the second arc of my writing journey (even this feels pretentious)

today was my first proper day of college (sixth form) and my first class was "creative and professional writing". i started writing at a very young age and continually developed to the point where i was writing semi-popular fanfiction and wattpad. i was 12/13 so i wasn't exactly self-aware of how bad or cringe my writing was, i just did it because i loved it. 

however, when secondary school got in to full swing, i stopped writing because i had no motivation and i also felt that every single piece of fiction i wrote was disgustingly cringey. i haven't been able to overcome this to this day. i still write a lot, but mainly stick to non-fiction such as music reviews or lyric analyses. for the past maybe 4 years i haven't been able to write a good piece of original fiction without wanted to rip my skin off due to cringe.

it's not the content of my writing that i find inherently cringey, it's the act of being creative and feeling horribly pretentious any time i use a metaphor. fiction writing is all about putting your ideas and creativity into motion, but i've felt for the longest time that everything i write will come off as pretentious or just be really awful.

our first task in class today was 5 minutes of free writing. that was fine because it didn't need to be fiction, i jut rambled on about music and how it conveys meanings (clearly i'm most comfortable writing expressive pieces about the things i enjoy). but our second task was to write an article piece about "how and why i write". immediately i knew i'd feel so horribly pretentious no matter what i wrote, but i had to do the work.

i ended up being somewhat okay with what i wrote, even though it still seemed really over the top and cringe. i structured it as almost a long form poem, and used a lot of nature metaphors. it's the first thing i've wrote in a while that i think is alright. 

i suppose being a writer is all about being pretentious and pouring your soul into your work. i'm fine with doing it in a non-fiction setting, it's when i have to write fiction or poetry that i seize up and feel ashamed to use a fucking simile. i think i'm afraid of being judged, or people thinking that i'm cringey or trying too hard.  i seem to forget that my first piece of published writing was an sdr2 soudam fanfiction. 

my teacher is the bard of the city i attend college in. he's won numeorus slam poetry awards and loves what he does. he's truly the most cringe and pretentious type of writer in my eyes! (i mean this lovingly). yes he'll look at my work, but with constructive criticism rather than plain judgement. even if it's shit or pretentious he can't say that. i just need to get over this baseless fear holding me back from actually being a good writer.

i always wanted to write fiction. my dream since i was probably 5 has been to be a novelist and write the next hitchhikers guide or norwegian wood. funnily enough, my teacher was the same, but after writing a novel that he said was crap, he realised his writing talents lay elsewhere. i'll always dream of writing the next big fiction book, but i think i'll always be more comfortable writing non-fiction pieces of music or media journalism. 

maybe next week i'll give poetry a try. who knows. today is the second arc of my writing journey. the lessons are only until christmas, but i'll take what i learn with me and continue writing what i can.