A writing class via Zoom, and my apology session with God afterwards.

Image © Julie R. Neidlinger. All rights reserved.

I don’t know how the kids did it, during the pandemic.

I don’t know how they were able to learn via Zoom and online platforms.

How were you able to, for example, diagram a sentence without spitballs flying overhead? How were you able to work the quadratic equation without some moron in the back row tossing freshly sharpened pencils into the ceiling tiles? How were you able to learn without textbooks, piles of paper and notebooks, the math teacher confiscating your pen because math homework is to be done in pencil—I honestly don’t know. I don’t know how they learn with screens and computers instead of books, chalk, and paper, and I don’t know how they learned virtually.

I can’t.

I cannot.

Due to extreme impostor syndrome, I am always looking for writing classes through the local college’s continuing education. This year, they had several, all contracted through another service provider, and would be virtual classes in the evenings.

Awesome. I can wear jammie pants and still go to class, I thought.

For the first class, a beginner’s guide to getting published, I had more gracious and milder notes as the class progressed.

On Zoom, I wrote in my notes. Somewhat of a nightmare.

The first eight minutes were filled with the teacher fighting to keep people muted— “please do not unmute yourself!” —listening as a woman picked up her phone with her audio unmuted, calling someone to help them with Zoom. There was also a couple arguing mildly, and an elderly man who repeatedly asked for the location of the class document because he didn’t understand what chat meant. He later informed us he had been a rocket scientist for decades.

I sat there, feeling microscopic amounts of life leave my body with each successive hit of Zoom doom, impressed that this instructor remained tight but calm, her pursed lips forced to a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, for which I cannot blame her.

Gen-X—my generation—is a small, in-between generation, born and raised in the pre-Internet era, in on the ground floor of personal computing and things like the command prompt and Windows 3.0, and through all the advancements to where we are today. It’s a strange bridge in which you see people on either side of your generation, either struggling to understand computers or struggling to understand those who don’t understand computers.

“Whatever.”
— Gen-X

Our writing prompt for this class was to write a paragraph using the words summer, trees, and ocean in it. I listened as people read what they’d written about Martha’s Vineyard and Italy and a special beach vacation, dread growing inside as I realized I may have done the homework wrong.

It was an odd summer, one that started with a hot June breeze and trees that emerged from the ocean, just in front of the horizon where the water disappeared. At first, we thought the tall mast ships had returned, but this was unlikely since last year we’d sent them off with weaponized smallpox. The inconvenience of the trees in the ocean annoyed the fishing boats at first, but locals soon found a way to turn it into a tourist attraction.

The second class, on travel writing, attracted a diverse group of people. There were fewer older people this time. I admit I use that description lightly, as I am but four years away from joining my fellow Gen-Xers in invading the senior citizen centers of America with a latchkey, flannel, Doc Martens, grunge, and apathy.

Zoom meeting, I wrote in my notes for this second class. So far no real drama with the tech.

One writing prompt required us to write a paragraph about a recent trip, avoiding a list of common words and phrases, and to pay attention to sensory details.

Depression Beach is at the end of a two-lane asphalt road. It takes longer to get to Depression than you might imagine; you’ll be lulled to sleep by the sound of the tires across the cracks in the road. The faster you drive to make time move, the more hypnotic the sun blinking and flashing through the Spanish moss and live oaks. The smell of salt and seaweed, and maybe a hint of a backed-up sewer in the visitor’s center, slaps you in the nose when you finally break through the tunnel. The shadow of a historic fort beyond the trees and dunes is all that’s between you and the brackish water slapping the sand. That sand holds the magic; that’s where the shark teeth are.

Then we were to write a paragraph offering packing tips for a week-long vacation. I groaned inwardly; I’ve been waiting my whole life for someone to tell me how to pack well. After wasting several minutes trying to compress a life of packing failures into actionable advice, I was informed we had a minute left and so I came up with this:

We’re told that an indispensable little black dress and the right accessories are all we need to pack a mere carry-on or small bag and survive a week away from home. For the average traveler, it’s not that easy. Some of us are fat. Best real-world advice? Break down your vacation into the three main activities, and find two pairs of shoes—one of which you’ll wear en route—that will cover all the bases. Use compression bags that don’t require a vacuum to save space for what you do end up packing. And lastly, wool socks truly are your friend. Believe me, you don’t want jungle rot.

The third class, creative writing 101, I should have known better than to sign up for.

I don’t know when I’ll think I don’t need a 101 class. I don’t know how many books, how many years of blogging—I honestly don’t. I always feel like a know-nothing. I want to learn, and I grab at what I can. But this is the catch-all class of anyone who wants to mash words together, the unharnessable energy of sincere and passionate creatives who make everyone uncomfortable in line at the grocery store checkout.

