Personally, one of the best parts of Creative Writing were the river walks, even though I never got much work done. Just being able to click refresh on my brain with an ice cream cone and trying to get a little farther into the river with each visit honestly helped with my writing quite a bit. I would always be super wound up and unable to write anything because I was so stressed out because of endless assignments or a poor mark on a test or just wondering how my cat’s doing (that’s the most frequent one), but being able to let it all go every once in a while was amazing. After those visits I’d be able to write something and not feel absolute dread while working on it which allowed me to just get my ideas out and onto the page without the constant nagging in my head. I feel like the river walks allowed me to grow more as a writer and actually get to my ‘aha’ moments, so I consider it to be the ‘aha’ moment.

I feel like with my reading, while I haven’t gotten the same number of pages that I typically would, I’ve been able to expand what I do read. Before, I’d just read fantasy or fiction series that I found interesting and would get through in a day or two, but through creative writing and AP ELA, I’ve read significantly more challenging novels that have taken me longer to finish. While my numbers are lower than what they typically are, I’m honestly really happy with the content that I read. What I plan to read next is the rest of Douglas Adam’s ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ series. I only have two books left and I want to finish them before the end of the summer, which shouldn’t be an issue. The best book by far that I have read this semester would 100% have to be Fannie Flagg’s ‘Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café’. It’s one of my favourite books now, and I feel as if I could talk for hours about how brilliant I think it is. It tackles issues of feminism, one’s body image, racism and I could go on! I don’t think I could ever stop talking about how much I love it.  One of the many things drilled into my head this semester was ‘reading improves your writing’ and I’ve finally gotten to the point where I wholly agree. I’ve never been against reading, not in the slightest, but since I would only read the exact same things I never had any chance to improve more than what I had in my writing . By having to read a variety of novels, short stories, and poetry this semester, I’ve finally figured out that it honestly does help you improve. Looking at the poetry that I first posted this semester to what I just posted, there’s been a massive improvement and I have to say that it’s because of reading a variety of different poets and writers this semester for English and Creative Writing.

Coming into this class, I loathed poetry. I couldn’t write it for the life of it, and I hated how everything seemed to be flowery and perfect and every word had three thousand underlying meanings to it. However, thanks to creative writing and the poetry unit that I dreaded with every part of me, I feel like I’ve been able to improve massively and found an appreciation for poetry that I didn’t have before. My plan for writing after this class is some good ol’ fanfiction. Classy, I know, but it’s a pastime that keeps me writing which is always great! I hope that by continuing to write, even if it’s fanfiction, I’ll be able to improve my fiction writing more than what I have and utilize some of the skills that we’ve learned in class.

Unfortunately, I’m not going to be taking creative writing next year. There’s so many electives, yet so few spaces! Even though I’m not going to be taking a creative writing class, I’m still going to be writing as much as I possibly can in order to keep some sanity.

My next steps to improve as a writer would be to continue to read a wider variety of things that will help me gain a better insight into the English language or just help me with structure or how I’m writing these cursed fanfics.