Building a Creative Writing Portfolio

I've never built a portfolio of my writings before. For my Creative Writing course this semester though, it is a requirement. We are to put together the pieces we have worked on during the course, along with all of the various drafts that went into them, other writing exercises we have done, and a journal that we've kept. Anything else that we want to include is also acceptable, so things that we've written but never presented are options, as are things which may have inspired us during the semester.

I bought a 1/2" binder to compile it all in, assuming that it would be more than ample space for all of my pieces. I've only presented four pieces this semester, three of which have been single page poems. The one short story I wrote only wound up as 8 pages. I assumed that it would be more than enough room to fit everything in and have it all look nice and neat. I was wrong.

Once I put in tabbed dividers, printed out all of the copies of my pieces, included the various drafts of those pieces and a few other things, I was shocked to discover that my 1/2" binder was already almost as full as it could go! Not only that, but I hadn't put everything in it that I had planned to put in it. I wound up getting a 1" binder to make it all fit properly.

It really does take up a bunch of space, all of this. But I really have been enjoying the experience of building a portfolio and determining what should be included. I've included the song lyrics of some songs that have inspired me. Also a couple of photographs that I've taken. I think I might burn a cd with the songs that I added the lyrics to. And I like having everything together, especially having all of the various drafts of my pieces together. It really begins to show my writing process, how I work as a writer. It is a good learning process for me. If I can learn more about how I write, I can better know how to attempt to write. At least, I hope so.

I think I will likely try to maintain a working portfolio of my writings now. It will only continue to help me grow in my craft. Of course, I will likely need to move to a larger binder!