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.

Back to What?

Coming back to Susquehanna was very exciting, but I think I need to make it clear, to both my readers and myself, that coming back to Susquehanna is exactly that: coming back to Susquehanna. I didn’t come back to my freshman year, to Hassinger Hall, or to a top bunk. I didn’t come back to pick things up as they left off—not exactly. This year is new.

My room this year--before it got messy!

Not as new as coming into Susquehanna as a nervous freshman wondering what college will entail.

But still new. New enough that I am curious to see where this year takes me. New enough , even though I’m familiar with my friends, this campus, and the routine of work and classes,  that it’s taking a bit of adjustment to get back into the swing of things.

Or more accurately, to start a new swing of things.

Something I have to tackle this year is how to maintain and balance friendships with people who I used to live with but now don’t get to see on that same, day-to-day basis.  Only a certain set of my friends have that same right-down-the-hall status. Also, I’m still acclimating  to living alone. I definitely need to work out a cleaning routine because, without a roommate to consider, I’ve let things get a bit disheveled. Clearly, this isn’t the biggest issue with living alone, but it’s something I should probably work on!   

In another entry, I talked about how being a sophomore was good because I had a comfort zone from which to start. That’s still true. However, that comfort zone has had to shift and budge a little. It’s been altered—it’s been pinched by some discomforts, forces of change. Discomfort isn’t a negative, though.  No year can be the same as the one before. And next year I may, all over again, be contemplating on how to adapt to the changes of a different academic year.

 I’ll admit that, right now, I have a bit of nostalgic longing for my freshman year. I see people enter Hassinger—people that aren’t me—and go a bit gooey on the inside. Facebook shows me status updates from “this day in 2010,” and I relive that fresh, exciting period of time where I was just really discovering and getting to know the friends I have now.

I’m hoping that next year my time as a sophomore will elicit the same feelings.

The Comfort Zone

During my first week back, I discovered that starting freshman year and starting sophomore year are two very different beasts.

One of the main differences is workload. During the beginning of my first semester last year, I remember not having that much work to do; intentional or not, it felt as if I was being eased into the academic experience of college. This gave me a lot of free time in the evenings to spend with friends.  So far I’ve managed to spend a lot of time with my friends, but to do so, at least on week nights, I’m usually putting off homework.

It’s also quite different to come in already involved. InterVarsity Christian Fellowship was a constant of my freshman year. Our first large-group meeting was on Thursday. Last year, I probably had some trepidation as I attended the first meeting of the year—being somewhat socially awkward and nervous about finding my place in that group of people, or more likely, just surviving the night.  As a sophomore I returned to something familiar and was able to catch up with friends.

My attitude in general is very different this year. As a freshman, things are completely new. The start of the year is very much about making friends and meeting new people. In a way, everything is in flux—to be determined. As a sophomore I may have power to change my course, but I also have established friendships. Making new friends is still a goal, but it’s certainly not as desperate of one as it was last year. Therefore, things don’t seem as high stakes, and I’m free from those freshman year jitters.

Another difference: one of my friends has a car this year, and we can finally go off-campus without limiting ourselves to the free shuttle schedule. We’ve already made a few trips. Last Sunday we went to Target, Saturday we went to the mall, and this Sunday we headed to Wal-Mart and Weis.  The chance to get off-campus is always helpful. Last year, campus could feel a bit suffocating after long stretches without leaving. However, chances to get off campus also equal chances to lighten the wallet.

All in all, there’s been some more work and some big changes, but I also have a nice comfort zone. “Comfort zone” usually has a negative connotation. Throughout the year I’ll definitely need to go beyond this zone, breaking its boundaries, but I also think a comfort zone can be a nice haven and a good starting point.

