What's it like to take a creative writing course?

During the last two weeks I've tried to challenge myself as a writer and have been attending a creative writing course. I enrolled on the course because I didn't really have anything better to do and because I thought that perhaps I could learn something from it. 

After all,  even though  I know a lot about the craft, you can always learn more about it. There isn't much of a downside in taking part in a workshop that doesn't require a long term commitment from you and doesn't have any specific prerequisites. 

So when it comes to the course, our class consists of seven people and a teacher (a literary major). We get together once a week at a certain location, where we have a two and a half hour class after people have gotten out of work that day.  

When it comes to the actual content in the workshop, the course includes an overview of the fundamentals of the craft. There's bit of a theory at the beginning of every session when our instructor goes through her notes that she has prepared for us.

Theory-wise, even though most of the stuff is pretty basic, it's still useful to revisit those fundamentals and not take them for granted. You always learn something new, even though you might think that you know everything already.

So once she's done with the basics, that's when get to  the practical stuff. We as students are expected to write quite a bit and we have several writing assignments that we try to complete as well as possible over the course of the session.  

For example, during a class our instructor might choose a word and we need to immediately start 'free writing' (by hand) based on the word given. During these 'free writes', we either write for like 5 or 10 minutes straight, without stopping at any point. 

After our time for the assignment is up, the next step is to read aloud what we managed to write. We do that, regardless of how good or bad the text turned out to be and regardless of whether we managed to 'complete' our task. 

So when it comes to these tasks, the good thing about them is that they force you to challenge your beliefs and habits. They challenge you,  because most of us aren't used to speed writing and we aren't really used to reading out loud our texts that much either. 

After all, at least when it comes to me, I tend to do endless amounts of rewrites before I let anyone else see my writings. I do these rewrites, because I 'know' that I make tons of mistakes and that I need to rewrite stuff over and over.

Yet, when it comes to my 'free write' samples that I've written by hand, it seems that the stuff that I write on the spot isn't that bad. I shouldn't be that wary of making mistakes and think that I need to be careful before I start trying things with my scripts. 

In that sense, I think it's clear that even if I don't manage to learn that many things from this course, I haven't taken it in vain. I have certainly learned to challenge myself when it comes to my beliefs and habits about certain aspects of the craft.

After all, as a writer, I could certainly be better when it comes to being creative and coming up with new ideas. I shouldn't always be thinking that I need to come up with that super duper idea before I can start working on project that is worth my time.

In the end, challenging yourself is what being creative as a writer really is about. You need to be willing to take certain risks every once in a while and not always play it too safe when it comes to starting a new project.

After all, even though it's almost never easy to get started, at some point you need to take that risk. You need to take that first step, because otherwise you'll never get to write and finish your screenplay that might have merit and value.

In that sense, if there's any chance that a writing course might help you, you should probably take one. You should take one, as long as the course is something that challenges you and as long as it could make you a better and a more prolific writer in the long run.