Timber Creek’s new creative writing club is popular among future writers. The purpose of the club is to create connections, to give writers ideas and to grow authors in their writing.
“This club is about the way we can express ourselves with our writing. It’s an outlet for most of us because we like to write and express ourselves with writing and we want others to see it too and we like to help each other out with our own writing,” says member Alex Rios. She is the secretary for the club and her role concerns writing down everything that gets done and keeping everyone on task.
Many of the students involved in the club feel that by writing they can finally express how they feel. It is a way to let emotions out in a healthy way and turn it into something beautiful.
“I love having control over the worlds I create,” Sarah Ulery comments about why she likes to write. “I very much hate change so being able to manipulate the words — and not just the words, the characters and their thoughts and their actions and everything that goes on — it’s calming.”
Members of the Creative Writing club talk through their writing and gather ideas from others. It’s a friendly environment where they share what they feel without fear of being judged. They enjoy helping each other with their writing; this club is built specifically for growing writers.
Ulery, one of the co-presidents of the club, explains why she decided to start it.
“I had Mr. J[asso] last year, and he and I butted heads sometimes just because we varied in our writing styles, but he really influenced me and I’ve grown a lot as a writer. And he’s gone now and I can’t be in the advanced creative writing class, they took it away when he left. So the idea to form the club came up because I still liked having that environment of writers supporting one another and just being able to share our stuff.”
“Whether it be confidence, or just inspiration or ability just as long as you’re growing and progressing and moving forward. I think that’s the most important thing, confidence.” Ulery comments.
Many in this club agree that it is a good idea for someone who wants to be a writer to join this club.
“If you start isolated you’re not going to go too far because you’re just going to be attaching to yourself,” Tim Carrier, a member of the club, comments. “But if you have help with others, especially the writers in this club who are so friendly, you can get a good start and know what other people think about your writing and work better.”
The sponsor of the club, Mrs. Kummell, agrees with Carrier.
“Anytime that a writer can collaborate with other people and can share ideas, or if they get stuck in a certain area in their writing and they just need to develop it just a little bit more, being able to throw that idea out there and say, ‘This character is here, but I don’t know where to take him next!’, that helps.”
It’s also good that future, professional writers can take criticism and learn from their mistakes. Everyone has friends in this class and if someone gains power in a writing work place, they have the opportunity to ask for a favor and take a look at the book that has been written.
“It’s just sort of a team, so you’re not going into the literary world alone,” said Ulery.
The club is held the first and the third of every month, after school until 4:30 or 5 p.m. in Mrs. Kummell’s room.
Kummell encourages every student at Timber Creek to work on improving their writing.
“Everybody is a writer. It’s just a matter of letting your thoughts run through your head, down your arms, through the ink pen, and onto the paper.”
