CREATIVE WRITING

at the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in San Francisco

Welcome! CW develops the art and craft of creative writing through instruction, collaboration, and respect. This blog showcases STUDENT WRITING and how to APPLY to Creative Writing.

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  • Inspiration by Zadie McGrath

    Inspiration by Zadie McGrath

    This is the Creative Writing department’s first year with our wonderful new department head, Emily Wolahan—and for me, writing is less stressful than it has been since middle school. 

    For the past two years, I have found myself plagued with writers’ block whenever I receive a Creative Writing assignment. Our teacher starts the timer for a short writing prompt, and all I can do is look around the room and wonder if I’ll have to share out afterwards. Sometimes a sentence might come to me, but I’ll have no idea how to expand. Alternatively, I’ll have an entire world in my head, but be at a loss for how to express it. When I finally decide what to write, I cross out every other word until I’m left with a mangled mess of a page. My aim has always been to write something “good”—something I would be proud to share—even if that would mean putting on a tone I didn’t like, exaggerating my experiences, or using an ocean metaphor for the millionth time.

    For the poetry unit this year, though, Emily has designed a few assignments that have broken me out of my usual writing style. Earlier this week, we read Franny Choi’s “Glossary of Terms,” a poem in which Choi chooses four words and then writes her poem in the form of a chart with columns for meaning, origin, antonym, and so on. Our assignment was to create our own glossary of terms using words that were significant to us. We also did a mini-unit on erasure poetry, a form where you pick words from an existing piece of writing and create a new poem. These form-based prompts create a structure for my poems, a starting point that doesn’t require a flash of sudden inspiration. But more importantly, they take the emphasis off of writing a “good” poem. Few creative writers had experimented with either of these forms before, so we were more focused on muddling through than writing anything profound.

    Our work with form has made me realize that there is no trick to “being inspired.” It doesn’t mean tapping into some hidden well of ideas. It doesn’t mean staring into space until inspiration strikes. Inspiration is not something that simply happens to you—it means taking a word and running with it, writing without any thought of what your piece might become. And even if it means filling my notebook with lines I might never use, I’m loving the opportunity to write down my untailored thoughts.

  • The Smell of Hot Bark by Gabriel Flores Benard

    The Smell of Hot Bark by Gabriel Flores Benard

    Under the tutelage of our new Creative Writing director, Emily Wolahan, Creative Writing began a new, and my last, poetry unit. Unfortunately, the poetry unit had to start while San Francisco experienced one of the worst heat waves I can remember. Ninety-four degrees in San Francisco? Thank you, global warming, it’s always fun to receive your gifts. Anyway, Emily knew that the entire class would be sluggish and unable to think properly while cooking in the heat; she decided to ease us into the poetry unit with a relaxed activity. At the beginning of class, Emily greeted the class and placed a crate of books in the center of the room. Emily told us we were to sift through all the books and find a few we were interested in. Once we did, we could roam about the school and find some shade to read underneath. Although I was hesitant to do any work in that abysmal weather, I was glad we had a laid-back activity instead of an intense analysis of a poem, huddled next to every other tortured, writhing, warm bodies in the room. 

    The books were sprawled across the floor, as were we. Everyone was picking up books, scanning the covers and blurbs, and flipping through the pages to see the poetic structure and any words that leaped out at us. After searching through a few books, I found a poetry collection by Carmen Giménez called Be Recorder. I skimmed through and saw multi-segmented poems, different types of formatting, and allusions to the Bible and Greek mythology. I love experimenting with visual representations of writing, and I adore allusions. I’m quite aware I sound like a huge nerd when I say I love allusions, but I love to see references to familiar works. I took the book and departed for a quiet, empty area to read. I nestled among the wood chips and embraced the smell of hot bark. It’s a familiar scent reminding me of camping, where the temperature soars into the high nineties. I open the pages and tear through the words as if I’ve been starving for days, a camel ravaging a cactus for water. There’s no one to bother me as I tune out the world and ingest poems about revolution, motherhood, growing up, and identity. I stare at the cloudless, electric-blue sky, and can see a child reenacting her parent’s dynamic with dolls, or women with the features of beasts: “Wild girls,” the author repeated. I envision mothers boring their eyes into computer screens, and the seething resentment behind every “sorry.” While left alone in nature, I often read entire poetry collections to pass the time, bathing in the swirl of shade and sunlight. I always look forward to the scent of nature and the barren space devoid of people. Time passes so slowly yet I don’t mind at all. I’m back where I feel most secure, among the arching trees and whistling winds. I’m at peace and I revel in the heat.