Time Management

One of the trickiest aspects of being a college student is time management. It’s certainly something I deal with and it appears to be a struggle, to some degree, for almost all of my friends. College just feels busier than high school. Sure, during high school I got up by 6:45 a.m. (EEK!) and was stuck within school walls from 7-something in the morning to 2:45 p.m., no escape, no gap between classes except for that 4 minute walk through the halls, but after that I went home. Even if I had something after school, like musical rehearsal, I’d usually be home by 5:30.  My days start later here—thankfully—but end later as well. Mondays and Wednesdays, for instance, I’m busy from 9 to 4:05, with only a break from 1:00 to 1:45 for lunch.

There’s so much more to do after your school day is over as well. There are social distractions, for instance. Why read The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles for your Romantic Novels class, for instance, when you could be playing MASH with some of your friends? Yes, that may have happened just yesterday—though I did get my reading done, I promise!  There are a lot of very active extracurricular groups that can keep your schedule full as well. Tonight for instance, I hope to be able to go to an InterVarsity Life Group, which is a Bible Study at 7:30 (I've been skipping lately because I haven't been able to manage the time well enough to go), followed directly by pledge class and a chapter meeting for Alpha Phi Omega. There’s also that pesky issue of fitting some homework into that lineup.

Though I’m far from a time management expert, I think prioritizing is definitely helpful when it comes to time management. My strategy usually ends up being getting done what absolutely has to get done. A strategy to get ahead on my work over the weekends, however, might be a bit more practical, though it would seem awfully painful as I stowed myself away on a Saturday afternoon.

Typically, however, getting schoolwork done isn’t the issue for me. Pesky things like laundry are what fall to the wayside. I’ve been saying I need to do laundry since last week, and yet the clothing is piling up in my closet.  I really need to buckle down and get some done tonight. My pledge class’s group service project on Friday is an intergenerational prom at the Graysonview Assisted Living Community, and I have induction to the freshman academic honor society Alpha Lambda Delta on Sunday.  Both require nice clothes which, as of now, are wrinkled at the bottom of my hamper. 

I think tonight I may just skip dinner with my pals to get that laundry done and start doing research for my group project in Applied Biblical Ethics.  Then, before Life Group, I'll grab some Benny's dinner to go.  This actually sounds like a really good idea.  Maybe I should start planning things more often! 

Common Ground

One of the really awesome things about college, or I suppose life in general, is finding people who are interested in the same things as you are, whether that’s a fandom, like Harry Potter, or something more influential in your life, like your faith.  I’ve been very lucky to find people who share my interests at SU.

My Harry Potter Poster

Creative writing is huge in that regard.  Some of my closest friends, including my roommate, are fellow Creative Writing majors, with whom I can be nerdy about books or discuss the pains of revisions, conferences, and critique letters.

Speaking of books, I am a die-hard Harry Potter fan.  This love goes beyond the books and includes A Very Potter Musical and A Very Potter Sequel, two parody musicals on YouTube about Harry Potter.  Very few of my friends were familiar with these musicals at home, but it seems like a lot of people here know about them.  In the beginning of the year, I was often singing “Gotta Get Back to Hogwarts” and “Granger Danger” with a friend here who’s also a big Harry Potter fan.  Additionally, I have people who can understand my raving about Ron and Hermione, my favorite literary couple, and my ranting about Ginny and Hermione, a couple that I find fairly irritating.

TV shows can be another area of common ground.  Just last night, I watched Glee with my roommate and my friend Karen.  It’s a lot more fun to watch, squeal and laugh and sometimes mock, with friends rather than alone.  I also had an awesome Boy Meets World marathon with my friends once and towards the beginning of the year had many viewings of one of my all-time favorite shows Freaks and Geeks.

As I said earlier, college has also been a great time to find and connect with people who share my faith.  I have great Christian friends in my dorm, and especially through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, I’ve been able to meet so many more people who share this important aspect of my life and values.  Particularly, the small Life Group I've attended has helped me make friendships with others of my faith.  

I love how natural it has been to find these people with common interests, and I love how these common interests have evolved into friendships! 

