So happy!

Tonight after class I stayed to talk to L, my teacher. She is awesome. I want to be her when I grow up! (Although I don't know how that would work since I'm 99% sure she is younger than me.)

The purpose of our meeting was for her to give me some feedback on the writing assignments we've handed in so far. She calls them Polished Writing Exercises and I'll be frank--some of the kids in my class don't write very polishedly (yes, I made that word up just now). Creatively speaking, they have good ideas, but their writing skills need some work. I'm not being mean or petty, but I will admit to a certain thrill when I realized that my writing, even before I talked with L, was of a higher caliber, skill-wise, then most of my classmates'.

[As an aside, I think that people who read voraciously make good writers. You see how published authors sell their books, you learn how stories are put together, your vocabulary evolves, and in my case, I think about how I might make something work better if it's awkward or hard to understand.]

So anyway, after not saying a word in class AGAIN, I walked up to L's desk (yet another shy thing I do--sit in the back of the class. This has more to do with the fact that I want to sweat in relative peace--after walking the 1/2 mile up the damned hill from the metered, dirt-and-gravel parking lot where I park my own car like a real grown-up, I am sweating profusely and want to do it in the back of the room where hopefully not many people will notice me fanning myself with a handy file folder containing the class syllabus and wiping the sweat off my face and neck) and she pinned me with her gaze. "We're meeting, yes?" I noticed that she has a teensy diamond nose ring!  I want one too! So dainty and sparkly and unexpected! I nodded enthusiastically (maybe too enthusiastically? Does she know I practically idolize her?) and we went outside.

The stale, baked-concrete-scented, hot outside.

I felt like I had just stopped sweating two minutes before class ended.

I began to sweat again. Not only because it was still warm  from the 90-degree day, but also because L was reading and critiquing and writing on my printed stories. AAAAAAGH!

And she looked up at me and said, "You write well. There's some good stuff here."

This from a published author (at least in literary journals--not sure if she's been published in books yet), a grad student who's presenting her own book-slash-dissertation in November, who's been writing for years and is earning a Doctorate in Creative Writing.  She said I write well!

She gave me some things to think about, and I understood immediately that they are all things I totally agree with, especially after reading the last couple chapters on characterization in our technique book and discussing the short stories she's assigned.

This is exactly why I'm in school. So I can evolve and learn and stay passionate about writing. I hope my professors are all as good as L is!