Creative Writing about London

From the time I was little I have loved to write. I still have the diaries that I filled with little descriptions about my days and my fights with my sister. Unfortunately, I stopped keeping diaries as I got older but I always enjoyed blogging and writing about my thoughts and experiences when I had the chance.

I never thought that I would be a journalism student in college until the middle of my senior year of high school. Yeah, I was in the newspaper club in fifth grade but that wasn't too inspiring. I always dreamed of becoming a teacher or a rock star. Those both seemed like very attainable dreams.

Alas, here I am, a junior in college and a Media Studies, Journalism and Digital Arts major at St. Michael's College. And you know what? I couldn't be happier!

I've really grown to love the MJD program at St. Mike's and I'm missing it like crazy now that I'm away in London for the semester. I wrote for the school newspaper, The Defender, last semester and it was a great experience. I loved reporting on local, national and campus news and my fellow staff members became like family to me. We spent long hours writing, editing and laying out the paper and I learned so much from that class.

Now I'm in London and I'm doing something much different than reporting the news in AP style...

Creative writing.

I wasn't initially enrolled in Creative Writing about London. I ended up switching my schedule around during registration when I first arrived and that was one of the courses that got added to it.

I was a little nervous to write creatively after becoming so used to writing for journalistic purposes, but after looking through some of the writing activities we would be doing, I was really looking forward to it.

My class is St. Mike's sized which is small, but not too small. We meet in a classroom at the Wells Street campus for three hours each week and our module leader is name Kate. She's really awesome and I'm not going to lie, even though I know she'll read this, I love her bright pink hair! I've never had a professor or "lecturer" who is as down-to-earth as she is.

Our class is made up of study abroad students (mostly from America) and we're all girls. It's been so amazing to hear the development in all of our writing since the beginning of the module, and something I really admire is how easy it is for us all to share. I feel like we've had an atmosphere of trust in the classroom since day one and that's really ideal for a creative writing class.

We've covered everything from characterization to subtext, registers, plot, narrative, dialogue and setting. I feel as though the activities we were assigned really helped my writing flow in a creative way, instead of in the formal and accurate way I'm so used to.

Our grade is made up of our 3,000 word short stories and our blog, which is why I have been sticking to posting at least once a week. I've mentioned the class a few times but I usually write about London and my weekend trips instead of particular writing activities we've done in class. I figured that this would be a good opportunity to reflect on the course as a whole because this Thursday is our final class.

I'm kind of sad that it's ending because I don't want to lose my drive to keep writing and imaging things based off of my surroundings, whether I'm in London or back home in the states.

I feel as though the detailed descriptions in my blog posts were really inspired by the work we've been doing in class. I'm even writing my short story based off of my personal experiences in London and I'm referring back to my blog posts for inspiration. They've been giving me great ideas and I'm really thankful that I wrote so much over the past few months. I'll always have those posts to look back at and remember the way I was feeling and the places I got to see during my time here in London.

It's definitely hard to stay inspired to keep a journal or to blog about your experiences, especially when they don't seem too out of the ordinary, but it's really fulfilling if you do. I'll probably be sharing my short story on here soon and you may recognize some of the things I wrote as experiences I've had since January.

As always, thanks for reading!

xx Sheila