RSOB or LSOB???

RSOB time!

Right Side Of the Brain. If you have been "trained" to see the world through a particular lens for thirty-plus years- the lens of a hypothetico-deductive method that you believe offers glimpses of an objective reality which you can assemble into an internally consistent montage of "life as I know it"- you may be LSOB dominant. In an oversimplification, we might consider LSOB to be our more quantitative perspective (check out the link at left).

This may get a bit confusing. You will notice that LSOB is where writing skills reside, but creativity and imagination originate in RSOB. Writing fiction is "creative writing". Clearly you will employ both sides of your brain in this endeavor, but let us consider such writing as RSOB derived in order to distinguish it from quantitative activities dominated by LSOB.

As if writing is not hard enough. Now you have to be creative when you do it...

Wouldn't it be nice if you could write a novel in 3.5 weeks?

Nice, yes, but quite unreasonable. But how about a short story of about three scenes, or if you are prolific, maybe something one could call a novella? The last week of the block will be 100% writing. It would be difficult to generate something of both quality and originality in those few days at Baca if you started from scratch in the 3rd week. So the first two weeks of class will be a mix of laboratory science and writing assignments. The latter will help you develop tools that will be useful in week 3. You may even be producing elements of your story that you weave into the tapestry of your great work of fiction (WOF).

We will use J. Novakovich's book "Fiction Writing Workshop" (FWW) as a guide for in-class discussion on writing. FWW also offers writing exercises pertinent to each chapter in his text. Your first writing assignments will consist of these exercises, and each one will be followed reading and examination within your assigned writing group. We will eventually segue into writing and discussion that are more directly relevant to your anticipated WOF, this in the middle of the second week.