As a journalism major, I've been concocting non fiction pieces for the past four years. Inverted pyramid. The UNT percussion ensemble performed Tuesday night at the Murchinson Performing Arts Center. Denton's historic Square is hosting the annual Christmas Tree Lighting Friday night. Facts. Concrete, informative facts. I mean, I've had some creative liberties and I've really tried to take them. I always tried to take advantage of the fact that I don't have to start a story with that boring string of facts that'll send any reader's eyes on to the next story. There's the delayed lead, you know. If I can start with a conversation between the audience members that epitomizes that percussion concert, I'm definitely going to do it.
This semester I'm in English 3160: Creative Writing Non Fiction. I didn't exactly understand what that would entail. To be frank, I needed another upper level English course (which I preferred to be writing over literature) and this one fit my schedule. I walk in the first day, surrounded by an array of creative types. There's the guy next to me with a music composition sheet he's scribbling away on. There's the outspoken one near the front. A quiet girl slips in and keeps flipping her head around to observe the other students. And then the professor stumbles inside a few minutes late and starts babbling. I immediately know this is going to be one of those classes I'm never going to forget.
It turns out the professor has her bachelor's in Journalism and her master's in Creative Writing. This REALLY excites me. I'm in an English class, yet the professor is actually going to understand me. Instead of looking at me like: "Yeah, there's that practical writer. How boring is she?" I know that she's going to understand that journalism can be beautiful and artful, too. It's not just news updates. As much as I loathed Feature Writing with Dr. Getschow at first, it's what I've grown to love the most. I loathed it because it challenged me. It pushed me to write more passionately, and encouraged me to reach into the depths of my soul to write a personal essay.
And that is the type of writing that I really want improve on. The one that doesn't require a formula. In fact, it celebrates breaking the rules.
My prof did a mini bashing session on news writing and its formulaicness (yes, there is a red squiggly line under this word that I apparently invented just now, and I'm choosing to ignore it) and I can appreciate that to an extent. No, it's not always attractive, but it gets the job done. (Which is to inform its audience.) She also acknowledged that other areas of journalism can be artistic and can color a little outside the lines.This is where you get into literary journalism, investigative pieces and more New Yorker-type stories.
I'm thrilled to be taking this course. Heck, I'm thrilled to read the textbook. Since it is CREATIVE WRITING, it's actually well-written, witty material. I think it's going to challenge me as a writer. I write about myself a lot here on my blog, but I rarely do in the form of memoir or personal essay. I'm going to have to write about things I don't like to talk about because those are the things that make for the most riveting stories. If I get the guts, I might even share with you some of the pieces that I create.
"What good, alive writing always comes down to is an individual--one person, writing in a way not quite like anyone else's, yet enough like everyone else's (grammar, structure, language, syntax, content, form) that other humans can make sense of it. And past mere sense comes emotion, from the rawest--anger, fear, joy--to the most refined: intellectual pleasure." (The Art of Truth, Bill Roorbach)
And yes, that is from my textbook!
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