i need a new writing book

I started a fiction writing class today. I’ve never written fiction before and so I decided to challenge myself, see if I could learn a thing, or twelve.

I came home after work and nestled in my bed preparing to read a little before class. Instead, I fell asleep and when my napping alarm began to wake me up I begged the world to stop and let me just sleep, close out the fact that I have paid to take a class. But, I grudgingly roused and readied. I was rifling through some papers looking for my “emergency” card, which the course requires when I had this feeling that I just didn’t want to go. Nerves and possibility were combining into a familiar feeling that lies dormant in me until provoked, the feeling of failure. And I hadn’t even stepped out the door.

It wasn’t scary. The teacher is a writer who lives locally. She’s gone gray early, but embraced it. “I’ll be like you,” I thought as I sat beside her. She wore all black. “So cliché,” I thought as well. She spoke softly with pauses that impregnated the room. But, when she brought out examples by Barbara Kingsolver and Amy Tan I knew I could make it in this class. It’s not that I think I can write like them, I can’t, but the fact that we are basing our learning on popular, attainable writers has me reaching for my pen and my pocketbook. Tomorrow, I’m going in search of writing book!