(First published in SCAN: Student Comment and News)
When choosing my degree, the only viable option was Creative Writing. I simply couldn’t do anything else. All I have ever been remotely good at is writing. Everyone advised me against it. It was pointless. It was a bit pretentious. It was impractical. It wasn’t going to get me a good career.
Stubbornly, I sent my UCAS applications off anyway. Sorry, Mum and Dad.
I went to a lot of open days, and the thing I realised pretty quickly is that most universities will sell a creative writing degree to you as some sort of wistful romantic daydream. I distinctly remember a member of admissions staff at an open day telling me and a room of other young starry-eyed hopefuls that “a writer’s life is a dog’s life, but it’s the only life worth living”. Her words, ripped straight from a motivational poster on Pinterest, commanded this intense power over me because, like I said, all I ever wanted to do was write. I envisioned myself living in some sort of romantic squalor, with my minimal contact hours and my hopes of being the next Virginia Woolf, because seventeen-year-old me was arguably unstable, utterly directionless, and deluded into the myth of the suffering artist, of the mad poet scrawling away for hours by candlelight, which so many universities seemed to indulge in and promote.
I’m happy to say that, at Lancaster University, I found none of this fluff. And that’s what I’m here to debunk in this article. Let this be your practical and unpretentious guide on what to actually expect on a Creative Writing degree.
At first, you might have your doubts. In the first few weeks of your degree, when you’re a bright-eyed innocent little fresher, you will hear the term “Mickey Mouse Subject” quite a lot. And you will be bashed over the head with the fact that creative writing is Worthwhile and Definitely Not a Mickey Mouse Subject. Pretty soon, you’ll start to believe that if your degree’s USP is that it isn’t completely useless, then unfortunately your degree is, most likely, completely useless. But stay with me here- it’s going to get better.
The myth of arts degrees being a little bit pretentious and predominantly pointless simply isn’t true. In fact, creative writing degrees are absolutely worth it, and here’s an extensive list of all the reasons why:
The module choices are amazing.
Experimental poetry? Writing for radio? Short fiction? Penning your first novel? Lancaster’s creative writing modules are truly wonderful and cover pretty much everything you could ever want to study. Short modules are a great way to meet new people and try out different forms of writing which you might not have ever attempted before. You will have the freedom to be playful and curious about what makes you tick as a writer. And you’ll meet other students who, like you, will be trying new forms of writing for the first time, which makes it all a little less nerve-wracking when it comes to sharing your work.
You have more freedom than you could have ever imagined.
Presuming you’ve combined your Creative Writing degree with another subject, such as Literature or Language, you’ll have about ten contact hours a week. Whilst this can seem microscopically small at first, you’ll quickly get to grips with the process of independent learning, and all that extra time will fly by as you fill it with extracurricular activities, socialising and (of course) an awful lot of writing and reading. You could also try out the Writer’s Society, where you can polish your writing up a little bit before seminars, or the Poetry Café Open Mic nights. At Lancaster, there are so many chances to become used to the daunting process of sharing your work.
Your creative writing workshops
The creative writing workshop is basically a weekly two-hour-long seminar in which a group of about ten students bring their writing and give and receive feedback. They’re a vibrant and welcoming place to meet other young writers and share your work. It was in these weekly workshops that I finally found the confidence to share my stories, to confront my anxiety about reading out my own work, and to open myself up to the experience of being part of a creative community of equally-anxious but wonderfully talented humans. See, almost everyone on a Creative Writing degree will tell you that they have this deep fear of not being good enough, as most artsy types do. But being able to find kindred spirits in your workshops and share stories and feedback together is the most wholesome and affirming experience. You’ll start to feel that, yes, you are good enough. Your writing isn’t terrible, and you do have a shot at getting published after all.
You’ll meet friends for life in your seminars.
Now, I’m not going to lie- you’re definitely going to meet some… interesting people on your creative writing degree. You will meet the person who tells you that, actually, they are intentionally trying to write badly, because their main character is illiterate. You will meet the person who will argue vehemently (synonyms are your best friend now) with the tutor, because their mum really liked their poetry, so they’re absolutely under no circumstances going to change it. But you will also meet that little group of friends who will invite you for coffee and writing dates in town, and that girl whose insanely beautiful poetry will make you well up with tears when you’re sat staring at Moodle at 3AM, and the quiet boy who worked so hard to overcome his anxiety about submitting what you think is one of the most talented and wonderful pieces of flash fiction you have ever read. This isn’t just your average seminar- it’s a support group, a wholesome and creative space and an intimate bunch of friends all at once, and it’s going to throw you in headfirst and introduce you to some brilliantly talented young writers who will make you realise that “networking” is just a grown-up term for making friends who love the same things as you.
The sheer volume of writing will prepare you for that dreaded dissertation
Creative writing students are some of the most dedicated and hard-working people I have ever met. So, when third year rolls round and brings with it the inevitable looming fear of the 10,000-word dissertation, Creative Writing students aren’t even sweating it- we’ve been banging out portfolios for the last two years of our degree that, when combined, amount to about 15,000 words a year in total. A dissertation seems much less daunting when you’re a little more confident in your own abilities to confidently sustain talking about topics for such a long amount of time.
I’m now entering into the third year of my English Literature and Creative Writing degree, and I’m so incredibly excited for what this year is going to bring. And now I understand that a writer’s life doesn’t have to be a dog’s life at Lancaster. The time has come to destroy the idea of the suffering writer, the mad artist and the lonely poet- because at Lancaster, you’re only going to find a wholesome, inspiring and brilliantly talented community of fellow writers who will make you realise that, yes, a writer’s life really is the only life worth living, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.