Update for February 21st, 2011

I have been taking a Fiction Writing course along with my graduate studies, learning some new tricks to my trade. The focus of this class seems to be short story writing, finding one's "voice", and making the most out of the least. Essentially it is about the economy of words--trying to engross the reader as succinctly as possible.

Some other things I have been focusing on, is trusting my own images. I have to cut down how much effort and time I spend in "explaining" what the reader likely already knows and can see for themselves in their own imaginations. Even though I have this urge to make my readers see what I see, I have to trust that their imaginations are just as able as mine.

For the most part, the assignments I have been given and handing in have been well-recieved and generally interesting. The biggest challenge I have so far is trying to say what I want to say in 400 words or less. But I guess if I can't express a scene or dialoge in 400 words or less, I'm not doing my job to get to the point. For a novel writer such as myself, the short story or short prose approach is a challenge and it may seem like a death sentence for creative expression. No hard core novelist likes to cut or chop up their work to bitesize chewables.