  • Eternal Assignments by Claudia Porter

    Eternal Assignments by Claudia Porter

    Creative writing has given me many new friends and relationships. Since the beginning of the year, we have been doing community building activities almost every single day. We are currently in our film poem unit, making short videos and experimenting with props, camera angles and cinematography while incorporating what we already know about writing into our films. For our second film poem assignment, we were to make a short video as a gift to our partner, a randomly selected person in creative writing. I was a little nervous going into this assignment as I didn’t have any prior knowledge on creating videos and short films. The thought of having to put together a video for someone else intimidated me. But as my partner and I began interviewing each other, asking any questions we felt would be helpful in creating our videos, I quickly became very excited not only to make a video, but also to learn more about my partner. 

    My partner and I talked for over an hour, going into detail about our childhoods, our biggest pet peeves, our families and so much more. Before this assignment I had never really talked with my partner, so this experience was enlightening and exciting. Seeing everyone in creative writing bonding with their partners and learning about each other was so much fun. After the interviews, we were given the weekend to create the videos. 

    Over the weekend, I thought about how I would make the video for my partner. I looked over our interview and dabbled in a few different video making websites. Although my video did not look professional by any means, I had a wonderful time creating it and an even better time becoming closer with my partner.  Once the videos were due, they were all put into a folder. The real treat of this project was getting to watch the video that my partner made for me. When I opened the video, I never would have expected what would play before me. My partner had gifted me with a 1 minute animation including my pet rabbit I told her about, with the song in the background being my favorite song from my childhood. Watching this video made me tear up. It brought me back to a simple time in my life and the overall craft of the video was incredibly impressive. This assignment has gifted me with a keepsake that I will cherish eternally, and once again reminded me of the magic of creative writing. 

  • Letting The Mind Run by Sophie Fastaia

    Letting The Mind Run by Sophie Fastaia

    Since the beginning of the year, our whole department has implemented a daily practice into our routines, freewriting for thirty minutes a day. We are currently in our fiction unit, reading short stories and having fruitful discussions about the embedded meaning within a piece of work. In the past, fiction was intimidating, as I’ve struggled to come up with imaginary worlds and scenarios. Sometimes writing from nothing feels messy, like I’m a toddler trying to bake a cake for the first time. The day before yesterday, without thinking, I wrote and ended up with a story about a lonely spirit wandering through space, trying to reconnect with another soul. Yesterday I wrote about a train in the afterlife that led a dead man to an unexpected place. I’ve noticed that the stories I’ve constructed revolve around the metaphysical. Fiction for me is exploring the afterlife, listening in on what the constellations gossip about, and riding the trains that travel through different planes of existence. 

    I have never made writing a daily practice. Writing almost feels like a relationship, as I sit down and allow my thoughts to make themselves at home on the blank document in front of me. The subconscious appears in each piece of work, marking the page with regurgitated events and phrases from the day. Writing sometimes brings a memory that’s been swimming at the bottom of my mind to the surface, allowing me to momentarily go back in time. Each day, as I allow my creativity to have free reign, the thirty-minute timer fades out of view. I end up with stories that capture my attention, ones that refuse to walk along a designated path. I enjoy it when a story is mysterious and ends without all the questions being answered; it simply just ends when it wants to.