There’s a reason I don’t participate in writer groups. Several, in fact.

1. It seems as if everyone over the age of 60 wants to write their memoir. Sometimes/often a memoir becomes a gateway drug to talking about yesteryears and less about writing.

2. The presence of romance writers, who either write in too much detail or awkwardly around it. After listening, we either need a penicillin shot, or forgiveness for thinking they should just get on with it instead of wasting all those pages suggesting.

3. Inevitably, a young woman who seems quiet will shock the group with horribly private and intimate details during one of the writing exercises, causing the teacher or group to say something like “interesting” or “good use of adjectives” while setting a mental reminder to check in on our young family members to see if they’re doing okay in life.

4. An old hippy woman is going to talk about things like periods or something else involving bodily fluids that no one wants to hear about, somehow managing to besmirch our grandparents who once looked like her.

5. Someone is going to not exactly read what they write, but talk about what they theoretically wrote. They will discuss it apologetically or from a distance, leaving everyone to wonder what they are supposed to critique and if this is the modern version of the kid who didn’t do his homework but thinks he can BS the teacher.

6. Some whack job will respond to the writing prompts as weirdly or off-beat as possible and confuse the rest of the group, suggesting they aren’t taking this as seriously as they should.

If you’re wondering, I’m #6 pretty much always.

Creative writing 101 classes are like writing groups. My notes for this third class were more involved than the previous two.

Zoom class.

This is not a class for asking how the technology works.

She’s chatting to all of us how it’s her first time to use Zoom, but we managed to deduce that, thank you.

Who just burped for God’s sake.

We can’t possibly know if you should click the red thingie on your screen.

Can’t see it! Where’s the icon! Where’s the download! Do I have a microphone?! I can’t hear you! What is chat? This is the poetry of modern education.

They need a pre-class Zoom instruction and tech test option before people are allowed to waste our time. I support tech litmus tests.

I can’t believe I paid for ten minutes to hear 20 people asking how to use a laptop.

Just what I wanted, a boomer hippy creatively writing about the process of getting pregnant. Bleach my ears, Lord.

Many times, I turned off my camera and let the profile image sit in its place for the same reason I can’t play competitive poker: facial expressions.

I knew, in order to preserve unity in the creative reaches of the nation that were currently on a $44 Zoom call, that I needed to shut off my camera and allow for private eye-rolling and forehead smacking before rejoining the land of the living. At one point, I realized I had opened up Poppit, an addictive balloon popping game that allows you to pop balloons cathartically, and was playing it while the class was going on. I wondered again how kids learned anything using computers.

[Pausing for a few minutes to play a few rounds of Poppit before resuming this blog post.]

[Seriously, you guys, I just wasted 20 minutes of my life again playing Poppit.]

In a world where the bookstore is half composed of games, stationery, and Manga, and a quarter of which are books that are “spicy” (the modern word for what we used to call smut, bodice-rippers, or you-need-Jesus), I am wary of what to expect from a writing group or a writing class. There are things I don’t want to hear, but in these situations, you don’t know they’re coming until they’ve assaulted your ears and then you’re supposed to critique the grammar and structure all while wondering where the closest priest confessional booth is.

For this class, we had a free-writing prompt in which we were to write about anything as it came to mind. Some people have dirty minds, I’m just going to put that out there. I wrote about whether or not aliens wore tinfoil hats, but I won’t bore you with those details because I couldn’t come to a definitive opinion.

Later, we had to write a basic plot structure in a 1-10 list format. I can get behind the metric system at times, so I dove right in:

1. Character wakes up, has breakfast.

2. Steps out of the door and realizes gravity has shifted outside of his house.

3. Gets caught in the branches of the tree near the door.

4. Finds the neighbor’s cat there.

5. Brief conversation with the cat, which he finds surprisingly narcissistic.

6. Fire truck rolls down the street, and the man wonders why it is able to stay on the ground.

7. Firemen get the cat out of the tree, leave him there as if they don’t see him.

8. He attempts to start the tree on fire before they leave to catch their attention.

9. Realizes nothing he does affects the things around him, though regrets the loss of the tree.

10. Realizes he’s a ghost.

Then we were to write a dialogue-only scene, with minimal subtext:

“If you don’t shut that door, we’ll all freeze to death,” she said, gripping the edge of the wall.

“I’m just letting in some fresh air.”

“We’re in deep space, you fool,” she said, her hands slipping free as she floated away, imploding.

I will admit that, by the third Zoom class, I was getting a bit punchy. Tech help is the fastest way to destroy a person’s soul, and to preface creative writing instruction with that is a kind of befoulment that ought not.

It just ought not.

It was the same teacher for all three courses, so she may have understood.

I’m mostly just a jerk, a huge fan of the drive-by writing prompt response, and should probably stop signing up for virtual writing classes.