When I took my first creative writing class, I was only a teenager. There was a creative writing enrichment program at an art college down the street, and I thought that I could use it as a way to develop my poetry. My parents liked the idea a lot. They loved my writing, and they wanted to see me take it as far as I could.
I was very excited about creative writing classes, and the course didn't disappoint me. I had had some opportunity to write creatively in high school, of course, and I spent a lot of time on my own writing poetry and short stories. Nonetheless, that creative writing class was beyond anything I had ever done. Being able to work with a more experienced, established writer one on one to refine my writing techniques was just an incredible thrill for me. The other students were very talented, so it was also nice to be able to work in such great company.
From the very first day, the teacher was careful to tailor the creative writing workshop to our needs. She worked individually with every student to find out our expectations, then met with us as a class. We each got to talk about the things that we liked to write, what we wanted to learn, and how we anticipated getting there. She shared her own background as a writer with us, and even shared some of her own writing.
I wrote dozens of poems in my creative writing class, and workshopped most of them. It was really nice to be able to painstakingly perfect each poem. At first, it was a little bit scary. I had never been asked to edit my poems carefully before, and the experience was tough. Nonetheless, everyone was very supportive. Being in a creative writing class means being surrounded by people who know what it is like to put yourself out there for the judgments of other people. There were always positive comments, and plenty of encouragement along the way.
By the time the creative writing class was done, I knew that I wanted to spend my career as a writer. As soon as I graduated high school, I enrolled in the creative writing program At the big state college. Although I wasn't able to take a creative writing class my first semester, I did get some fascinating literature courses from the very beginning. Pretty soon, I was taking poetry workshops, fiction writing courses and many other fascinating classes in composition. It seemed like every creative writing class was better than the last. I have to say that studying to be a writer was probably one of the most fascinating and rewarding chapters of my life so far.
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