Creative writing majors understand the struggle of telling people your major – they always give you that look. You know, the one that has Why? written all over it.
But we can’t say we regret it because working towards becoming a writer has its pros and cons, making college a whole lot more interesting:
1. Everyone thinking your major is useless.
Friends who are finance or business majors have told us (passive aggressively) that there’s basically no point to our major. We wish they could understand that writing does take a lot of work and that we’re not necessarily looking for a billion dollar career, but a lifestyle that we actually look forward to.
2. “But what are you going to do with that?”
Um… how about write? I thought it’d be pretty obvious in the title of our major, but okay.
3. Poetry readings with pizza and beer.
Poetry readings can be nerve wracking but surprisingly fun the first time. We get inspired by the work of our peers and take the opportunity to share our work as well (even if it’s probably horrendous). And let’s not forget pizza and beer.
4. Finding your own clique.
Within the creative writing major will be small cliques of friends from the beatnik hipsters to the slam poets and we can’t really join them unless they take interest in us first – usually through an invitation to a public poetry reading. Sometimes, we’ll just throw in the towel and form our own group.
5. The workshop struggle.
Sharing our work in a workshop to be critiqued by everyone in the class is one of the hardest things we could ever do as writers because we’re literally getting our pieces – that story we spilled blood and tears over – broken apart in a million different angles.
6. That one person in said workshop who seems to hate us.
Though this person will try to make it seem like they mean well with their critiques of our work, we can tell how they really feel through the condescending tone of their voice: What the f*ck is this? And why the f*ck are you here?
7. Convincing our parents that being a lawyer is not in your future.
Or a doctor or a CEO or a neurosurgeon. It’s just not happening. Even if our siblings are taking those jobs and actually making them proud.
8. Wondering what we’re doing here.
Sometimes, we tend to wonder if being a creative writing major was the best decision because we understand how risky it can be and we want to be successful with it.
9. Constantly doubting our writing.
It’s like what Ernest Hemingway said in Midnight in Paris: “If it’s bad, I’ll hate it because I hate bad writing, and if it’s good, I’ll be envious and hate all the more. You don’t want the opinion of another writer.” We’re always doubting our own work no matter how great the compliment.
10. “Don’t you dare write about me!”
We’ll always have people in our lives who either want us to write about them or would have our heads on a silver platter if we ever even allude to them in our stories.
11. The hipster professor.
This is that one professor, the ultraliberal pseudo-Rastafarian hipster who eats all things organic and has us reading books by Neil Degrasse Tyson in order for us to understand the importance of putting fundamental science into our stories… and will rip us ten new a**holes if we fail to do that.
12. The terrifying reality of working on a novel.
There will be a point in time where we’ll realize we’re going to write a book. At first, it’s an exciting thing but when we start working on it, we freak out because oh sh*t we’re working on a novel! Writing a novel is like going on a roller coaster.
You’re scared sh*tless at first and entire ride is intense, but once you’re done, you want to go again.