Essay topic 1 Option 1w: Discuss and analyze one of our course objectives in relation to our course readings, workshop, and instruction.

Rachel Barton

On Becoming Artistic in Writing

As an art major, I’ve always been interested in the creative side of life.  Since I first started college at Lee Community College in Baytown, I have developed a love for writing.  Unlike many fellow students, I enjoyed my literature, humanities, and English classes and always strove to excel in them—maybe a little more than was deemed natural by my classmates.  Even so, I had never chosen to take a creative writing class because I was so accustomed to writing analytical essays and research papers; therefore, the thought of taking that first step to create a written work of art from nothing intimidated me a bit.  However, since I was interested to know if I could rise above my slight fears of inadequacy, I decided that UHCL would be the place to start.  After considering it, I was rather excited to take Dr. White’s Creative Writing course as an elective since the only workshop-type atmosphere I had ever experienced in a classroom where students actively spoke about my work was the painting critiques at Lee.  Thus, the Creative Writing class was a good challenge for me.

As challenging as it was, perhaps the most intimidating aspect of the class was not the fact that others would be analyzing and critiquing my work, or that I would have to read my work in front of the class.  Rather, it was the insecurity of how to begin formulating my thoughts into an interesting and descriptive story and poem.  This is where the draft exchanges and workshops really helped me.  It was comforting to know that the draft of the manuscript that I presented to the class or to my friends did not have to be the final one.  Unlike the analytical essays that I wrote in previous classes, which had to be written in completion, my poem and fiction submissions were allowed to be works in progress. 

The fact that I was not under pressure to present the final, perfected product at the workshop seems to demonstrate the first objective of the course: “To ‘unlearn’ the conventional image of a creative writer as a tortured, neglected genius working alone in a garret producing masterpieces overnight.”  As I had already known from previous experience in painting, drawing, and graphic design, a perfect final work of art is not produced in a brief whirlwind of inspiration overnight.  Rather, it is perfected through trial and error, and is a product of long hours of careful thought, consideration, and practical application of techniques. Artists and writers are in many ways alike.  The final work takes time.

Speaking of time, revising a work can be a tedious process.  Sometimes, the author can become torn as to which parts of a story to remove or revise.  As I have found, changing and revising a manuscript is hard work and takes careful analysis and thought. As stated by Steven Minot on page 178 of our class’s textbook Three Genres, as a writer begins to “acquire a more demanding sense of what is necessary” he or she will begin to find that it is relevant to add or delete entire paragraphs, and sometimes even whole pages.  As I have discovered, it is sometimes difficult to part with such large chunks of work, but it’s often called for.  He goes on to say that “revising usually takes far more time than writing the original draft,” which I would definitely agree with.

Also, the writing process is, many times, far from being seamless many authors are not partial to revealing the work they had to go through to create their final draft.  As he writes on page 175, “many writers are reluctant to discuss those long hours of effort because they like to maintain the illusion of the story as a complete and seamless work.  Revealing all the uncertainty, frustration, rethinking, and revision that goes into most stories makes the process seem less like an inspired burst of talent and more like what it really is, a lengthy and often demanding effort.”  I think the workshops allowed the class to discover the beauty in the often painfully exigent process of revisions, after revisions, after revisions.  I liked the fact that this was openly discussed in class: it takes time to overcome the initial frustrations of creating a beautiful work of art from an internalized, intangible idea or thought.

One of Dr. White’s former students, Patty Coleman, echoed the same idea of the revision process being filled with frustration and uncertainty. In her final exam, she recognized the idea that the revision process was quite difficult and her possibilities of changes were quite nebulous at first.  However, after passing her work among the class and having them ask questions and make comments she was better able to make the necessary changes.  I felt the same way at first.  But after comments were made, I was really able to determine the direction I wanted to go with the following chapters of my fiction submission.  The same occurred with my poetry manuscript.  After passing it along to a couple of people who I trusted to give me sound advice on some changes, I was able to revise the poem and make it read more smoothly. 

