I was at Writers Boot Camp at Wilkes Universtiy, Wilkes Barre PA for a week, returning home on June 23. It was intense as well as invigorating. The first session was the intro 3 credit graduate course, in the Creative Writing Masters Degree Program. I emailed the final project for the course today. Whew and Woo Hoo!!
I was ambivalent about starting such an endeavor at my age but with encourgement from my husband and family, I did it. We had to read several books about writing before and during the course. My favorite two were Dorethea Brande’s Becoming a Writer, written in 1934 and still perfectly pertinent, and Stephen King’s On Becoming a Writer. (Yes, that Stephen King!), too many people disregard him as not literary, but anyone who wrote such powerful stories as The Green Mile, Delores Claiborne, and The Shawshank Redemption deserves to be heard. He is a master of his art.
I met many new friends, even a lovely lady from Melbourne, Australia. I was impressed with the writing aptitude demonstrated by the students in our cohort group. A diverse and somewhat motley crew who became a tight unit of support for each other. One youung man helped me so much to learn their computer system that I called him my adopted grandson, I wouldn’t have made it without him!
The classes were taught by qualified sucessful authors. I met dozens of authors, playwrights, poets, screenplay writers, and publishers. They spoke openly of their writing work habits, schedules and spaces. No two were exactly alike but they all had one thing in common. They wrote and they wrote at least 5 days a week. some were almost militant about the need for closing the door, shutting out the world and writing for several hours everyday. While others had a more relaxed approach. They were all approachable and some were even friendly to the students. The next course will be taking up much of my time during the next six months. Enough about that.
My dad is serioulsly ill, I was late getting to school because I wanted to be with him when the doctor drained 4 pints of fluid from the pleural cavity around his lungs. His right lobe was still1/3 covered. But Dad was able to breathe a little easier. Lab tests revealed multiple cancer cells in the fluid. It is hard to face. Dad says no treatment, no invasive biopsy. He told the doctor,”Well, when you live this long, you have to know that somethin’s gonna get you sooner rather than later.” He’ll be 90 in August. He’s always been my rock. Tomorrow we meet with the lung specailist and he’ll decide how he wants to handle this.
We watched one good movie since my last blog, Of God and Men. A very powerful and unforgetable movie. It’s also French with subtitles.
Keep reading my friends. Later,
Ann