When applying for Creative Writing, my biggest doubts about the department were the two mandatory performances: Poetry in the Fall and Playwriting in the Spring. In middle school, I was painfully introverted, and even attempting to answer a question in class was worrisome. When my first show season at SOTA started, I was caught up in the rush of preparation for our performance (Line After Line!) without really understanding what I was getting myself into. Despite this, rehearsal week for the poetry show remains one of my favorites of last year– being full of stress, yes, but also camaraderie, departmental traditions, and ridiculousness. Leading up to the performance, I had this notion that somehow I was going to be the weak link of CW and therefore would let everyone down– or worse, be forgotten about entirely. I think it was not until after the second semester Playwriting show, Nineteen-Play-ty-Four, that I not only was relatively okay with being on stage, but also hungered for more opportunities to do so. 

CW had our first official Open Michael a week or so ago, at the International Youth Library on Valencia Street. Though the setting was relatively laid back, I somehow managed to find time and room to stress about it. In the past, I’ve constantly thought and reworked the things I’ll say, do, and how I’ll react to anything at all. If the open mic had been last year, I don’t think I could have brought myself to read. I didn’t even manage to share my work at our classroom Open Michaels during freshman year; something I have more recently come to regret. But the more time I’ve spent in CW, with my cohort of wonderful Sophomores, the more comfortable I’ve become in my skin as a writer. 

There’s something about the atmosphere of Creative Writing, cultivated over years and years of shared vulnerability, that allows even the shyest of people to come out of their shells. I was one of those people, and still am sometimes, but that’s not what the performances are for. They don’t change you into someone you are not, even though it may feel like that when you’re smiling under a stagelight at a lot of people you don’t know and can’t see very well. Although performance can be extremely daunting, CW shows and open mics allow people who may not speak up or share their thoughts on other occasions to be seen and heard. They let writers be appreciated for what we do and who we are.

When I first came into creative writing I hadn’t had a good experience when analyzing texts with other classmates. My first language is Spanish which already made things difficult as I could not enjoy English texts and was often behind in my assignments. Yet due to a speech impediment making it so I cant roll my r’s it also got me bullied when talking in Spanish and would get me last pick on what paragraph I would read in school. Even if such kids could not speak Spanish themselves and refused to learn, thinking it was below them. Many years later when I finally became fluent in English I was bullied for using Spanish phrases for example “double ended knife”  which is correct in Spanish, but in English you would say double edged sword. All of these experiences had made it so nerve wrecking when discussing poems in creative writing during community weeks. Even if everyone was nice and welcoming I still expected to be teased and ignored by my peers. Thereby I practiced what I would say in my head over and over until it was engraved in my mind and tongue.

Yet of course one day I had a bad day as we all have once in a while and when I have a bad day my mind immediately starts thinking in Spanish. And guess what we were doing that day? You guessed it, discussing poems from our sophomores. This specific poem had interesting punctuation and formatting. At that moment an idea about punctuation came over me like rain over a marigold garden. But my brain could not find the word for that peskey little dot that is necessary in most if not all writing works ; a period. So my mouth being faster than my brain decided to call it a “final point” which is correct in Spanish. When I came to realize what I had just said my heart fell into my stomach as I expected to be corrected and teased. It never happened though, actually someone bounced off from what I said. After being perplexed at how no one teased me, I finally decided to let loose and ask questions when I did not understand a word or phrase. For the other writers in the room it might have meant nothing, but for me that meant everything.

Although Creative Writing is a small department in comparison to the other departments at RASOTA, sometimes it can be difficult to get to know your peers that are not in your grade. That is why the buddy collaborations are so fundamental to the tight-knit community that is fostered within Creative Writing. 

Every year before we dive into the semester, there are community weeks in Creative Writing. During community weeks, there are a number of activities and traditions that bring everyone closer together. Community weeks help us get to know the new freshmen, as well as strengthen our existing connections with fellow creative writers. One of my favorite parts of community weeks is getting assigned a buddy. Usually, upperclassmen are assigned lowerclassmen buddies, but occasionally there are trios or buddies of the same grade. Regardless, I have always thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent with my buddy and getting to know them on a deeper level. 

Soon after being assigned a buddy, the buddies are required to formulate an idea for a buddy project and execute their idea. The only barrier that comes with this project is that it must include some form of writing. I’ve always loved how broad this prompt is, because it leaves space to be creative and expressive in a variety of mediums. These can include short films, songs, poems, or letters. This is the time to show your buddy how writing is intertwined with your life and hobbies.

For my final buddy project, my buddy and I created a multi-media journal. We wrote poems about fellow creative writers’ favorite songs, SF locations, and movies. This journal was a reflection of our community as a whole, and a great way to get to know my buddy as well as all of our peers. It was an absolute pleasure to get to know my buddy, who is two grades below me, and I’m excited for future generations of CW to experience this too!

