Creative writing, I would say: the heart and soul of writing. But what is it? A representation of the author? Is it something completely different? I always seem to notice that an author illustrates a character or situation that relates to their life, whether past, present, or future. But you have to be wondering, why? Why write about something in fantasy? Why, in concept, am I writing this at all? Writing is all about the big questions: who, what, when, where, and how. Who is being represented, what is it about, when is it being established and when is the timeline, where is the setting, and how did the author come up with this book’s concept. But the main question I’ve had is why don’t I see writers come into the writing center for creative writing?

As the writing center we take in all writing, whether the student chooses or a teacher asks the whole class to come in. But in a classroom full of 27 writing center tutors, only about 2 have gotten writers with a creative writing piece from this year. I, personally, think that going to the writing center with any of creative writing I had written is, in a way, terrifying. A person looking over your work, critiquing it, but also, I think it would be great practice if one were to actually write for a future job. See, as a writer you need to not be afraid to share work, but it seems that students are scared, or maybe they under estimate how the writing center could help. Or maybe it’s that we really don’t have that many students that are creative writers, that we, as students, don’t have time to write for ourselves. 

So what can we, as writers, do to encourage students to come to the writing center as a creative writer? We could promote it on our site or in english classes, but maybe instead of encouraging students to come into the writing center, we encourage them to write for themselves. Although you should come to the writing center as well as write by yourself, I feel as if teachers should encourage students to continue writing outside of school and english classes. They could do this by talking about it, picking out students that seem particularly interested in writing and talk to them about it, or put up papers on a bulletin board talking about the positives of the continuation of writing outside of school. 

Creative writing seems to slip from a students mind because of how focused we are on tests and homework, teachers and schools don’t give time for someone to sit down and not stress. But we can try and get some writers to sit down and do what they enjoy.