Am I A Writer Now?

What I learned from my first creative writing class

Photo by Unseen Studio on Unsplash

Last month I completed my first ever creative writing class, a piece from which I published here. The class quickly came and went, a weekly routine for the six weeks it lasted, so I didn’t have much chance to properly reflect on the experience until now.

I recently decided to sign up for another class through the same literary organization, so I thought I'd be remiss if I didn't pause and think about what I learned from the first class, and what I hope to gain from the second. I’m also starting my first writer’s group this week, a monthly workshopping forum that consists of a handful of women. With the three converging at once, I thought it an apt time to reflect.

The class I enlisted in this winter was named Calling Back the Light: The Playful Essay. We met virtually on Zoom once a week for two hours at a time. The first two classes consisted of reading snippets of published works that provided context for a prompt that we then spent 5-10 minutes free writing on, repeating this several times throughout the evening’s session. The third class was a “show-and-tell,” where every student read a piece they revised from one of the prompts and all the other students gave in-the-moment feedback on it. This cycle repeated itself for the last 3 classes, so that in effect we spent 4 classes free-writing and 2 classes sharing our pieces, exploring a handful of different formats throughout.

I found the structure of the class to be quite enjoyable, as the prompts allowed me to really write in a free-flowing, non-self-judgmental way. Plus there was no mandated homework aside from the two submissions, so it felt like a pressure-free zone that helped me unwind after a long work day.

After giving it some thought, there are four main lessons I took away from this class.

1 - The power of a ritual to ease into writing mode.

I was a little weary at first about the virtual character of the class. I had looked for an in-person class but the only one applicable to my interests sold out before I could enroll, so the playful essay class was my backup.

One of my favorite parts ended up being the meditation our instructor began the class with, which worked well in a virtual setting. As we all sat at our desks, camera on or off depending on our respective comfort zones, she would strike her gong to signal the “entry” into class, then lead a 5 minute visual meditation to prepare us for that evening's activity. As someone who hasn't done a ton of this, especially on Zoom, I felt a slight resistance at first. But somewhere within those 5 minutes I relaxed, ready to enter the world of writing. Upon blinking my eyes open at the sound of her closing gong strike, I felt more at ease, transitioned from the work day, and ready to write.

It makes me think of a principle that Priya Parker discusses in her book The Art of Gathering. She states that a quality gathering should have a “threshold” of entry that signifies the formal start of the event.

The technical start of class was everyone’s Zoom square appearing on the screen at different intervals over the first couple minutes of class. Awkward shuffling ensued as folks got their bearings, transitioning from whatever held their attention before it. Our teacher instructed us to start writing whatever we wanted in our notebooks while we waited for everyone to arrive.

The opening meditation, in hindsight, served the purpose of creating a more formal class entry. I think it would've felt a lot less easeful had we transitioned immediately from the free write to a prompt. As someone who was “rushing” home as best I could on my ~50 minute commute to make it to 6pm class on time, I found the meditation ritual to be an incredibly valuable part of the class.

2 - The difference between writing to publish versus writing to write.

My friend

Lauren Scott

recently wrote about how the intended outcome or expectation placed on writing can all too often take away from the pleasures or benefits of the act of writing itself.

While this newsletter is done for pleasure and has absolutely no monetary incentive attached to it, I find that the act of publishing my writing online each week, no matter how informal, does inherently create a bit of pressure. I think I've done a good job of writing about whatever feels right to me, regardless of the engagement I've received. That said, I’d be kidding myself if I told you I didn't think about that aspect! This particularly comes into play with the titles and subtitles of my posts—here I find myself trying to be a little more clever, pulling from my marketing tricks playbook to encourage consumption. I don't ever want or intend to be click-baity, but I do think about the importance the title plays.

The other pressure that weekly publishing puts on my writing is the need for the essay to be “done.” Even if I’m writing about something that I’m still processing my thoughts on, such as my recent essay about news consumption, I still need to get the piece to some kind of end state that feels right for me and the reader. I typically write my weekly posts over the course of 1-2 days, one brain dump drafting session and a lengthy editing session. I’ve noticed that my brain marinates on my drafts, so that when I come back to a piece with fresh eyes, I sometimes have more to say. It’s times like these when I wish I had more time to tweak the piece, but I do what I can to round it out in time for my weekly publish date.

So, to enroll in a writing class where I was creating 3-page essays for the sake of sharing and getting feedback on my form was a very different experience. Both times I shared, my classmates gave me such insightful and helpful reactions on how I could improve or think differently about the piece. It was interesting to take in, because what was I going to do with these essays after the fact?

Well of course, I ended up publishing one of them here on The Conscious Consumer, after having incorporated one of my classmates’ suggestions.

