I notice how writers use the particular words that they do, and how the choices they make in character, scenes, and plot move the story forward. I really hope that will translate into my own writing. I also watch the people around me. I'm willing to try things and take risks, which will matter when I get to letting other people read what I write. And I think I'm pretty good at describing a scene in a way that let's a reader see what I see in my mind's eye, or at least gives them the opportunity to construct their own scene.
