When I auditioned for the creative writing program here I
thought it would be completely different. I thought we could write what we wanted,
read what we wanted and we would be able to discover our own writing. When
everyone was talking about what the creative writing major really was, I was a
bit hesitant. Do I really want people telling me what I can and can’t write and
the genres I want to write? Not really. I wanted to come into the major to
prepare myself for becoming a journalist when I’m older, not to become the new
bestselling author of a fiction piece. But as the year has gone on I have
started to get used to the different writing styles and the things we had to
write.
Firstly,
poetry is not my thing. The unit we did on poetry was the most boring thing in
my life. I had no interest in any of the assignments we did. Although there was
one, the postcard poetry, I really enjoyed writing, but still it wasn’t my
best. I think writing descriptively is interesting and that’s exactly what we
were doing with that assignment. We had
to describe an entire picture with poetry and most of the assignments were
picked for my portfolio because I felt that they were my best, and had the best
description. Before this year I had no idea how to format a poetry a piece, but
by the end of the unit I had no problem with setting up poetry pieces with
stanzas.
Fiction is
interesting, I LOVE reading it but it’s hard to write it, a whole story when
you get five minutes to come up with an idea and go with it until you find an
ending. I wrote a lot of stories on an online website and I actually did a
decent job but, in class I write like I have no idea how to write and more
often than not I can’t finish. I think I’m a good writer but in these classes I
don’t really get to show it off. I think
it’s because we write short stories I don’t really know how to end them. I like
to go into detail with my stories and have the whole story be complete but I
can’t completely do that in 3 days or 6.
Non- Fiction
is my strong area, I have always loved writing non-fiction and hope to do it as
a profession with working on it more. I loved writing all of my speeches and all
of the different non- fiction pieces we did. I wish we did more non- fiction
this year but it makes me a lot more excited for next year with the journalism
course. Since we didn’t work on a lot of
non-fiction I didn’t have a lot to choose from, but I really liked the topics
we worked on for the speeches. When I get older I would like to go into
political science journalism so I love doing research projects with today’s
current events, they have always interested me.
I don’t
really like the special projects that we worked on to be honest I found them
kind of boring. The one I had a lot of fun with was the personification of
feelings, if it was considered a special project. I loved doing all the movies
with the trailers and making the one with the poem. I always have loved doing
movies and music videos and doing it in classes and the certain assignments we
did. The vignettes were interesting and I had a fun time writing about certain
times in my life. I believe that the comic project was pointless, I get if it
was to teach us the software but I didn’t like it that much.
This year
was a big year for me school wise, I thought it was going to be easy and it
wasn’t and I struggled a lot in school including with these classes. I stressed
out a lot about writing and deadlines, not having enough or not being able to
finish where I am. I think next year will definitely be a better year now that
I know what to expect and I enjoy the course we are doing. I think this year I
struggled a lot because I didn’t really have any motivation to right say, a
fairy tale adaption because that’s not what I like to write. That was a huge
struggle for me was just not wanting to write, but for next year I need to
teach myself just how to get over it and write, not procrastinate.
I think I
also grew a lot as a writer, my grammar improved dramatically over the course of
the year. I used to be the worst speller in the world. I also improved a lot
with my writing styles. This year I learned how to set up a story and use
dialogue. I learned how to write descriptively better too.
I have a
huge passion for reading and I love reading, but it gets to a certain extent
where I am reading way too much, so this year I had to put away my recreational
reading a little and read my creative writing and English books. I definitely
enjoyed reading quite a few books. I think reading in all these classes
definitely opened up the types of genres that I would want to read. I usually
read young adult romance, because I love them so much, but now I would consider
reading a book like the thief of Always, before I would never consider reading
a book like that but I really enjoyed reading that book. I wish we could have
more of a choice on what we read, like I did not enjoy the snow child at all. I
loved being able to go into our own groups like I was in the romance/realistic
fiction group and I those are the kind of books I like, But I didn’t like the
book my group had to read. They were so short and didn’t really have anything
to them.
I think this
year wasn’t my best year and I could have put in a lot more effort. I don’t
think I really enjoyed the assignments and units we did besides a few. Even
though I didn’t like them they taught me a lot more than I knew before I came
into the creative writing department. I loved all the masterclass we did,
especially with Boris Fishman he seemed like he knew what he was talking about
and that he was seriously genuinely into writing. He didn’t sugarcoat and he
told us how hard it really is to be a writer. I think that after experiencing
my first year being a creative writing major I will be able to really put forth
a lot of effort next year.
I definitely wouldn’t say that this was my year but as a writer I think
that I improved immensely. I’m hoping that next school year will be a better
year for me now that I know what to expect and the kind of books we read and
how much we actually do really read. I
think overall I really enjoyed this year and I enjoy the creative writing
program.