Spring Break

In the world of television and movies, Spring Break equals hitting the beach with friends and going to wild parties and getting up to all sorts of college-aged shenanigans. In my world (and it seems like the world of most I’ve spoken to), Spring Break means getting to go home! It means relaxation and much watching of the television. It means getting together with friends. It means doing laundry because a massive amount of dirty clothing has accumulated in my dorm room closet. It means getting in a few volunteer hours towards my total for Alpha Phi Omega by going to the library where I volunteered all four years of high school. It means hopefully getting to go see my high school’s production of The Wizard of Oz. It means working on my literary journalism piece for Intro to Creative Nonfiction. It means sending in my application for housing next year. Two friends and I are both aiming for the Scholar’s House.

It also means I am halfway through my second semester of my freshman year of college, which I talked about in my previous post. It just sounds so kooky to me! I can’t believe I only have a quarter of the year left.

Even if I’m a bit freaked out by the quickness of this year, I have to admit how excited I am to go home. I’m very fortunate in that, unlike a lot of my friends, I can leave Thursday instead of Friday. My classes end at 4:05 Thursday, and both of my classes are cancelled the next day. It will also be awesome because my older brother will be picking me up and this is the first time he will get to see my dorm room in person. Also, I will be making him take me to Red Robin after he picks me up, which I’m currently craving as I type.

More so, I think this is a point in the semester where a lot of people, at least among my friends, are ready to escape from campus life for a bit. With midterms coming up, the task of figuring out rooming arrangements for next year, and a bunch of activities in full swing, the past few weeks have gotten a little rough. And though I love SU and am not and will never be the go-home-every-weekend kind of kid, I’m definitely ready, and definitely in need of, a stretch of time at home.

I only have to get through two more days, write a 6 to 8 page essay on 19th century romances (I have about 2 pages...procrastination!), and take a midterm in Applied Biblical Ethics tomorrow.  Not so bad in comparison to the schedules of many.  I'm almost free!

TV!

College has had one unanticipated impact on my life; it’s severely cut down my TV time.

I love television, to an extent that I think has, at times, surprised people.  Maybe it’s the storytelling aspect of shows.  Or maybe it’s the chance to calm down my overactive mind and slip into a somewhat vegetative state.  Either way, I spend a lot of time watching TV at home, whether its reruns just to have background noise as I’m on my computers, favorites like Glee, Conan on late night, ridiculous Degrassi, or reality shows like America’s Next Top Model, Project Runway, and the Amazing Race. 

But something about being here, at Susquehanna, has severely limited my use of the television.  I’m at the point now where I only make time to watch Glee on Tuesdays at 8, and the rest of the time, unless my roommate is watching something (rare, since she watches a lot of shows online), our TV is off. 

I think business is probably one of the main reasons for this.  There seems to be so much more packed into my day that I can’t really work my TV watching around it all.  Also, it’s nice to have a TV on when you’re alone at home, just to avoid eerie quiet, but for me, being alone here is rarer.  I have people to talk to and socialize with, that is, if people aren’t busy doing homework.  Or okay, even if people should be busy doing homework. 

I'm looking forward to Spring Break, though, because whenever I've gone home so far, I've spent a lot of time lounging around and catching up on all the TV goodness I've missed.

The Social Evolution of a College Freshman

Being a college freshman is weird.  There’s no way getting around it.  You can call it good weird, bad weird, or in between, but no matter how you slice it, you’re still dealing with establishing yourself socially.  This is even weirder considering where you last were: a high school senior.  I was pretty grounded in my group of friends by that point.  I wasn’t going out and looking for other people to get to know, though if those people came along that was fine as well.  College, however, is going back to the beginning.  I haven’t been back to the beginning, at least to this extent, since 2^nd grade, when I moved to Pennsylvania from Virginia.  Since then, I’ve been able to carry elementary school friends into middle school, then middle school ones into high school.   I’ve always had someone—and while those high school connections haven’t left me, I still, in some ways, came to Susquehanna with a blank slate (excluding my wonderful roommate who I had met at a summer writing workshop).   

