what's on my mind

I always enjoy working w/ the teen writing group. They're so much more dedicated to and ambitious about their writing than I was at their age. Then again, I was also a lot more screwed up... I had them do a little brainstorming-freewriting exercise I usually do w/ my students since we talked about their dislike for nonfiction. I told them that nonfiction can be as creative as fiction (their preconceptions of nonfiction has mostly negative academic connotations, understandably). So we did the little exercise, and by the end, each had a subject to write about, both rather interesting. I "assigned" it to them for our next meeting -- will be really cool to see what they come up w/ if they actually do it.

It was a reminder that I'm good at teaching nonfiction, namely creative nonfiction, and need to do more of it.

Yesterday I was able to get something done. I finished reading the manuscript (all but about 20 pages, that is), and took a lot of notes, etc. Felt good to get that done. It's going to need a lot of revision, of course, but I'm surprised at how solid it is in general, considering how quickly we wrote it. And yet, I'm really regretting having turned it over to my writer's group so soon. This is either the perfectionist in me, or the fact that even though some of it is solid, some of it is also a bit raw. I am going to respond to Susan's comment about composition and feedback regarding my previous post after I finish this one. She made some excellent points.

But I'm down today, and it's more hormonal than anything else. I also seem to have hit the wall with my nonfiction project. Haven't looked at that in awhile. And maybe that's a good thing, I don't know. Once June ends, I've got to turn my attention back to school, and God knows I'm not ready to do it yet. I'm just not ready to be and think academically. But maybe it's like jumping into the pool: just jumping in is better than dipping your feet -- once you're in, you're in.