I was sitting in the same room. Twenty new faces, yet I hadn’t looked at a single one. There’s a famous idiom that comes to mind when recalling this moment: you can either see a glass as half full or half empty. I’m a strong believer in how thoughts can completely control your perception of reality. Therefore, I hadn’t gained twenty freshmen; I had lost ten seniors: seniors who were my best friends, seniors who could, without a doubt, make me laugh—quite uncontrollably at that—and seniors who often became a reason for coming to school. So, how could I acknowledge the replacements for all of those presences? This was my perception of the entirety of the freshman class, up until I was partnered up with a freshman named Marcus.

Now, Marcus and I didn’t have many traits and hobbies in common. However, as we brainstormed for our collaborative project, we ended up choosing a viral baking challenge.

Now, the success and enjoyment of the project are not what I’d like to focus on. Rather, having such a great time with Marcus helped me realize it was unfair to categorize all these new faces as “replacements.”

The following day, I showed up to class with a bit of a different perspective. As I walked through the doorway, the pain of remembering that a few of my closest friends had left still hit hard; however, I did not let that block my view this time. I am a strong believer that thoughts control your perspective on life. So in my case, a little open-mindedness helped me realize the creativity, spirit, happiness, and community the freshman class brings to the room every day. So I made a promise to myself at this exact moment to try to show a fraction of it back. In this moment, I ended up realizing that’s what this community does. Our creative writing class is so naturally bonded that the students end up becoming so close with one another, and it’s all through natural human interaction. Human chemistry.

Sure, I may still walk into Room 237 and feel a bit of heartache, but that won’t stop me from enjoying so many exciting connections. I’ve learned to come to terms with the fact that the seniors have graduated, and I still miss them very much, but I can call this chapter of my life acceptance. The graduated seniors have showed me how great the creative writing community is, and the freshmen class have reminded me that it is still growing.

Since I started in Creative Writing, most of the time I sit around a table or a comfortable place, sharing my poem with a small group of people, where after analyzing it I receive useful feedback. I’ve improved a lot thanks to this community. Now I always make sure to show a great extent of my identity as a writer through deep thoughts and reflections of all kinds, or I just write because I need to as a way to vent anything I want to talk about. Basically, I’m a writer who likes to experiment with a variety of themes and formats, even more in poetry, the perfect way for my feelings to be projected. Although I feel very confident in my poetry skills, it’s been hard for me to vocally share my pieces the way I want to, so I don’t usually participate in Open Michaels, a class event where people share their poems vocally. I guess I’ve got used to keeping my words only on the pages where I know a limited amount of people will have access to them, and if I publish them I wouldn’t need to see new faces reacting to my performance.

 After summer, our grade was assigned to do a presentation about our identity where a poem was included and you had to read it out loud. Of course I was nervous because the poem I was presenting wasn’t memorized, different from shows where I correct my pronunciation and pauses to make sure everyone is able to understand. But then I realized that I’m a sophomore and in this community mistakes are more than forgiven. The day of the presentation when I was presenting my poem everything went smoothly, and I received a lot of constructive and positive feedback from everyone. As always, not everything was perfect, but I was able to get off my chest something that mattered to me without solely sticking to a few people. This was the start where part of my poetry changed to be more performative, and I love it.

 You don’t need to wait for a workshop to share your message, at any place and time you can take out your piece of work and start reciting. I can’t wait for the part of the year where Open Michaels are scheduled. As writers we might always have doubts about our work, but trust me, in this community everyone will always support you and try to help you overcome those struggles. Over time you will be able to build a lot of confidence and encouragement not only toward your work but also toward yourself.

As sophomore year begins and my friends and I have a year of experience at creative writing, a lot of us have begun to write novels. This is the goal of many writers, but it’s often never reached, or for us, reached only in senior year, when we have to write our thesis. I started writing my novel this summer, then forgot about it for a couple months, and I’m only now coming back to it because so many of my friends are working on similar projects.

Having a group of writer friends all trying to achieve the dream is really helpful when I’m writing. We’ve all decided to form a sort of writer support group, which is really just planning writing days, promising to edit each other’s novels once they’re in good enough shape to be seen by the public,  and complaining about the menaces of our projects together. We try to schedule days where we all clear our schedule and write in silence together, which sounds weird, but it works, I swear. Some of my most productive days have stemmed from setting aside all this time and knowing my friends will eliminate any distractions until I’m writing, as I would for them. It’s also fairly common for one of us to ask each other random questions that only make sense when you consider the genres of our projects (dystopian, horror, and some sort of historical fantasy, I believe). Like, a couple of months ago, Aubrey asked if we all go on a trip to Glen Park together so he could find the best place in the park to kill a monster. Or, a few weeks ago, I asked Tanner to help me figure out the best way to injure a character during a protest in an unfortunately-not-really-that-far-future dystopian take on San Francisco. It’s also great when I’m so done with writing, because chances are someone else is too, and then we can commiserate. Generally, having friends that are writing is the best when one decides to embark on a mystical, frequently discussed journey such as novel writing, and I’m so grateful that I’ve found all these wonderful writers in Creative Writing.