From participation in classroom workshops and draft exchanges, I also learned that it takes critics to aid a work in its evolution.  Many times as writers, we cannot see the mistakes we make or the areas we need to improve until someone else points them out through reading our works themselves.  Creative writers cannot work alone “in a garret” because we need that input from our peers.  This is another reason I liked the workshops and the draft exchanges.  They fostered a good sense of camaraderie and made me realize that writers need each other to succeed.  This demonstrated the third course objective that pushed us beyond self-expression to reach out and help others during the duration of the semester.  In my opinion, the class workshops and draft exchanges also demonstrated what Dr. White stated in the course second objectives as a cultivation of “alternative images of writers working together productively in disciplined routines and cooperative relations with other writers and authors.”  Our class definitely authenticated the idea of cooperation and productivity.  It seemed that there was always something productive said during the course workshops.

In reference to the atmosphere of cooperation, I really liked the fact that I was able to form more ideas for my manuscripts from talking with others in and out of our class meetings.  I found that, especially during the workshop for my fiction submission, I gained a greater understanding of my writing skills and discovered where my story was going.  When entering the workshop, I really had no clue as to where and how my story would end.  At first glance, my story seemingly did not have a solid plot, but after hearing some discussions and suggestions from my fellow students and Dr. White, I was able to come to some conclusions about it and I became much more confident about how to further develop the story. 

When developing my story, I noticed that I needed to come up with a plot.  I think my lack of plot was largely due to my writing techniques.  Comically enough, my writing style seemed to mirror the title I gave to my fiction manuscript.  When I started writing my story Haphazard, I just wrote what came to my mind, drawing upon past experiences and people I have come to know in my life.   I finally developed a plot, but it took a while and it came when I finally ironed out the details of the story.  I learned to combine invention and reality into my work through studying our class’ assigned readings in Three Genres.  On pages 179-181 in the textbook, Minot speaks of “the melding of memory and invention,” which I found to be most helpful.  In reading this, I learned that a good fictional story has some degree of invented details and actual recollections from real-life events and people.  I liked what Minot states about combining details from imagination and reality on page 179: “Once into the writing, more memories are spiced in and more imaginative aspects are added.  Face it, fiction writers are as unscrupulous as magpies, borrowing and stealing whatever suits their fancy.”  I found that there is such a freedom to be found in writing fiction.  It unleashes the imagination to take actual memories and place them wherever the writer sees fit, without restraint.  Simply stated, that’s the beauty of fiction—it’s fictional.  The writer is not constrained to articulate his or her story exactly as it occurred.  The opportunities for exploration are boundless. 

This positive experience of freedom in writing and revising via the classroom workshops can be correlated with the learning objective to promote “a friendly but rigorous atmosphere where students gain practice and confidence in producing, sharing, and revising their work.”  Everyone was very friendly and helpful, but yet they were not overly friendly.  They didn’t sacrifice their true criticism for merely being nice.  When some details of my story did not make sense or when some sentences could have been written a better way, they gave me their honest opinions, which demonstrated the “rigorous atmosphere” stated in the third learning objective.

The draft exchanges also helped me produce and revise my work.  In regards to my fiction piece, Bethany Roachelle, a student and friend in the class, in particular, helped me with ideas when I was initially unsure of how to begin writing.  She helped me with a few small revisions in my poem and gave me new ideas that I had never considered in revising it. 

When I gave her a copy of my first draft of my fiction submission, she helped me to draw out a character outline, which allowed me to streamline my characters’ relationships and personalities.  All in all, the workshops and the draft exchanges seemed to really aid me, as well as other students, in the revision process of both the poetry and the fiction manuscripts.

When contemplating the aspects of the workshops that made an impact on me, I recall the freedom in the classroom.  I like the fact that we could each comment on the manuscripts read in front of the class and each give our own thoughts and input into the drafts.  I could relate to the way Patty Coleman commented in her final exam that she loved the idea of being able to actually write down suggestions, notes, observations, and remarks on the stories or poems and be able to hand them back to the writer.  I think that allows for good communication among the students.  I know I definitely benefited from such comments.  It was great; it felt like I had the larger portion of the class taking notes from the discussion for me.  I never could write fast enough during the conversations during the workshop to capture each comment—thus the copies handed back to me were of great importance to my revision account and I really appreciated them. 

All in all, the class was really a good experience for me.  As far as suggested changes that could potentially make the class better, I only have a few thoughts.  I know that the time is very limited during the semester, but I would like to have explored the different variations of poetry such as haiku, the rondeau, or the villanelle.  Maybe some small exercises on writing a least a couple more small poems in different styles as such would have been helpful.  But other than that, I thought the class and workshops were very well organized.  I hope to continue writing and use what I have learned in this creative writing course to further develop my skills.  This class really helped me.