CREATIVE WRITING: Week 10
WHAT YOU REALLY WANT TO WRITE
This week we focus on writing what you really want to write, the thing that you’ve
been itching to do all quarter. Or the thing you’ve always meant to write.
You’ve read a lot, tried a lot of different things. Maybe you’ve embarked on a novel, or a
collection of poems. Maybe you’ve discovered a whole world of creative work you want
to do.
This week your task is to write something that comes as close as possible to realizing
your ambitions for yourself as a writer.
Prose writers: A chapter of your novel, or a stand-alone story, of 1,200 words or more.
Push yourself to explore something of genuine interest to you – don’t go for the bland,
easy project, but try the difficult scene, the potentially revealing story, the material that is
more exciting and maybe scary to write about. Take some time to polish the work; don’t
submit a totally raw rough draft, but take the time to clean it up a bit. It’s your story –
what do you really want to say?
Poets: At least 50 lines of poetry that really says something. That could be one long
poem, three sonnets plus something else, a whole lot of haiku, or several free-verse
experiments. Use images. Explore territory that is exciting, surprising, different – don’t
write about safe topics, don’t write a predictable poem. You can write about anything, in
your own life or in the world we live in or in the entire Kosmos of material and
conceptual realities –a hive full of dead bees, a memory of reading to your sister when
she was three, the dark matter in the universe, the meaning of justice.
They are your poems – what do you really want to say?
This is due on Monday, June 13. Sometime on Tuesday morning the folder will be
closed and no further submissions will be possible – get your work in on time.