Creative Writing is Creative

You know what drives me crazy? When I complain about writing essays and the people around me respond with “You’re a writer, this should be easy for you.” STFU please, there’s a big difference between essay writing and creative writing. It bugs me so much when people assume because I’m good at writing creatively that I excel at essay writing as well.

I’ve been working on a research paper for the past few months. I hate it with a passion by now. Towards the beginning my English comp. class the 34-year-old guy beside me decided he and I were going to be buddies. Naturally the first things we discussed were writing and English and the like. I really do enjoy English most of the time. I love the library and I love to write. He hates all three of these things. So as soon as we start working on essay writing and the research paper what do you think comes out of his mouth? “This should be easy for you.” Somehow I managed not to smack him.

It’s not that essays can’t be creative. It’s true that a lot of them are very creatively written. But when you’re pushed into the little box called MLA format things get trickier and trickier. I find it stifling to try and convey information that’s somehow relevant to my topic, sum it all up in a sentence or two in the first paragraph and then be constantly worried about format the entire time I’m writing. It’s not my work, it’s barely even my words. I pretty much just steal all my information off different sources and cite it so it’s all legal. Fun? Not really. Creative? Hardly.

When I write creatively everything flows so much better. The page is mine to do whatever I want and I relish the freedom my fingers have to create. I control the world of the story, the poem, whatever, it’s mine and I am in power. No rules, unless I set them myself. No one is going to care if I use contractions or if I break the fourth wall or if my paragraphs don’t start with transitions. As long as the story is good and I tell it well, there will be no complaints.

Do you see the difference now? Restrictions and free range? Information vomit and imagination vomit? Yeah, that about sums it up. I also hate it immensely when I scored less than spectacular on standardized test writing and the comment “I thought you’d do better,” makes an appearance. Again I say, STFU. I’m a artist, not a machine.