Christi Wood

Facing My Fears through Creative Writing

As I came into this class I had no idea what to expect. I chose Creative Writing because I wanted to learn how to be a better writer. I have always wanted to write a story to be published, preferably a memoir, but I never knew where to start. When I saw this class I thought it would be a great beginning to learn how to write.

I have always had a fear of poetry, and when I saw that we would have to write a poem I was very scared. I have always steered clear of any poetry class and barely made it through the parts of my other literature classes that discussed poetry. But, I knew that it would be good to learn so I went for it. When I first wrote my poem, I did not like it and I did not have any confidence in myself to make it better. But, after receiving feedback from my peers, I began to create something. I started adding imagery as the text stated and my poem started coming to life right in front of my eyes. I never believed that I could actually write something that seemed so real. I learned that you cannot just sit down and write a poem, but you must rewrite and revise it until it becomes something great. I actually enjoyed sitting there analyzing each line wondering what I could do to make it even better. Listening to the workshops of other people’s poems also helped me because I could take the advice that they were given and use it in my own.

In respect to the fiction writing, I had a little more experience but not a lot. Most of the things that I have written were when I was in high school. When I look back on those I realize that they were not very well organized into something that would make sense for good reading. As I discussed earlier, one of the most important things that I learned from the workshops is to make sure your thoughts have been put onto the page where the reader understands them. I felt that my paper was very confusing and I did not get my complete message across to my peers. I also learned from the text that you must rewrite and rewrite until you get the message across. Some works will never be finished. Even when you think you are done you might reread and see something that could be change or added.

Unfortunately for writers I believe that technology has put a big damper in the rewriting process. I found myself changing things and then saving my progress and then I didn’t remember what I had before. I was upset about this because I had wanted to go back and looked at my changes. For early writers this was not a problem because they would have their papers to look back on in case they didn’t like their changes. With my memoir I plan to devise a system of saving all my drafts so that I can go back after changes have been made. I believe this is a very important part of writing because you need to know where you began once you get to the end.

I believe the workshops were very helpful because I went into mine knowing that I was not happy with my paper. My peers were helpful and honest and gave me great feedback on what I could do with my writing. It is important to have fresh eyes besides yourself to look at your paper because someone else is not biased and will honestly tell you the good and bad parts of the story. The draft exchanges helped in the same way to let me know the things that I had missed even if they were only grammar mistakes. One of the most important things I learned was that you must have someone else read your work because there is always something that an author could miss and they might catch.

I agree with Rachel Davis from her “Am I a Creative Writer?” 2008 final exam when she states, “I thought it would be easier than poetry, but I found out very quickly that I was wrong.” I felt the same way. I thought that writing a fiction story would be easier that writing a poem and that I would rather present the story. But the anxiety from reading the entire story made the experience harder and I also felt that I would have needed more help with my poem because I had no experience with poetry. I would have rather had the feedback from the whole class to help me with the poetry assignment, but my fear of poetry is what influenced my decision to do fiction. I am very thankful for the fiction feedback and got a lot of great information to use, but I also wish I could have had the same from the poetry.

In the end, I loved this class and I’m very glad that I took it. I hope to use what I have learned to begin my memoir and possible other stories. Everyone has stories in their heads that they wish to write down but they do not know where to begin. This class has given me the knowledge of where to start and how to work along the way.