The Craft of Crafting
by Cara Cullen
February 20, 2025
A local writing group is hosting its annual writing conference this March. In addition to the usual submissions – poetry, fiction, nonfiction – they also host two youth divisions (ages 11 & under; ages 12-18). My daughters each land in one of the categories, and I encouraged them to write something for submission. I was already putting the touches on two poems to send and loved the idea of us submitting together. They've seen me write and submit my work for years and both dabble in creative writing. They delight in reading poems and short prose from school, and, every now and then, pieces they’ve drafted just because the muse hit.
I started them out with a tip I often give students for beginning a draft: set a timer and freewrite around your topic. My eldest did this the first day and was excited to read me a pretty solid first draft. I celebrated her ideas and then informed her that first drafts are never final drafts and when she was ready, I would give her tips to edit. So that’s how we went: she shared her revision and I pushed her gently in places to think deeper about what she was creating – I didn’t give her the words, just had her reflect on how her structure impacted her ideas, how her organization drove her purpose, how images developed her theme.
To show her how I think through the revision process, I pulled up a poem I have been struggling with. I couldn’t figure out how to organize three phrases I wanted to act as “power lines” throughout the three subsections of the poem to create the effect I wanted. Many of you will have predicted where this is going…as I modeled using the tools I was giving her in my own work, wonder of wonders, I solved the organization problem I had been wrestling with for weeks.
It was such a joy to watch her take a fair rough draft written with the enthusiasm of a new writer with the belief that first is finished and then pause, plan, think, rethink and build something better, something with a vision and a purpose and something to say. Something she was very proud of and very excited to submit to the contest.
And it reminded me of what we do. How we create. Why we create. That synergistic feeling of taking something through the drafting process and creating. The sometimes surreal joy of looking back at a stanza or character or scene or a power line and thinking, “damn, I did that!”.
May you create something this week, writers. A poem for submission, a new chapter draft or an expertly worded “per my last” email. Take a minute. Create.
Want something more concrete? Set a timer. Free write for 10 minutes. Take your free write and make a first draft. It won’t be your final draft, but it will be that beautiful first step of creation.
