The crunch of lead on loose leaf fills the shells of your ears, the tendons in your hands tense and the side of your finger begins to rub raw against the paper that holds the thoughts pouring and bursting out of your brain and onto the page held in place underneath your fingertips. However, when you’re done you realize you have nowhere to take this. Nowhere to share it.

Everyone has a little imagination in them, and everyone dreams up stories. Many wish they had a way to put them on paper for an audience to read. So, because there’s no creative writing class anymore, this is the next best thing: the Creative Writing Club.

Creative writing is an outlet for many; it allows people of all ages to express themselves through the wonder of words.

Sophomore Malaina Kennedy said, “I think it is a great thing to – even if you’re not a big writer – at least try out at some point because it makes you see different perspectives from different characters you write and also different aspects of life.”

According to the McDaniel College Writing Center, creative writing’s benefits include: improving outlining skills, being able to take or give constructive criticism and building problem solving skills and vocabulary. The center also emphasized that “one of the most subjective benefits to pursuing creative writing is the way that it can benefit the writer’s emotional well-being.”

“Whenever I have a tough day or something, because you can get really angry, it just calms me down, gets my feelings out. Sometimes I’ll either journal or just start writing. It also gets my thoughts in order and it’s also just an escape sometimes because you can go to anywhere you want, really. You can write about whatever you want,” Kennedy continued on to say.

For some, creative writing can be incredibly stressful and daunting, especially if one’s in the process of creating an entirely new universe. However, persisting and sticking to a good writing schedule can help put the world into perspective.

“It’s a good outlet just for relieving stress and a good way to express yourself,” sophomore Makeyle Barnes said. “We live in such a high speed world, slowing down and just thinking about like, how you feel. I just think it’s good to do that.”

And this is what the Creative Writing Club aims to do.

“I did a creative writing club at my last school and it helped bring kids together that might not know each other otherwise so all grade levels are kind of interested, and we don’t have a creative writing class right now,” said Jessica Chamberlain, English teacher. Chamberlain saw AAHS currently didn’t have a creative writing class and wanted to give kids an outlet to practice their writing in a safe environment.

As of right now, there are about five regular kids who come in during Tuesdays when the club meets. Senior Hillary Schiff runs the club and likes to focus on learning about different types of writing styles at each meeting.

“It’s such an important outlet for creativity,” Chamberlain said. “It’s such an important skill to be able to express yourself in a way that’s meaningful to you. I think that we don’t always get that in school. We get a lot of that academic writing, and we don’t always get to just express the way we’re feeling or work through our writing itself.

“There are kids that are published writers at this school, and they don’t have a place really to take their talents,” she noted.

In the club, they practice writing for different prompts and styles. They want to start bringing in their own work to work-shop and receive feedback on.

“I love seeing the students in a different way and getting to know kids that I wouldn’t get to know otherwise. I love going to writing events, so like poetry slams. I do more just like journal, free writing. I don’t actually publish writing but I really respect people that do and are good at it,” Chamberlain responded when asked what she personally likes about creative writing itself.

Creative writing allows people to tell their stories, to feed into their creativity and imagination, to daydream without limits.

Creative Writing Club meets in room 410 on Tuesdays during lunch.