Studying creative writing is a worthwhile experience. Each teacher teaches differently and so even if you take tons of different writing courses you will come up with diverse bursts of creativity from within you depending on how you are studying writing.
I always wrote on my own and so by the time I realized I wanted to study writing I was so ready to be around other writers and to have a writers group around me. I got this because I chose to go to an arts school where I could focus primarily on creative writing. It was very exciting to be surrounded by other writers. It was a boarding school and was a high school but it attracted the cream of the cream as far as the young students who went there. Once one of my writing classes had a local public high school visit and the students from a writing class there read their poems and then we read some of ours. There was no comparison. Most of the writing students at my school were really good and had great teachers who had helped them to access their writing voices and it certainly showed.
I definitely did have a sense of writing community when I went to that school. I identified myself as a writer. The different types of artists there grouped together and identified strongly within their own groups. The actors and music people all spent time together as did all the writers and visual artists. It was very exciting for me to be surrounded by other writers. I was seventeen years old when I went to this school. I received criticism from my grandparents for choosing to go there as a post graduate from high school because they had given me the money I spent to go there when I graduated. When it came down to it I didn’t care. They thought I should spend the money on a car but I knew that I needed a year to decide which college I wanted to go to and I wanted more than anything to have a chance to write and only write without having to take other requirements. I took four writing courses per semester at that school plus one visual art course. I don’t think I’ve ever spent a more productive school year. More than anything else in my life, attending that school helped me tap into my writing voice and I had grown incredibly by the time I was finished.