  • Art Feeds Art by Raquel Silberman

    Art Feeds Art by Raquel Silberman

    One of my favorite benefits of being in Creative Writing is how in love with art Heather Woodward is. Often class will be positively derailed for a trip to the SFMoMA or the De Young Museum. Just the other week we joined a virtual event hosted by MoAD: “Art As We See It | Indigo Kind of Blue” in which they showcased various pieces of art (all uniquely blue) paired with music. We also had the opportunity to visit the Pacita Abad exhibit in the SFMoMA: a bright explosion of color and human experience that is impossible to unsee. Most of the time, I am so impressed and inspired by each and every visit that I wind up taking others to see it. At the sight of Abad’s underwater paintings, I recounted my dad’s stories of his time working at a tropical fish store. I was reminded of my mother’s painting style when I saw Abad’s portraits. I searched for some of her watercolor paintings of me and my sister the moment I got home. I would immediately message my parents and friends, “We’re coming back here this weekend.” Art Saturday offers any students in the Bay Area the opportunity to see and experience art for free. It was on an Art Saturday trip that I first saw “The Visitors,” a video art piece installation in the SFMoMA. “It made me appreciate being a human again,” my sister described it after going to see it herself. I have begun to think of art as the octopus in one of Pacita Abad’s paintings: a tentacle grasping and sticking to everyone who looks at it, luring us into its realm of inspiration, using its abundance of hearts to make you notice your own.

    Through these spontaneous adventures, I am constantly reminded that art inspires art and I am able to embrace my own art in a new way every time I interact with new art around me. In the Kinship Exhibit at the SFMoMA, we analyzed the way that every distinct relationship a person has with something they love leaves a universal mark on them. I have made it my life’s goal to see that mark on every piece of art I come across. My mind feeds off these heart pumping and gratifying trips, inspiring new connections and leaving me with new insight that I will cherish long after I graduate. Never have I ever been so in love with art than I am now.

  • The Writing Process by Filip Zubatov

    The Writing Process by Filip Zubatov

    In Creative Writing, we have recently begun our fiction unit with an encouraging teacher, Christian Wilburn. We started the unit with perhaps the most important part of writing, the process. The past year and a half I spent in Creative Writing, my work has been inconsistent. Sometimes I would write pieces that I would be extremely passionate about, while at other times, my work would be mundane, unenjoyable to write, and feel low effort. I would just put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, and write just enough so that I would get a decent grade. I’d occasionally have these sparks of inspiration in which I could come up with a piece I would be proud of. What I have recently discovered with Christian is that writing for Creative Writing is a wild safari of demanding patience and practice. The only way one can be consistent in writing is with practice. Heather Woodward, the Creative Writing teacher, has recently assigned daily practice. This entails sitting down at your desk, or on the muni, or wherever you can. Set a timer for 30 minutes, and write. You are not allowed to edit your words and rather wait and see what comes out. To be entirely honest, a lot of my work hasn’t been top tier. A lot of the writing I have put out has been subpar, but many of the ideas have been fresh. The stories I am generating are something I can work with and eventually develop great and intricate stories out of. 

    Christian has taught us the importance of turning off our internal editor. Letting the river in our minds carve a path effortlessly, without dams, and seeing where that thought ends up. In the past I did, and still do occasionally get caught in the arid desert of blank pages, desperately searching for the oasis to push me down that river. All it takes is patience. Patience will always guide you to that river. A practice Christian has taught us for coming up with ideas is to grab a piece of paper and a pen. Write a starting sentence over and over for five minutes until you can get to a phrase you can write without judgment. Christian shared a time in his life, when he had to write the same word for hours on end until he could figure out a direction to go in without thought or judgment. He would let the river flow freely. 

    Creativity has its own rhythm and flow. If you were to approach it with judgment and extreme force, your writing would end up being tangled sentences that smush in with one another. One must trust their words, that every comma and every letter is a prelude to brilliance. You must be willing to not be judgmental. You need to be willing to write without thought, because when the words are on the paper, sincere thoughts will appear.

