Thoughts for the start of a new creative writing term

On studying creative writing

"It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way."

Ernest Hemingway

On against-the-clock class exercises

These artificial limits create a crisis, which rouses the brain’s resources; the compulsion towards haste overthrows the ordinary precautions, flings everything into top gear, and many things that are usually hidden find themselves rushed into the open. Barriers break down, prisoners come out of their cells.”  Ted Hughes

On what writers do

Fail. Fail again. Fail better.

Samuel Becket