A little on writers craft.

I'm tired, but I just wanted to get something down here.

Ah, that makes it sound like I've got something specific to say real quick- no, not sure what I'll write, I just want something in this space.

Oh, Ms. McGinn!

She was my writers craft teacher, I took the class during my "victory lap" of high school (what would have been grade 13) in fact, writer's craft was pretty much my whole reason to take that extra year. There were a lot of courses I wanted to take, but that was the big one. The other thing being the music theatre stuff, which ended up being kind of weird, but whatever.

Anyway, Ms. McGinn is super lovely. If I'm remembering write (I mean right) each class we had, what? Ten minutes of free writing?... actually, I think we were given assignments to write about, forms and themes to work with. 'Do something in the style of X' kind of thing. But those kind of limits encourage imagination, so it boils down to free writing.

She was always glad to have the class, she was really hard to upset, which naturally means she was respected and therefore had little trouble with students in the first place. I definitely believe that students can sense when teachers are exasperated and in over their heads, and respond accordingly in the negative.

Then again, maybe I don't know what I'm talking about with certain classes. I'm going by her writers craft- and everyone who was there wanted to be there- and my one chemistry teacher in grade 12 who was ridiculously well respected. That guy was the man, it was almost magical- WHILE ALSO being kind of a nerd who got learning done. Good guy.

I'd sometimes have trouble with this one rule though: once the bell rings, if you were outside the door, that's where you'd stay, at least until after they finished off with the national anthem. But eh, I didn't really mind, I'd still get a wink through the whole dressing down procedure of being allowed into class.

The final project of the class was pretty open ended. The first few chapters of a novel, the last few, a book of poems- pretty much whatever you wanted.

I did three short stories, all the night before because I'm a big dope that thinks he can coast through things on his natural gifts instead of persistent work (it's something that I've gotten better with, but I still struggle with that one).

So I stayed up almost all night scribbling these stories down. My plan was to write the worst one first while I was fresh, the medium one as I was getting tired, and the one that would be the best I'd write when I was totally exhausted, the idea being that that way they'd all be ultimately balanced quality wise.

I'm a silly guy.

I'm pretty sure I got a little sleep, but then I had to get the whole thing typed up- OH WAIT! I remember I only had enough time to type up one of my three stories (and even that one I had my brother Jordan type some while I showered) and so only the one story was graded, leaving me with a 40% on the final project... and so what I've always been saying is that "so really, I'd have gotten 120% on the whole thing"

That's pretty funny. I thought it was a pretty good line.

I haven't seen Ms. McGinn in a while now, what with the natural repulsion an old high school will engender in oneself, but I did a lot of visiting in my earlier university years, I've loaned a lot of comics to Ms. McGinn, helping to get the comic form studied in that writers craft class. One time I even did a lecture on comics for one class, it was pretty fun, though a little scattered, but just because I was excited talking about something I love to talk about.

I hope she's doing well- I wonder what comic I last left with her?

I learned a lot from that class, but still, that was a long time ago.