During orientation weekend, panic set in.  At least for me.  I needed friends.  I was starting all over.  I couldn’t do this.  Could I?

The next step in social evolution for me was making friends with the girls in my hall.  We live together, after all, so it’s pretty natural for us to join together, especially in the face of friendless-ness.   Once we bonded, especially over the first non-orientation weekend, it was such a relief.  I didn’t expect to have a group of people to hang out with so quickly!

However, another step eventually comes, and it seemed to hit a lot of my friends at the same time as it hit me: realizing a need for relationships outside of the hallway.  Friendships with the people you live with are great, but I think everybody feels that need for a change of pace.  After all, you see a lot of those friends from your floor.  You do live with them, after all. 

I think I’m at the point in my social evolution where I’m hoping to branch out and am getting to know other people.  Right now there are a lot of acquaintances, people I say “Hi” and “How are you?” to if I see them as I cross campus, people who fall into this category of potential friends.   The next step, if I take some action, should be translating acquaintanceship to friendship. 

This step seems to require a bigger leap than the others, but I think it’s probably one of those things that happens naturally with time.  As a freshmen, I would guess friendships evolve, expand, shift, and include new people.

Of course, sometimes my patience isn’t all it could be in this regard.  It’s easy to want those closest of close friendships right away.  A friendship like you have with your best friend back home.  A dynamic like your group had in high school.  These things don’t happen overnight, however.  They require cultivation.  Evolution.  Not spontaneous generation.  

But that’s alright.  Spontaneous can be shallow, and right now, I’m not seeking friendships that will be blown away come next semester.  Like most freshmen, I think, I’m looking for friendships with roots.

Homecoming: College vs. High School

When I returned to campus last Tuesday, the immediacy with which I was thrown back into college life made it seem like there’d hardly been a break at all.  Luckily, I got a relief from the work over Homecoming Weekend.

I'll admit I was curious for quite some time about what exactly college Homecoming would be like.  At my high school, the Homecoming dance was a big deal--at least to many girls.  Dresses and dates seemed to be a major topic of conversation as early as two weeks into the school year.  Corsages and boutonnieres were bought.  Elaborate plans were made beforehand on the group you'd go with, where you'd take pictures, where you'd go to dinner, etc.  

Homecoming here wasn’t an occasion of such drastic importance—or nearly as much contemplation.  Dates didn’t feel necessary, nor did any other real form of planning, besides a friend’s Facebook reminder over break to bring a dress and shoes.  The dress didn’t even require endless searching; I just used my Homecoming dress from senior year.  My friends and I prepared ourselves in dorm rooms and in front of bathroom mirrors, then tottered over (well, except for me, who had worn sensible but adorable silver flats) to TRAX, the on-campus club. 

My high school dances usually involved strings of sappy slow songs, but this didn’t occur at college.  The entire night was non-stop dancing.  It was fun and casual, and at least from my perspective, not the same source of drama that high school Homecoming can be.  Despite the Semi-Formal label, some guys even showed up in jeans, becoming symbols in my mind of the No-Big-Dealness of it all.

I realize that calling something No Big Deal may make it sound like a bad thing.

But it really isn’t.

It’s a good thing.  A fun thing can be No Big Deal.  It just means that it’s not something you have to lose any sleep over.

Thinking about the differences between college and high school Homecoming makes me think of the visit I made to my high school during break.  My high school started renovations my senior year and made its biggest changes over the summer.  Walking through the completely different lobby was nothing short of bizarre.  As I got further into my school, it began looking like my alma mater—but it was still strange, the notion that I didn’t go there anymore, that I shouldn’t have been in that hall.


I had fun visiting, but it’s not where I belong anymore. 

Events like Homecoming and that visit have emphasized that college is not high school.  And for me, that’s turning out to be a pretty good thing.