A free creative writing course by R.K. Nar*y*n

Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. This paper present an approach to creative writing which might surprise some. It emphasizes reducing stress. The paper presents it through an imitation of a distinguished Indian writer, or attempted imitation - the attempt is not that close on this occasion.
Draft version: Version 1 (16th December 2022, "not nothing").

	Uncle, his son, their friend the biochemist, and N were seated in the front row of a university room, whose walls were painted light green. It was the front row for students, to be exact. As ever, right at the front was the teacher's place. She was a small-made woman who looked both old and young and was dressed all in black with curly hair. Behind them sat some people from all over the world, economists who had signed up for the weekend course.
      "My name is Margaret. You may have heard of me." She spoke in a nasal North American accent, slowly using a droll tone of voice as if she was mocking someone, but whom? N crossed her head to indicate that news of Margaret had not reached her. Margaret was not disturbed by this, as if she assumed N was making some mistake. "I'm a creative writer. And today I'm going to help you become writers as well. Now what's a writer?"
      "A writer is unique," said Uncle.
      "That's exactly right. A writer is unique. Lots of people worry that the writer's uniqueness will be lost." She looked at N, who indicated that she had no idea what Margaret was alluding to. "But it's difficult to lose uniqueness."
      "No one can lose uniqueness," said Uncle. "Except when vegetable," he added.
	"Of course. Person is irreplaceable," said N.
	"But when you're writing you have a lot of problems to solve?" Did they grasp that? "A lot!" Margaret repeated.
	"Like whot?" asked N, as if the writer's life was easiest of all.
	"Plot, character, diction. That's vocabulary. Large vocabulary or small? Thesaurus or not? Now how do you feel when you have a lot of problems to solve?" There was no response. "You feel stressed!"
	"Oeye feel stressed," agreed someone further back.  She had a longish dark wavy hair which fell out of a multicoloured bobble hat.
	"And what do you do when you're stressed?" No response to Margaret's question, still keeping up her slow droll tone. She had been through this routine many times. "Of course you take solutions from someone else." She could not help but laugh at this statement of the obvious.
	"Who?" asked the blonde girl with curly hair, barking the word like a dog.
	"Someone who solved them to your satisfaction."
	"Disney," said the girl with the bobble hat.
	"No, certainly not. Chekhov."
	"Where can we find Chekhov?"
	"You can find him online on this website." She took piece of chalk and slowly wrote the website address from memory on the board.
	"What if we don't like Chekhov?" asked Uncle's son.
	"Well, if you are really clever Laura Riding. Chekhov or Laura Riding. Your choice? Use their vocabulary range, you study how they make a story, and you learn to make a story too, maybe borrowing a theme or two. We actually read more literature in creative writing than they do literature departments." She lost her droll tone with that last sentence.

Reference
Riding, Laura. 1982 (first edition 1935). Progress of Stories. New York: Persea Books. Available at:
https://archive.org/details/progressofstorie0000ridi