  • Daily Practice by Tasha Leung

    Daily Practice by Tasha Leung

    I have an unfortunate aversion to any sort of schedule. I know this, and I have known this for as long as I’ve ever been forced to follow a schedule. Whether related to soccer practice or taking vitamins, daily tasks and chores have never been my strong suit. I hate procrastinating, but it’s one of the things that I am best at doing. 

    With this in mind, I assumed that I would absolutely despise having a daily writing assignment. When our teacher told us that we were going to start a practice of open ended, unprompted writing every day, I was ninety-nine percent sure that I would end up staring at an empty google doc, void of ideas. To be sure, the first ten minutes of working on it went exactly as I assumed. I twiddled my thumbs a bit, buried my phone underneath a pile of clothes, and cursed my past self for deciding that I wanted to pursue a career in writing. Yet, miraculously, this exhausting process did not continue into the wee hours of the morning. Despite my near-certain expectation that any creative inspiration would evade me, I found myself only waiting for about ten minutes. I was not writing my best work, nor was I writing anything with a point to it, but I ended up enjoying myself immensely. At first, I had been frustrated because I was stuck with the idea that everything I wrote had to be the best piece of literature known to humankind. Once I got over that idea, and started writing whatever I wanted, I had a lovely time. While I only started writing anything I wanted to spite myself, it ended up working out to my benefit. I think that one of the hardest cycles of thinking to break out of as a relatively young writer is the idea that everything I write has to be revolutionary. Many times, I’ve turned up my nose at my own writing because I see it as immature, overdramatic, or something stupidly high-school level. I get irritated when I don’t write about philosophical or mind blowing topics, but at the same time if I do try to write about something “important” enough, I get depressed at my inability to articulate what I want. I realized that this was also why I aggressively procrastinate so much. I’ve fallen into a trap of believing that if I do an average job at the last minute, I’m proving that I could have done insanely good if I’d had more time. I purposely don’t do my best because I’m afraid of what my limit is. While it definitely was an annoying lesson to learn, having a daily writing assignment emphasized to me the importance of letting yourself write terrible stories.

  • Stories and Their New Meanings by Pascal Lockwood-Villa

    Stories and Their New Meanings by Pascal Lockwood-Villa

    Fiction has always been a favorite genre of mine. Whenever we can work on the craft of fictional storytelling, I always find myself simultaneously excited and intrigued. I am constantly hypothesizing on what we, as a department, could be doing differently from last school year, and the school year before that. This year, what our department head, Heather, has decided to do in order to shake up the formula, is implement two new kinds of assignments: Daily Practices, in which we write for thirty minutes every single day, and annotated responses on stories we haven’t previously read in class before. These stories are what has fascinated me in particular. So far, our current class bibliography includes (but is not limited to): “Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events” by Kevin Moffet, “My Last Attempt to Explain to You What Happened to the Lion Tamer” by Brendan Matthews, and just recently, “The Fog Horn” by Ray Bradbury. These stories are all individual tales that stand out from each other, yet, as a writer I am still compelled to find the similarities. Between “The Lion Tamer” and “Further Interpretations” I was able to identify how both of the main characters are embroiled in situations where they feel lessened, to some extent, by another character that bears no real animosity towards them. This revelation, among others, is exactly why this year’s fiction unit serves as a reminder to all of us Creative Writers; we are only ever done learning when we are done thinking.

  • Something from Nothing by Gabriel Flores Benard

    Something from Nothing by Gabriel Flores Benard

    Under the instructor of our fiction teacher, Christian Wilburn, we have been doing generation exercises in preparation for our final short story project. The goal is to create many different, unfiltered story ideas and let our minds roam, hopefully unearthing a few golden ideas from the rubble. Christian told us to ask questions about preconceived ideas, genres, and overused character tropes and write about “what if” scenarios, leading to the most unusual rabbit holes. Some of my ideas included, “What if a sword screamed at you if you could not wield it correctly,” “What if Santa Claus got drunk on milk during Christmas Eve,” or “What if Heaven was set alight once you walked through the brimming gates?” Some of the rabbit holes consisted of explosive oranges and the logistics of resurrection. The entire process is entertaining yet unusual. 

