"caught playing doctor with myself"

Class today was so much fun. I laughed a lot during, and afterwards.

I am always nervous and excited to get my stories workshopped. Today in the minutes leading up to my workshop, I felt anxiety, the familiar nervousness in my stomach like before I have to give a paper at a conference, or give a lecture in some random 100-level class full of texting students.

But once the workshop began, I just enjoyed it. I enjoyed everyone's comments and insights. Sometimes working on a story for days or weeks, you think you have everything figured out. People were noticing things in the story that I hadn't thought about at all. That's an amazing feeling because it reminds you that a story is more than just what the writer puts on the page; it belongs to the reader too. I feel grateful because I know this is one of the only times I will have a room full of careful readers giving commentary on my work.

 And the free-write we did at the end of class was just hilarious. I discovered that Courtney and I are basically the same person, haha. This entry's title is a paraphrase from the paper that got passed over to us... there was more comedic gold where that came from but I don't want to plagiarize the Authors of that Work.

Tonight I feel grateful for the creative writing program at the U of R. Without even realizing it, and probably because I only have one class this semester while I work on my thesis, I've fallen into a routine of writing creatively almost every day.  This is what the MA program has given me-- a greater love of words, and the time to work with them.

I would encourage the Honours students in the class to think about pursuing another 1.5- 2 years for a creative writing degree. The program involves 3 academic courses, 2 writing workshops, and working one-on-one with a professor on a full-length manuscript of fiction or poetry. In your last year, you have time and space to simply read, write, and maybe laugh a bit too!