40 Before 40
'This is not group therapy, also please don't share smut'
Try a creative writing class
I’ve always wanted to be a writer. Since I was a kid and playing pretend adults as kids do, my job was always Writer. Very much in the abstract though - sometimes a poet, maybe a journalist, a novelist, fuck even sometimes a songwriter, but never the singer. Once, in a spirited game of dress up with a cousin and a mad Auntie, she pretended to be paparazzi taking my picture at a book launch! Thankfully I don’t have the photos to share, but it’s funny to think they might still exist somewhere.
When I was about 5 or 6, I asked Santa for a typewriter. I didn’t want a kids one either, I wanted a proper one and it had to be black… yes friends, even back then. I got it, obviously, and loved it (and like all late diagnosed ADHDers, you know I love a notebook). I would write letters, lists, stories, plays;I would even type up lyrics of my favourite songs just to feel like I was putting words on the page.
The same thing always happens though. The habits fell away and other things seemed more important. Then again, about a decade ago when I changed jobs and started living that peak work life balance 9-5 (pure sarcasm by the way), I thought I’d have so much time to write. Well, that went to fuck and I barely wrote anything more taxing than my name. When I was making this list the intention was always to write about it. So, adding a writing class as one of my 40 goals seemed like a great idea.
In true fashion my Bestie Bean joined me and we signed up for Term 1 Beginners Creative Writing, an evening class run by Edinburgh City Council Adult Education. The first class was on a miserable January evening (see it’s paying off already) t held in a local high school and we arrived not really knowing what to expect. The answer being simultaneously not much and a lot at the same time! There was a real mixed bag of attendees, including ourselves, but also a group that seemed to have met there and had taken the class multiple times. I don’t mean to be shady because I really did get a lot from the class, which I’ll get to. However, it was not the sign of stimulating class that I thought it might be. Particularly when the introductions were followed up with the guidelines that the class is not therapy and please don’t share your smutty writing with the class. Well, there were a couple of shocks. But mostly we were expected to share our writing… ummm what?
But yeah, here I am sharing, so when I say I took a lot from the class I do actually mean that. I shared my work twice in the first class and I was buzzing for a week and shared pretty consistently each week. I felt uncharacteristically confident about sharing. I even shared some of my work with friends. I was buzzing from the positive feedback when I started publishing here and my confidence is still fluctuating, but I’m working on it. I am practising and very open to feedback and comments. I might cry, but only on the inside.
Like any true ADHDer with a hobby, I now have a bunch of really solid beginnings of stories, some middles, no endings. Well, not yet.
“The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.” — Terry Pratchett