WRITING & REALITY: Developing ‘Tude

I’m back safely from the scary journey into academia, and aside from an eight a.m. class that gives me no time to prepare if I’ve procrastinated, as well as presenting myself with hair still wet from the shower, several good things have come of it.

Early morning classes assure me of a parking space much closer to the building; my Statistics teacher seems to be excellent—not packing a sense of humor really, but a truly good instructor who knows how to get the information across in a readily comprehensible manner; my New Media course is being taught by three instructors, two of whom I’ve either had in other courses or have come to know through our writer’s group (and besides, I’ve been on campus for over four years now!) and one who seems really neat, energetic, and is as knowledgeable as his colleagues. I realized that I’m not expected to know everything in a course—that’s why I’m taking it. The hour and a half between classes is really a good time to either use the computer lab or the library, and as happened today, I can either study or come up with great story ideas just by watching what’s happening around me.

I also came up with a decent wording and ending of one of my short pieces of fiction. Despite my growing dissatisfaction with my story lines in general, I am slowly learning to manipulate time spans within a story, and better still, may have overcome my tendency to end a story with anything that strongly suggests, “in case you’ve missed the point, here is where it all comes together and I can explain it to you.” I’m almost (not totally yet) proud of coming up with an ending that should be explanatory, natural, yet open to interpretation. In other words, the dangling kind that leaves you thinking instead of just satisfied.

Hey, don’t laugh. This is a big step for me. To invite a reader to make what he will of a set of facts I’ve presented used to rub me the wrong way. I’m finally willing to hand my information over to an audience and not get upset when they come up with their own conclusions. This is not always a conscious effort on the part of the author. In many cases, what is in the mind of the author is either overstated, or left out because the author either feels he has to map everything out, or because he forgot that while HE knows what or why, the reader won’t unless all the necessary data is delivered to him.

(Note to Neha: Nope, guess I’m not quitting yet!)