    One of the most difficult aspects of this assignment that my peers and I encountered was we could not listen to our internal editors as we wrote. We must place every idea we create on the page, including lots of random words strewn together. I’ll be honest, I felt uncomfortable being told that I couldn’t edit as I wrote. My writing style thrives on spitting out a multitude of words and constantly revising my ideas as I continue to write. My process allows me to streamline my otherwise incoherent ramblings into a consistent story. However, being told that you are unable to write in a way that has worked for so long is a bit jarring. I can feel the viscous, sloshing nature of my insides, and the constant desire to correct my work looms over me like a miasma, especially when I know the words I am producing are subpar at best. Regardless, I tried to make it work, and somehow the process yielded some fruitful results.

    Although my Google Doc is littered with a heap of unappealing ideas, there are a few with promise. I love to write about superpowers, and I spend some of my free time reading about the different abilities of fictional characters. My brain cruised through ideas I had already written, and I manifested a superpower. Christian told us that if we had any ideas disconnected from the specific exercises we did in class, we should place them in a designated section of our Google Docs. These ideas were “ideas interruptus,” which is Latin for “interrupted ideas.” Reading that label gave me an idea: an ability to trigger random thoughts in people’s heads at will. I thought about the logistics behind that idea and its possible applications, the limits, triggers, and repercussions of such an ability. I love to theorize about random ideas, and I enjoyed generating ideas once they all revolved around the same one.

    After a couple of days of pouring my brain into a Google Doc, I finally found an idea that I was happy with. These generative exercises remind me that sometimes I must break out of my comfort zone to obtain inspiration.

  • Fiction: The Thin Line Between the Process and Writing by Celeste Alisse

    Fiction: The Thin Line Between the Process and Writing by Celeste Alisse

    Throughout the school year, the Creative Writing Department will have a number of different units: the poetry unit, the playwriting unit,—and my personal favorite—the fiction unit. 

    Fiction, for me, has always been the best part of writing—since I was a kid I thought this. The fact that I can build a whole world in my head, and then realize my vision? Unreal. My favorite part though, is creating relationships between characters, and then developing the characters to the max, until there is no more development for me to assign them other than what is in the plot. Before I applied to Creative Writing, my bedroom walls would always be filled with green and pink sticky notes, scrambled writing all over them. 

    Fiction in Creative Writing is a little different. There are no post-its on the walls—though I’m sure Heather, our director, wouldn’t be opposed to the idea, other than the mess it might make! Instead, fiction in Creative Writing relies heavily on process. Our unit teacher: Christian, has been teaching our department about procedures unique to the writer who undergoes them in preparation to write. 

    At first, we were tasked with researching our favorite author’s writing process. Mine was a screenwriter, best known for introducing the emotional aspect back into horror films. Then, we were given several short stories, to which we wrote responses. After that, there were more assignments, some that seemed pointless at first, but then I began to think about them, and I thought hard. It wasn’t until a few days ago though, that I finally realized the importance of all these lessons.

     Writing is not an easy practice where someone can sit, try their hand, and write a masterpiece–yes I’m sure this has probably happened before, but my point is that it’s not usual. Writing is not even a semi-easy practice, where two rewrites gets you a masterpiece, no. Writing is an art, and just like any other, you have to practice it. Writing is a difficult feat that, when accomplished, makes one feel like they’re on top of the world. 

    I’ve been lucky enough to have a few moments like that. And now, I can understand all the “pointless” assignments: they were to aid us in the practice of our art form, so that we may get to the point where we feel as though we have just achieved the world and greater.