When I decided to go to college, my original plan wasn’t to get my degree in Creative Writing. I genuinely thought that I was already one of the greatest writers who ever lived; my genius just hadn’t been noticed yet. Granted, I was 21 at the time and I’d never had my fiction published. Still, I thought I could get there without exclusively studying writing. I would take a couple of classes on it, specifically screenwriting, and join writing clubs, but I would instead choose a major where I would learn something new, not something I was an “expert” in already.
Flash-forward to orientation and I’m staring at a blank page filled with majors vying for my check-mark. I locked eyes with Creative Writing, but my stubborn self went for the all-around freshman classic “General Studies”. I knew I couldn’t keep that major for long, and I did choose an actual minor (Women’s Studies what’s up!), but I wanted to test the waters and figure out what called my attention the most. Maybe Linguistics would be my thing.
During that orientation, I signed up for my first semester of classes, which included an elective called “Intro to Creative Writing”. While I know now it was calling me from somewhere deep inside, at the time it looked like the easiest class because, again, I thought myself an amazing writer.
For the class, we had to write poetry, fiction, and non-fiction pieces that we would workshop in-class. I had never written poetry, and I knew immediately I would bomb hard. My poem was about “the sunniest day”, and I thought it was horrible, but I didn’t care that much because poetry wasn’t my strong suit. The workshop didn’t go that bad, and I felt really good going into the fiction workshop because that’s my lane.
So, I was humiliated. I never had to turn in any fiction in high school, so this was the first time I was presenting my passion to other people, including my esteemed professor who is an amazing fiction writer. My story was about a girl coming out to her estranged father during a family reunion. I was really proud of it, and my colleagues just didn’t like it. They must’ve said some good things too, but that day, I only focused on the negative and let it wash over me for a long period of time, the whole semester actually. Our last piece of writing was our non-fiction piece. My professor and everyone told me it was the best thing I had written in that class, and I wanted to cry. It’s what I always wanted to hear, but for a different genre.
It was that class that made me understand that writing was my passion. Eventually, I felt really happy that my non-fiction piece struck a chord, and I knew I could take that and go from there. At the end of the semester, I officially chose creative writing as my major, and I haven’t looked back. There are classes that really make me question the decision. There are classes where my workshops go terribly wrong, and I question my life choices. Then there are times where things also go terribly wrong, but I take all of that constructive criticism and make my stories better.
I don’t know if I will ever be in love with workshops, because they’re a real test to my self-esteem. But I do need them, they make me better.
My last semester as an undergrad will be spent online. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I can never get really good feedback online. It’s like everyone just bullshits on the internet.
I’m gonna miss them. Thank you to every professor I’ve had that’s made workshops a priority.
wordswillsurvive.com 