Going to uni for English lit & / or creative writing is wonderful & useful in a lot of ways but I honestly think it's not great for creativity. You're taught that only a certain type of writing is worthy & for me that meant for years I was too afraid to write "wrong" or "bad".

Your whole experience of storytelling shifts from "how does this make me feel?" to "how is this constructed? what does it mean? what is it saying? how successfully is it doing that?" and exercising that analytical muscle is GREAT but it also kinda strips away the joy of creating?

You start coming at your own writing with "what's the most literary way to build this? what is this really trying to say? do I have a worthy enough point?" instead of just doing the thing because it's fun and you want to and that's enough. Sometimes it feels all brain & no heart.

I left uni 5 years ago and it's only in the last few months I've begun to enjoy writing again, to feel it come easy & realise that if I WANT to write trashy spooky sexy melodramatic stories that will never be up for ~literary prizes~ THAT'S TOTALLY FINE, as long as *I* enjoy it.

This thread brought to you by my desire to write a short story about growing babies in vases on mantelpieces and my brain immediately going "ok but what new and novel thing are you trying to say about ~FeMiNiSm~ with this???"