The second essay I wrote for class was a much more personal one, a braided essay about a life-altering breakup and rediscovering the game of tennis as an adult. Unlike my food abecedarian essay, it felt therapeutic as I wrote it. I got a lot of feedback on the piece should I choose to revisit it. Will I revisit it? Maybe. But what for? I suppose I could publish here at a later date if I felt so inclined, but this type of intentional revision begs to me a different purpose. A dream enters my mind—if I'm going to spend hours revising and revising a piece, getting feedback from others on it, doesn’t it deserve more of a platform than my Substack? That is, a place that honors that attention, like a third-party publication?

Yes readers, you heard (read) it here first—me admitting to the smallest of inklings about a dream of getting my writing published. 😬 To sum it up, this class opened the aperture for me, showing me what could be possible.

3 - Playful prompt writing is very freeing.

This overlaps quite a bit with the lesson above, but is a bit more about the structures of the craft forms themselves. Our instructor taught us about abecedarians, lyrical or braided essays, and “hermit crabs.”

Sometimes the prompts we were given were dubious in nature—a listing of random things, Mad Libs style, intended to ignite a spark, not necessarily to create a full-fledged piece in that moment.

My responses to the prompts were pretty off and on. I struggled with some, my pen hovering over the page as I thought too much about what to write. Others were like magic for my pen, the words coming out of me faster than my brain comprehended what they were.

I found these exercises to be very freeing, showing me how writing for writing’s sake can be playful and fun. No strings attached.

Our instructor said just that at the start of the first class, that these craft forms were simply intended to get ideas going. She didn't necessarily expect us to write a whole piece in response, but rather to find a piece of something that you otherwise might not have stumbled on if it weren't for the freeing nature of the forms. This was certainly the case with the abecedarian I wrote. It was a springboard for many of the food thoughts swirling in my mind.

4 - Giving feedback is harder than receiving it.

Upon signing up for the class, my partner asked me how I was feeling about reading aloud and getting feedback on my writing for the first time. Surprisingly I found myself more nervous about the aspect of giving feedback than receiving it.

My imposter syndrome crept in. Was I “well-read” enough to have valuable feedback to contribute? During the first sharing session I held back, waiting to see what types of feedback others gave before speaking up. As we went around the Zoom grid, I started feeling panicky as I realized all my points of feedback were being “taken” by others. Pete later pointed out to me that this could actually be seen as validating in that some of my reactions were similar to others’.

I’m a passionate, energetic speaker who processes while I speak, so the pressure of appropriately articulating my thoughts on a piece while I only heard it once felt like a high-pressure moment. But as the feedback sessions went on, I tried my best to let go of what others might think of me and my feedback. (What others think of us is none of our business after all.) I tried to just lean in and trust whatever it was I felt the urge to say. This was a huge learning experience itself and clearly an area for growth. (It’s what I’m working on when I write my year-end book reviews, i.e. the articulation and reflection on my opinion of something I consume. Easier said than done, at least for me.)

I'm about to start my first writer’s group, where members submit pieces to the group for feedback a week or so before meeting; the expectation is that each reader spends time with the submitted piece(s), having read and generated feedback on them in advance that will then be shared in the meeting.

It will be interesting to see how this asynchronous consumption with intentional feedback-giving compares to the very reactionary, off-the-cuff feedback.

Driven by the good outcomes and energy from my first class, and the in-person class I’d originally wanted to take conducting another session this spring, I decided to sign up for it.

The name of this one is Get Writing: Unblocking Writer’s Block. My main motivation for taking it is the in-person element. I have hopes of building a writers community, with an ancillary benefit of sustaining the writing habit itself.

I did feel some sense of community in the previous class, created by the fact that we were all writing narrative nonfiction and happened to all be women. Our instructor commented on the latter the first night we met, that she’d never had that happen before (even though she’s taught this same class in the past). Funny.

It felt like a safe space as we got more familiar with one another, but sadly just as we were hitting our stride the class ended. So it will be interesting to compare it to this Writer’s Block class that is two weeks longer.

One of the things I've noticed about my writing hobby is the more individual nature of it. While there is a connection-sparking aspect that comes with responding to your comments—whether published here or brought up to me in person, both of which I love and appreciate so much—I find myself also craving conversation and community around the act of writing itself.

It's quite different from my hobby of tennis, for example, which requires someone to play with and is therefore an inherently social activity.

As a social person by nature I want to have others to talk to about the art of writing. Even better if that conversation is face-to-face.

So, does taking a formal writing class make me a more “serious" writer?

I balked at the word serious as I wrote it, because what does that even mean? I think the most notable thing here is that by enrolling in two writing classes, I am investing more in my writing practice and by effect, investing more in myself.

And that’s a long ways from where I started in 2023, unsure how to take creativity seriously, quietly writing and being afraid to show it to anyone.

Showing up for a class is me showing up to the world, saying “hey, I’m a writer.” And I've got to admit—it feels pretty damn good.

Fellow writers and creators! Have you taken a writing class or built yourself a community of like-minded creators? I’d love to hear about your experience!👇

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