Allen Shen, Journal 6

From the beginning, writing a short story was very much writing a memoir. I was, again, confident in my academic or technical writing ability, but felt as if I felt short on the creativity and imaginative aspects of creative writing. Additionally, like memoir writing, albeit less so, writing fiction felt a bit pointless, but this time it was with a different flavor. Like memoir writing, I wasn’t exactly sure why I was writing short stories aside from the fact that I had to for an assignment. Instead of writing because I had something to share, I felt like I was writing just because I was told to, and I’d imagine that decreased the quality of my writing. Unlike memoir writing, the purpose of short stories is a bit more straightforward: the main purpose is to entertain, and you can fully embrace the extent of your fictitious imagination. 

I said for memoir writing that I enjoyed reading other people’s memoirs, and the same applies here. What is even more remarkable about the short stories is that I had to read all of them, thus had the opportunity to read more classmates’ work, and since fiction and fantasy were allowed, the short stories were shockingly creative, at least to me. I recall someone in class said something along the lines of “I didn’t realize how uncreative I was,” and while I wouldn’t put it so negatively, that more or less echoes what I felt as well. Even though my writing was probably more “well-written” than my fellow classmates, I’d imagine most of theirs is probably more entertaining than mine simply due to their superior imagination. 

I will say regardless of my frustrations with creative writing in general, this definitely provided some reflection opportunities, particularly regarding creativity and lifestyle, and once the class is over I’ll probably have more.