Things Only Creative Writing Students Understand

...because most of the "you know you're an English major when" articles I've seen tend to focus on literature more than other aspects of the English discipline, like creative writing (my concentration). So I'm fixing that.

When you write a new poem and you're really proud of it, you admire it like...

The first day of a new workshop...

Searching for a piece (or pieces) to submit to a conference and suddenly nothing you've ever written satisfies you...

Submitting anywhere and everywhere...

The increasing number of rejection emails in your inbox...

That one super abstract poem that no one understands...

When someone asks you who your influences are, you're either like...

or...

When someone in workshop doesn't write ANY comments on your piece (my personal pet peeve)...

That one piece every rotation that isn't very good and everyone knows it but you still have to say something nice about it...

Trying to decide if you should pursue an MFA...

That one person who will not stop overusing cliches...

When your favorite professor says your poem/story/essay "doesn't work for me" and you try to hide your devastation...

That one person in a workshop who always gets way too "personal" in his/her work...

That one person who makes rude comments to make him/herself feel better about his own work...

When that really quiet/shy/timid person in class drops an f-bomb in a piece and completely throws everyone for a loop...

When you have a fiction story due the next day and you're running low on coffee/tea/caffeine source, and you have just one more page...

When writer's block just won't go away...

"So like, are you gonna be, like, the next J.K. Rowling?"

But when you finally get accepted for publication, everything is just awesome. 

Happy writing, everyone!