The Evolution of a Creative Writing Major

Coming into college, I was very focused on a certain type of writing—fiction, particularly novels. In high school, I completed many Young Adult novels and had completed one novel for middle-school-aged children. Though I knew I’d have to stretch myself in terms of writing other kind of works during my four years at Susquehanna, I figured this would continue to be my creative focus.

Throughout most of my freshman year, I was pretty certain about my aims as a writer. I really enjoyed my Introduction to Fiction class, where we wrote short stories, but I knew it was no coincidence that most of my short stories were on the longer end of the spectrum. Even my professor seemed to recommend elaborating on my stories when they were already over ten pages long. The stories in my head just don’t seem to come out in short story form. I think this is one thing that has remained consistent for me as a writer.  I love fiction, but short story is not my forte. Next year, I need to take a class for my Advanced Writing requirement. I could take Advanced Short Story, but I much prefer the idea of taking the Novel Writing course instead.

However, I certainly haven’t worked on novels at college as much as I had anticipated as an incoming student. I have never been the best at time management, and I think college makes time management all the harder since there’s so much to do. In high school, I could have friends and activities to keep me busy, but ultimately, I went home at the end of the day. When college is your home (at least when school is in session), those things surround you.  Maybe this sounds like I'm making excuses. I might be to an extent. Though I love writing and do think I should be more disciplined, it’s hard to imagine regretting any of the times that I spent immersed in activities important to me or just chatting with friends. I have a whole life of writing ahead of me, but only four years of college.

When I do have time to write now, I usually end up writing poetry. This is not what I expected at all my freshman year. It’s funny that I'm so surprised by it, since looking back at high school, I definitely did write poetry. I never took it seriously, though. Poetry was this complicated thing that I just did poorly as an emotional release—not something I could master. Last school year, though, I began to write poetry more and more frequently and with a bit more seriousness. It especially helped that I began finding poetry that I liked to read. I was still not sure, however, if it was something I should think of as any more than a hobby. My Intro to Poetry class during the spring semester led me to produce some poetry that actually made me feel proud and gave me some validation that, even if I was far from where I wanted to be as a poet, I still had some talent—I had someplace I could start.

Poetry continues to be my genre of choice at the moment.  I am currently in an Intermediate Poetry workshop, where we are working on formulating chapbooks. Chapbooks are small collections of writing, typically under 40 pages. The topic that will tie together my chapbook is women in the Bible. So far I have worked on poetry that explores the perspectives of Mary, Martha, Yael, and Delilah and have also done some poetry that looks at reading the Bible as a woman.  I am very excited about this project and often very inspired by my Women in Biblical Tradition class.

I am interested in pursuing poetry and seeing where it takes me, but I also hope to make more returns, and soon, to fiction, the genre that  really kindled my passion for writing.