The Most Embarrassing Thing In My Life Is Whenever I See People And They Ask What I’ve Been Up To .

The First Thing You Learn in University Creative Writing Classes

I was very fortunate to major in Creative Writing when I went to college. It was a great experience, but I remember being so nervous when I walked into my first class as a freshman.

I'd been writing stories since elementary school, so I worried that this first class would teach me something wildly different than what I knew about writing. Maybe there was some secret formula to creating characters or mental exercises that immediately dissolved writer's block that you could only learn from a professor.

When my first class ended, I was shocked.

The first thing you learn in a university-level creative writing class?

Read more than you write.

It's that simple. I thought my professor had lost his mind, but the many others that followed always echoed the advice.

The advice then saved my ability to write when I was getting through each day during some of the hardest times of my life.

Pick up the good books. The great books. The terrible books that make you quit reading them because they're so bad.

They will all make your writing stronger.

You'll learn how to write fantastic characters, weave plot lines, and paint worlds with words. You'll also learn what you don't like in someone's writing so you can avoid it in your own.

Even during the periods when I wrote nothing at all, reading kept that love for writing alive in my heart.

It's the best way to reconnect with that passion if you've lost it and the greatest way to develop that skill.

Read more than you write.

Your storylines and characters will thank you later.

I saw myself in the mirror

having OC’s is crazy for real because no one else gives a fuck meanwhile you’ll be at the function thinking about them (guys who are not real) like

i love old science fiction because it’s all like “IT’S THE DISTANT YEAR TWO THOUSAND AND THREE AND MAN IS EXPLORING THE DEEP CORNERS OF THE UNIVERSE” like god bless you old sci-fi you had such high hopes for us

musings on poetry Anne Sexton, Victoria Chang, Carl Sandburg, Carl Sandburg, Richard Blanco, Henrik Edoyan, Anne Sexton, Czeslaw Milosz, Richard Blanco, Mary Oliver

writers writing: pacing must be an intentional element of mood and style; grammar and punctuation has to be on point; wording needs to be perfect.!!

writers texting: im.,, silly. i put the punctuation whereever my heart desires........ must not sound upright or passive aggressive.,,,,

some people like gritty realism. me? I like that slippery, slippery unhinged fantasy. low viscosity make-believe. well-oiled bullshit. lubed-up whimsy.

if you’re white and wanna write a poc character and feel awkward about it i implore you to ignore any twitblr stuff treating it as a massive ethical burden and instead come in more with the same mindset you’d have if you wanted to write about idk firefighters but didn’t know anything about firefighters so you do... research. Like fuck off with the weird kinda creepy calls for spiritual introspection you’re not writing about god damn space aliens you’re writing about humans and if you think you need more perspective of different life experiences just read?

𝔞𝔟𝔬𝔲𝔫𝔡𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔴𝔦𝔱𝔥 𝔩𝔦𝔣𝔢

all these excellent books come from some random penguins house?