The first meeting

Hosted by the local library, the the first meeting went easier than I expected.
I had this fear of getting into
a.) a group of published, and/or otherwise famous authors, where I would definitely feel minor and unworthy,
b.) a bunch of people with no talent, in which case the idea of visiting the group would deem pointless.
It turned out that the group consists of aspiring authors with talents of different kind. They both have the drive to create and they are eager to learn.
I think this is an inspiring environment for me.
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The leader of the group is an author of several fiction books. He's middle aged. He listens to our works and takes his job seriously. He's kind but firm when it comes to managing a debate. So far, first impressions are good.
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And now about the actual events:
There were two newcomers, including me. When everyone arrived, we introduced ourselves. I'm far too shy when it comes to public self-introduction. I want to make a good impression yet stick to the truth - the outcome is an honest, but not-so-flattering mumble of words. Pfft.
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The leader talked about some basic aspects of writing a longer piece of work.
Most of the topics he covered were covered with my fellow bloggers. I recall Charles having mentioned the importance of pacing (i.e. alternating between fast and slow, events and dialogues, etc.).
He emphasized the importance of an outline.
These things may seem far too obvious, but the main point is that they only seem so. The leader admitted having to send 100k of his new novel into the Recycle Bin due to the lack of a coherent outline.
I think his honesty may make these sessions more valuable.
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Every once in the while his speech was interrupted by handing out and/or checking exercises.
One of them was to analyse three poems by a famous Hungarian poet named Pilinszky János, one of them was to write 3 sentences starting with the ever famous 'What if...'.
Then, we were to read our writings.
As I gathered, each time tasks are given. Everyone gets the same set of tasks as a homework.
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For this occassion one of the homeworks was a so called self-inducing paragraph.
The task was to write the first sentence just about anything we want. The second sentence however, had to be composed by using 2 or 3 words of the same sentence. The third sentence had to contain 2 or 3 words from the first two sentences and so on - until you feel it's finished. Here's my job (translated into English)
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Looking out of the window she saw braches covered with snow, sparkling in the sunshine against the clear blue of the sky. The world was covered with snow; branches were mixed with the sunshine. In front of the window on the small garden path a cat shook some snow off of himself. Mixed in his coat, there were black and grey mixed with the shower of snow falling off the branches. The path was grey; his pupil was black against the blue of the sky. In the frame of the window, under the branches a hunter was on his way on the garden path.
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I read my version, others have read theirs, too, and we had a little discussion.
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Finally, we got our homework for the April meeting.
Pending computer availability, I will probably inform you about those as well.
But since the language of this course is Hungarian, I will or may not be always supply you with the actual texts I write as homework.
Yet the problems explored in a homework are universal.
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My overall impression was that I will definitely attend next time to see how it goes. To floow the others, to improve myself...
When I informed my husband about the nature and quantity of homework he raised his eyebrows….
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