What I Learned Studying Creative Writing and Publishing in NYU’s Creative Writing Program
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Now that I'm a professional book editor who's worked with hundreds of authors on hundreds of books over my career, it all makes sense. I'd been a reader my entire life and was always passionate about telling and engaging with stories, much more than more practical endeavors like science or math. When I went to college, it was my dream to study creative writing. In fact, I looked specifically for colleges that allowed you to major in creative writing as an undergrad, which there weren't too many of, or at a minimum where I could study English and minor in creative writing.
Studying creative writing is such a unique experience, and I was lucky enough to do it in one of the strongest literary communities in the world: New York City. So today, I want to talk about everything my university creative writing experience taught me about writing and publishing and give some personal anecdotes about my experience going through it, including some embarrassing moments.
My Experience Studying Creative Writing in New York
So let me begin by giving you a sense of my experience. I went to New York University in Manhattan and majored in English literature and minored in creative nonfiction. There was also a program for undergrads when I was there that allowed you to complete a certificate in a program from the School of Professional Studies, so I completed a certificate in book publishing.
For my creative writing minor, I took four workshop classes:
Introduction to Fiction & Poetry
Creative Nonfiction
Two master classes in creative nonfiction
I mostly wrote personal essays as my preferred genre.
For my certificate in book publishing, I had a number of publishing and editing-related courses, including:
From Writer to Reader: An Introduction to Book Publishing
Grammar Intensive for Publishing Professionals
The Business of Book Publishing for the Non-Financial Major
How to Be a Book Editor (which was obviously one of my favorites because I am now a book editor)
Digital Trends in the Book Industry
A Career in Copy Editing: Freelancing is the New Black
Outside of the certificate in book publishing, I also took a course called The Basics and the Bold: Fundamentals of Editing Fiction and Creative Nonfiction.
While I was taking these courses, I was also working in the book publishing industry. I had an internship at a top literary agency and I was editor-in-chief of one of NYU's literary magazines. So, I wanted to look back on all of that experience and really think about what I learned from my creative writing and publishing courses.
1. Your Story Won’t Always Land
The first lesson I learned studying creative writing in New York is that your story won't always land, and it's not supposed to. If you're unfamiliar, the way a creative writing workshop works is that each week, or whenever you meet, it will be someone's turn to receive feedback, and all of the other students will read the work in advance and prepare their feedback. Usually, it's somewhere around 10 people; at least that was the size of the groups I was in. Typically, the feedback would be verbal, with the person receiving feedback not saying anything about their work at least until everyone has said their feedback. Sometimes, they will also submit written feedback as well.
The reason why I have this as one of my lessons is because I distinctly remember one experience where the assignment was to write a poem. And by the way, I am very much not a poet by nature, and I was nervous about submitting the poem for these reasons.
We read it to the class, and then the instructor gave his feedback first before the rest of the students, and he had completely misinterpreted what I thought the poem was about. That is somewhat on me — I was trying to go for a metaphorical double meaning, and he was only interpreting it at the surface-level meaning.
I was mortified at first, especially because I couldn't jump in and correct him or defend myself because you're typically not supposed to speak when you're getting feedback. But then, thankfully, another student jumped in and said that they interpreted the poem another way, and it was exactly how I intended.
On the one hand, I felt so embarrassed that my instructor didn't understand what I was going for, but on the other, I was super relieved that my classmate did. I think that was a valuable lesson for me in understanding that everyone is going to respond to a story or any creative work differently. And it wasn't necessarily wrong for my instructor to not pick up on the other meaning; he just had a different experience and understanding of the work. I had to understand that putting a story or a work of any kind into the world would elicit different interpretations and different responses. I think that's a really valuable lesson for any author or anyone working on creative arts in general to understand.
2. Showing Up is Half the Battle
The next lesson I learned studying creative writing is that showing up is really half of the battle, if not the entire battle. In my introductory creative writing courses, especially, it was very clear who was taking the work more seriously and who wasn't really engaging that deeply. They wouldn't submit their drafts on time, or their feedback would be really half-baked, and as a result, they didn't really get much out of the course, I don't think. Even if you have an external deadline because you're in a workshop or course setting of some kind, you still have to have personal accountability. It's essential to be internally motivated and driven; otherwise, the creative work is not going to get done.
I think this applies to writers even outside of the university or creative writing workshop setting. You may be innately very talented, but if you don't show up and put in the time, you're likely not going to be much better off than someone who is continually working on their craft, consistently putting in the time, energy, and effort that it requires, and is constantly engaging with others to improve. One thing that I love about the craft of writing is that you are guaranteed to improve if you sit down and do the work over and over and over again.
3. Writing and Publishing Are Different Beasts
The next lesson I learned from my creative writing courses in New York is that writing and publishing are different beasts. Though they are obviously intertwined, writing and publishing are very separate endeavors that require a separate mindset.
In my creative writing courses, we were encouraged to be experimental and nurture our creativity. We were in New York City, so we were often encouraged to attend events in the literary community. I went to poetry slams for spoken word, I went to story slams like The Moth, and countless reading events.
But in my book publishing courses, on the other hand, we focused on the tangible aspects of selling a book. Who is the reader? Who is going to buy this book? And how is the publishing house going to make money from selling this book? We drafted profit and loss statements where we calculated how much we could offer an author in an advance payment while still being profitable. We drafted jacket copy, marketing plans, and even mock book proposals. We pretended to be literary agents pitching the book to a publisher or a publisher considering a book for publication.
This sentiment of separating writing and publishing is something that is echoed by many authors working today. I think it's important to remember that writing is art and deeply personal in many cases, while publishing is business and ultimately not personal.
4. Writer Friends Are Essential
My final takeaway from studying creative writing in NYC is that writer friends are really essential, no matter what genre you're writing in. Writing is often an intensely personal act. Whether they're based on your life or someone you know or they're entirely made up, stories are often very personal to you, and it's an incredibly vulnerable thing to share that work with someone. So having someone you can lean on to support you through that, and also someone who can give you honest feedback, is so, so important. And I found that workshops are an amazing place to nurture those relationships.
I still keep in touch to this day with one of the friends I made in my creative writing workshop. Our feedback styles were just so aligned, and we understood each other's goals with our own stories so well that we ended up meeting outside of the course setting. We became close and learned a lot of things about each other's lives just through what we were expressing in our stories. To be honest, she knows certain things that some of my other friends outside of the writing realm don't know just because it came up in my work. Because of that, I feel like our relationship is super special. I still remember her stories to this day and she remembers mine, and I know I can lean on her anytime I need an honest, brutal take on some type of creative piece.
It can admittedly be very hard to find writer friends, but if you have them, nurture those relationships and don't let them go.
Thanks so much for reading, and happy writing!