Hi, MSB.
I had a conversation with a writer friend IRL recently that gave me pause for thought, and made me interested in what other writer people might have to say on the topic.
RP is writing, in my books, and what better place than to ask than on a writer forum?
My RL friend told me the story of how he first got into writing at the age of 13. The story is not important. My gut reaction however was bafflement. You can get into writing? Honestly, I had no idea. I had assumed that, like me, everyone who's into writing has just instinctively known they were since the day they were born. That for as long as anyone can remember, those of us with the inclination have been telling stories, obsessing over stories, drawing pictures of stories in kindergarten and then folding up little pieces of paper to look like "books" with big, inelegant letters narrating one sentence tales. That we innately like the way that words sound and have always wanted to create our own collage of them.
The friend in question also studied creative writing in university. This too is a fascinating concept to me, because while I've found the advice of other writers useful on occasion, I've never thought to study creative writing because I'm not totally convinced that this is something at its core that you can teach. I never attended creative writing clubs in school, for similar reasons. I just sat and wrote what I wanted/needed to.
For those of you who either:
a) studied creative writing
or
b) got into creative writing at a later age
I am curious to hear your stories. How did it happen? And when studying creative writing, what methodologies did you learn that significantly improved your ability to create? Do you think creativity can be taught, or did it only refine your ability to execute that creativity?
