I am terribly worried now

Third session of the Unlocking Creativity class last night, “Character Journey/Structure, and Images that Evoke Emotion”. I am terribly worried. It is apparent now from what Roland was saying in class that the format of the upcoming Novel and Screenplay development course is aimed at getting students to write a very classical archetype of a story, where one individual undergoes some sort of personal growth trajectory as a result of facing a series of predicaments and challenges. It's very formulaic: "there will be 8 turning points, each comprised of 10 scenes, etc, etc).

But that's not what I want to write! I want to write a novel with 5-6 people speaking in first person point of view, with their stories intersecting with and reflecting off each other like, say, The Poisonwood Bible or Seven Types of Ambiguity. When I mentioned these brilliant novels to Roland he wasn’t very encouraging. He said he hadn’t read such “experimental” fiction and that he “used to read more widely but now only reads stories that he knows he’s going to like”. This is an extraordinary set of comments to come from the teacher of a writing class, and I feel negative and despondent.

And then, to top it off, this morning Roland rang me to say that I needed to get my head sorted out before the first day of the Novel and Script First Draft course. I think he thinks I’m going to be trouble, that my negativity will affect the other students. What a wanker.

Week 3, Exercise 1, Scene from nature #1

I am sitting on a beach alone. The white quartz sand is so clean and fine that it squeaks when I move. My feet are like burrowing voles, rooting down into the soft coolness. The air around is fresh, breezy, playful. The salt and wind and sun dance on my arms, my face, my skin, reminding every nerve of my tingling body that I belong irrevocably to this physical world. A gentle susurrating roar of wind and waves fills my ears. High in the air, gulls wheel and cry. I can taste the ocean on my tongue. Everywhere the light is revelatory, luminous with salt spray.

At the shore, bottle-green waves hang translucent for a few suspended seconds before breaking and churning into a creamy foam. For hours now, I have been watching God at play: a seal surfing, his dark silhouette arrowing through the tumbling waters. Further out, the ocean turns a dark ancient blue, ruffled here and there, for a moment, with a quill of white. The horizon is an impossibly crisp line between two blue immensities. I feel my awareness open, out into the dark ocean thrumming with life, back into the green hills behind me, full of scurrying, clicking, singing, chirring, and rustling things, and upward into the blue, up into the divine. I am sitting on a beach, not alone.

Week 3, Exercise 1, Scene from nature #2

The plain is a sea of shimmering amber grass, stretching to the horizon in all directions, but punctuated here and there by a little rise or a copse of trees. The grass is dancing, shaking, and undulating in a rhythmic way, as though it were a musical instrument and the wind were God’s fingers. The dark trees look purposeful and sober, like watchmen standing guard over the precious earth. I feel the living breeze roll over me, as if I were just another piece of grass, a tree, a fieldmouse, a mountain – no distinction. Smelling of earth and water and sap, she curls around my ear and sends a million tiny fingers scurrying through my hair.

I see a hawk high in the sky, slowly inscribing its act of watching on the surface of the world. A pair of dark birds skim the amber waves towards their refuge in the trees. Countless insects rise from the fields, their shimmering wings a pointillist miracle. The great creamy white clouds are now taking on hues of rose and turtle-dove grey and lemon curd. The sun hangs low in the sky, and casts its golden benediction on the end of the day. I feel the pulse of the earth, slow and heavy, beneath my feet. I am moving through it all, standing still, just where I am.