Creative Writing has helped me grow as a person and a writer. Creative Writing may seem like a “boring” or “uninteresting” department out of all of them in SOTA but I promise you that this department will blow your mind. This department is the reason why I come out of bed in the morning because nobody judges, nobody truly cares about how you look, speak, think, or just how you express yourself. This place helped me overcome my fear of sharing my work to others and being around new people. Creative Writing helped me so much as a writer alongside as a person, helping me with new techniques and how to think more about not what I’m writing, but how people will interpret it.

Creating Writing has such a great and helpful community that it doesn’t feel like a classroom, but just a big hang out group that learns new things about each other and how we express ourselves. Our writing is like reading a language you already know but in a different way, each story or poem taking us into a different world inside each other’s minds and showing people how we operate behind our flesh and bones. 

SOTA is not just any normal high school, it’s a place where you could laugh and make memories all in one building, and our department makes those memories come to life and stick with us until we graduate.

Before joining Creative Writing, my experience in different formats of writing was very dim. I knew there were other types of writing out there and I wanted to know the beauty of them. You see, writing has always been and always will be a passion of mine. It’s been a way of expressing myself and my thoughts, and how those thoughts define me. When I joined Creative Writing, I thought we would come into class and just write. I didn’t realize all of the different texts, authors, and poems that we would be analyzing. It almost felt like a culture shock, and I loved it. Not only did I adore the different types of writing that we were analyzing, but I also admired the ones behind these writings and poems. And don’t even get me started on the writing prompts we are given, amazing! These prompts helped me open my mind to all sorts of ideas and how I can incorporate those ideas into my writing. Creative Writing really helped me unlock a door in my mind that was so difficult to unlock at first, and I love it. It also opened me up to accept more criticism when it came to my writing. It helped me understand how other people interpreted my writing and what it meant to them. Not only that, but the people in the CW department are incredibly welcoming and unique. They all have their distinct way of writing that makes them, them, and I admire it so much. Hearing their writing and analyzing also helps me grow inspiration for  my own writing and how I want to make it distinctly, me. Although I haven’t been in CW for super long, it is one of the best environments that I’ve been in. It has helped me in so many different ways, like my confidence, my writing, and how I express myself in my writing. All in all, CW has become a space where I feel like I can convey my emotions and my ideas into writing, and get positive feedback on it.

The senior thesis process is a long, but invigorating process. It requires a lot and it needs your attention. The senior thesis is a work we pull together, both old and new things we write. Be it fiction, poetry, screenplay or playwriting, you choose some that speaks to you and take it to the end. You have to be a stickler for it, you have to be sure and proud of it because it’s something you’re going to work on the whole year and your main goal for your senior year in Creative Writing. Personally, I chose poetry. It was something that did not resonate with me at the beginning, but as soon found out it was a hidden gem. I started over the summer, taking inspiration from everything around me and from the places I traveled to. I played with themes and forms of writing, looking at how I changed to meet what I had envisioned when I first heard about a senior thesis. It can sometimes feel forced, because you have deadlines and other things going on but once you find a good flow it gets easy. 

Like I said, it requires a lot of you, but it also requires peers around you. Friends and family. You rely on them to give you feedback and give you observations you were oblivious to. You’re invested in what you’re writing and what your peers are writing. We get spaces to discuss and challenge each other. And while this is very intimate thing, it knits stronger bonds between us, we get to know each other deeper. But there is no time when you cannot access the support system we have. There is lots of help in the process, so you’re never alone!

To finalize the second week of school, The Creative Writing Department went on a field trip to the SF MOMA. We were assigned to find a piece we related to, and to write a poem inspired by it- So we drifted through the Muni downtown, and dispersed throughout the museum, inspecting each piece through our own interpretation. The Freshman had come up with the plan to walk around downtown afterwards, get boba, maybe go to Blick Art Supplies. So as soon as everyone had relocated themselves to the museum entrance, we started to ramble our way to the nearby park. Little to our knowledge, a colossal Pokemon convention had sprung into full action, taking downtown into its arms. So we held onto each other’s backpacks, leading a string of writers through a crowd of Pokemon enthusiasts, and eventually made our way to the park. We settled down under an empty play structure, bags outsprawled across the ground, eating stale popcorn. Over the break, we had all worked religiously over our summer homework, and in the middle of a Pokémon convention downtown, the only plausible thing to do was to read each other our summer poems. So one by one we each read out loud our stories, our poems, and each time concluded in an applause of gratification, of community. We even attracted an audience, consisting of a 9 year old named Cashmere who wanted to spend his time in the park listening to poetry. 

In Creative Writing, you can imagine how much everyone loves what they do. Whether you’re in the Department classroom, on the Muni, or even in the middle of a Pokemon convention, you’ll never stop thinking like a writer. As I now type this at my bathroom sink whilst brushing my teeth, I reference Roland Barthes, “Writers are on holiday, but their muse is awake.”