Anne’s Final Essay … First Draft …
A personal reflection on Creative Writing
Once upon a time (for that really is the best way to start such tales) there was this crazy lady, who, following a life threatening illness, decided in her ultimate wisdom to do something she had never done before in her life. Enrolled at University.
Little did she know that this impulsive decision would throw her headlong into an academic adventure that would last two years and result in gaining some very good friends. Along the way her little brain was subjected to rather some baffling use of language and a vast array of information, which she wasn’t sure would fit inside her head. At first it felt like she had found a platform where she could unleash all the lovely twisted little characters which lived in her imagination upon the world, but soon came to learn that there was a lot more involved than simply scribbling on paper.
For a while she felt totally out of her depths, struggling to tread water and keep her head above the surface, each word, each sentence was finely constructed in order to keep with the daunting rules and regulations which were slowly smothering artistic desire. But she was determined to soldier forth, sometimes burying the need to scream (for that would have been most noisy) but mostly because of stubbornness, no one expected her to succeed and she had to subdue her own self-doubts.
However, there was an amazing abundance of inspiration. Little characters in different genres came out to play and she ventured forth into different styles and all new exciting writing experiences. As well as reading a vast quantity of literature that was totally out of her comfort zone.
Yet this inspiration blasted her world wide open, beyond the classroom, beyond books. These lessons inspired our shy heroine to explore the theatre, dance, poetry, art, screenplay and local events. How exciting it was to find a trail of breadcrumbs that lead from one subject to another and how these all in turn slowly began to influence her own writing, going full circle.
Though this point of the adventure may have drawn to a sad closure, this has been a starting place for a wider range of experiences and the journey continues.
A.M. Harrison.
Tatterhood 