Refer to the following Wk 1 – Learning Activities:
- The Practice of Creative Writing, Introduction
- The Practice of Creative Writing, Finding Focus
- The Practice of Creative Writing, Creative Reading
Welcome to creative writing! You’re probably all here because you have a story or stories burning inside of you. Maybe you carry a journal, or take notes on your phone whenever a creative idea comes to you. But, first this week, take time to review the readings and reflect on the writing process. You should also look ahead to the assignments in the following weeks.
Write a 700- to 1,050-word journal entry that identifies the key elements of the writing process and describes what you have learned about creative reading. Consider the following:
- How will you apply what you have learned?
- What writing processes will you use?
- Is there a plan you would like to follow to spark your creativity in the next four weeks?
- What story ideas do you have that you would like to write about in the coming weeks? Explain.
Note: You do not have to use a particular style such as MLA or APA.
1280895 – Macmillan US ©
INTRODUCTION
WHY CREATIVE WRITING? OR HOW TO
EXPLAIN TO OTHERS WHAT IT IS YOU’RE
DOING IN THIS CLASS
Creative writing—like relationships, sports, music, or dance—makes life more meaningful
and interesting. Recent neuroscience provides proof for what you may have suspected all
along: The pursuit of creative writing measurably increases a person’s ability to observe,
intuit, empathize, impose structure on chaos, read closely, and understand nuance. These
skills will serve you well not just in your writing life but also in college and in every job you
will ever have.
Creative writing was interdisciplinary long before “interdisciplinary” became a
buzzword. In composing our writing, we writers combine elements of architecture,
psychology, philosophy, language, and scientific observation. In our careful attention to
detail, creative writers and scientists share a similar and complementary approach to the
world: We increase our skill in our field by dipping into these complementary inquiries. In
designing and sustaining a creative writing life, writers have a lot in common with athletes
and musicians, who know how to spend large blocks of time focused on one activity. And
on top of all that, creative writing helps us become more thoughtful, discerning, and
articulate.
WHAT CREATIVE WRITERS DO
As creative writers, we practice a process, a way of working with our intellect and our
feelings to make art objects that people learn from and enjoy. It’s a mixture of individual
hard work (focused time we spend at our desks, composing and shaping) and group work
(listening to other writers and reading their work).
Creative writing is like photography. Photographers care about shape, emotion, pattern,
human experience—all that meets the eye. It’s not a hobby; it’s a commitment to
understanding all that is inside and outside oneself. Lots of people take selfies—selfies are
wonderful for documenting the
1280895 – Macmillan US ©
1280895 – Macmillan US ©
CHAPTER ONE
FINDING FOCUS
You are reading a wonderful book. Time drops away, you forget where you are sitting, you
no longer hear the sounds around you. When you are totally absorbed in a great piece of
writing, you are transported to another time and place—the words create a new reality, and
you, the reader, inhabit another world. Not only do you see a kind of movie play out in your
head as you read, but you also experience, with all your senses, another world. And that
world is just as real and fully formed as this one.
1280895 – Macmillan US ©
CHAPTER TWO
CREATIVE READING
Creative writers read differently than do literature students or casual bookstore shoppers
or beach readers. We’re reading for pleasure, of course. But we’re also intent on developing
our craft. By reading closely and strategically, with a very specific and perhaps somewhat
selfish agenda, we read to pick up new techniques we can use in our own creative efforts.
Writers approach reading as musicians do live shows: for enjoyment, yes, but also to
expose ourselves to new moves, to learn more of what’s possible, to get inspired. Just as
musicians often listen to thousands of hours of music, obsessively, writers read
voraciously.
We aren’t able to confine ourselves to one section of the library or to one specific type
of book in a bookstore. Creative writers are free-range readers, roaming from new works by
young authors hot off the press over to poetry, perhaps dabbling in the classics before
grazing over to science fiction, eagerly hunting down novels, comics, plays, and pieces
that defy genre classification written by authors of all ages, from the ancients to the
postmodernists, and from all over the globe. We tend to be delightfully undisciplined and
radically inclusive in our choices: We’ll read pretty much anything. We read and read and
read. Because there is so much to learn about the craft of writing, our reading lives are
driven by a particular hunger: We read to live, artistically. We learn to write—and continue
to improve—by reading. As a writer, literature is our most valuable teacher—an especially
wallet-friendly kind of education—for years to come.