Teaching Creative Writing

I am in the third week of my third year. My very last year at the University of Winchester, studying creative writing. I can not even begin to tell you how excited I am, how scared I am. But, I don't actually want to focus on those parts of it. What I want to focus on is my degree itself, and how amazing it has been. 

There has been a lot of discussion in Britain as to if creative writing can be taught. In America they seem to already have it sorted out, they offer MAs in it as well as MFAs which people over here seem to have only just gotten to grips with. Britain has often been of the opinion that creative writing comes from the person almost entirely and so no one can teach it. But, walking comes from us, and we can teach that. 

Personally, I think that creation cannot be taught. The drive, the light, the spirit of a creator cannot be transplanted. Their mode of creation, art, science, writing, is also up to them. But once they have found their mode of expression I think it best to help them along it. We would not trust a scientist if he had not had a single lesson. 

There are some lucky, natural writers, but even then they have been taught at least the basics of english. And I believe that they could benefit from taking a class, because education forces us to challenge ourselves and modern writers need that. I offer myself as living proof of this.

At the beginning of my degree I refused to write anything that was not fantasy, and I believed that short stories were worthless to me. I remember being in a class that we had to read a selection of short stories for, I remember turning my nose up at it. I think that a part of me did not truly believe that I needed educating. I thought that I had all I needed in my fantasy books and my fantasy writing. 

Now, two years on, a huge amount of time in the life of a young writer, I am interested in writing something that is not fantasy. In fact, I have already written a few short stories that focus a little more on real life. I want my writing to mean something, I am interested in postmodernism's affect on history, I want to write metafictional pieces, and I want to read anything but fantasy. My writing is intelligent, it has themes and it has a purpose. I still have most of the year to go.

Yet I know it will not be enough. I do not think that a lifetime of studying writing and working in workshops would be enough. I am lucky in that I am going to go on to do a creative writing MA, and after that I am hoping to teach in colleges. It is the only way I can think of that will keep me learning. 

I guess what I am trying to say is that if you are passionate about your art, and you are wondering if it is worth doing a university degree, or an MA, it is. It really is.