On-line Writing Course, Assignment #1

I'm doing an on-line writing course with A, and yesterday we did the first official exercise for the class. It is designed to illustrate how difficult it is to communicate clearly, and to point out that communication is the goal of writing. We drew simple pictures that we then described to the other person so they could draw what we described. On the first try you see all the things you failed to describe accurately, and then you try again. This was fun, and we came to some useful conclusions (like, it really helps if you give the person an overview of what you're going to describe in detail first), and it showed me something about what is different in the way A and I view the world.

The picture that I drew was just randomly arranged geometric shapes and straight lines--no picture, no story. For both of A's drawings, she arranged geometric shapes into a picture, first a flower and then a frog. I'm not sure exactly what this illustrates, but I see that I'm a "just the facts, ma'am" kind of person--no adornments, little imagination, lots of linear thinking. A is much more tuned into stories and people. For me, writing is about conveying some specific information as clearly as I can. For her, it is about telling a story and bringing characters to life. This is very cool, and I hope I can help her nurture this impulse of hers. The class we're taking isn't focused on fiction, but nonfiction writing is so much more interesting when the writer has a story to tell and is really interested in showing you what the people are like. And, when I think about the non-fiction A has shown an interest in, it has been in writing about real people who have fascinated her, like Louis the XIV and Eleanor of Aquitaine. So I think she'll be perfectly happy to work in the relm of non-fiction.

The other good thing about this class is that the instructor has urged us to make writing our top priority for the next 6 weeks. This will be great--something different is always welcome, and A has been asking and asking to do more writing. So far so good.