The last Packet of Writing (for this year)

Packet 5 is SENT!
My second semester at Vermont College of Fine Arts Writing for Children and Young Adults is done.
Done, done, done.
(except for the end of semester reports, but that's no problem.)

This has been a wonderful, eye-opening experience, this learning to write fiction. It's so very different from writing nonfiction. Writing wonderfully descriptive passages? No problem. Nonfiction writers are good at that.

On the other hand, creating a personality who is pursuing a goal and staying inside that person's head, feeling/ showing his reactions to events, etc. That's hard. (I tend to pull out into omnipotent view too often.)
Being too nice to your hero -- easy.
Putting your hero up a tree and throwing apples at him -- hard.

I could go on, but it's been an exhausting two semesters and I'm going to take a small break, now.

What did you learn you could or couldn't do when you began writing fiction?
-wo