Careers, Critics, and Professors

Kristine Kathryn Rusch recently published a post titled "Careers, Critics, and Professors" in her The Business Rusch series. The article left me saying: Yes! Thank you, yes. Finally someone gets it and articulates it well without being crass, mean, or inflammatory.

I sent the article to a friend getting a graduate degree in music composition. His response was that Rusch was "right on during the half about conservatories ... it sounds like we (the music world) lost out on a great composer."

And where I didn't know anything about music conservatories, I know a lot about graduate and undergraduate writing programs, and Rusch manages to articulate everything (well, almost everything) that frustrated me about my own MFA experience. Frustration that lead me to looking into programs like Clarion and Odyssey and eventually attending the Odyssey Writing Workshop. Frustration that led me to taking the one course offered in three years on publishing and ending up spending more time (because I was more interested) on that coursework than on any other course in my entire graduate career. Frustration that lead me to speak out at the Professors and Graduate Students of Writing meeting that we should offer more publishing classes, offer them more regularly, require students to take them even, not just proceed with "the option to work on the program's associated literary journal."

Oh, and in that meeting, people nodded when I spoke -- one graduate student who had a chapbook published before she started the program also begged for publishing-related coursework because until her publisher sent her a proof of her chapbook, she'd never seen a copyediting mark.

Again, people in the room nodded, then said that students who wanted to learn about publishing should edit the literary journal. I pointed out that the one publishing class they were talking about not offering again had been wonderful because it had been about more than editing. It had been about explaining how a journal works as a business, how a small press works as a business, how a larger press operates, and the course had given a sense of history of publishing and printing.

They nodded again. Then reminded me that, well, the program is an art degree.

I sighed and let it go. I was done with my own degree by that point. I'd been teaching composition for 3+ years on minimal training and lots of hands-on experience. If there's one thing my experiences in academia have taught me, it's how to teach myself by researching and reasoning, improving old skill sets to apply them to new situations. So I'd already sought out other avenues of education on what it meant to have a career and how to go about making one.

Do not mistake my meaning: I learned a great deal in my MFA program. words and line level craft are important and something I needed to be taught. But it's not a holistic approach to the act of writing. And a career cannot be focused on minutia, it has to be holistic.

I'm a work in progress -- aren't all people's careers? -- but I'm fairly certain of what I want and that what I want isn't a PhD in creative writing to perpetuate the art of writing. No, what I want isn't to be an artist, it's to be a career storyteller, whatever form that may take.

How to find an MFA program

A big part of deciding whether or not to attend an MFA program (both traditional or low-residency) is figuring out where you would want to get the MFA. MFA programs are not like law schools -- graduating from Harvard Law might "guarantee" you a job, but there's absolutely no equivalent when talking about creative writing programs.*  Therefore the most important  consideration in choosing a creative writing program is will it work for you?


Of course, you have to find the darn things before you can determine if they have what you're looking for.

You can read the Poets & Writers fall issue on MFA programs, you can dally around the MFAblog -- but do both with caution. A lot of the "information" given out in both of those sources are opinions and generalizations. (Poets & Writers admits that many of their MFA articles are editorials rather than reporting, but it's easy to get swept away and forget that.) An MFA is a masters of fine arts; it is, by definition, a creative pursuit, and therefore what works for other people might not work for you.

All this is to say that you're really best off if you research programs individually and judge them by how the program's merits line up with your own desires and priorities.

There is a free database to help you out.  The AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) has an official guide to writing programs where you can enter your search criteria and see the names of accredited programs worldwide.  Can't leave the state? You can search by that. Looking for a program that does genre fic? Or Screenwriting? Or children's lit? You can search for that. Looking for a BA or BFA program instead of a grad program? They list those too.

Once you've done a search, the AWP guide will show you the page they have with the program's info. Take this page as a preliminary, not the cold hard facts. These pages are slow to change -- for example, if a faculty member has left/arrived in the past couple of years, it probably won't be reflected in the AWP guide.** BUT these pages provide the web address for the school along with basic information -- and most importantly, they provide you with knowledge that such an MFA or MA program exists.

Another good way to get some info about programs, and to do so in person, is to attend the AWP Conference. In 2012, it'll be held in Chicago (February). Many schools will have table at the bookfair and you can go up to the table and ask faculty and current students questions (depending on who's sitting at the table at the time), and usually pick up materials and application tips. If a school's been cutting costs, they might not have a table just for them but they may have a table that's under the name of their affiliated literary magazine. If the school has a magazine associated with it, it's likely that at least some of the people running it are current graduate students at that program -- and they're most likely to be the ones sitting at the table! Go ahead and ask if they're grad students and if they wouldn't mind answering some questions about the program.


*(Caveat: getting an MFA from Iowa will definitely help you get a teaching job -- or at least an interview for a teaching job -- but you'll still have to work your butt off to publish and do all the other stuff. More on that tomorrow.)


**Note: Always use the school's website for application materials, deadlines, and direct contact info. Any source other than the school itself may be wrong and you won't be able to verify their info unless you go to the school's website anyway.

Low-residency MFAs

Judging from some of the comments I've gotten when I started blogging about good reasons to get an MFA and poor reasons to get an MFA, it sounds like a lot of low-residency MFA programs are being overlooked. Don't! These programs provide solid education and great flexibility for many individuals.


A definition: A "low-residency" MFA program is a program where much of the work is done remotely and interaction is primarily through correspondence and a minimum of 14 days of residential study each year. The MFA program will often break this up into two separate visits of 7-10 days. All other study is done from the student's home wherever that is in the country or world.

The AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) says this by way of introduction to low-residency MFA programs in its Directors Handbook:

Since the first low-residency MFA program in creative writing was developed in the 1970s, higher education has established over thirty such programs.  With various combinations of residencies, workshops, lectures, online workshops and classes, study abroad, correspondence, and  one-on-one mentoring, low-residency programs vary; however, their chief attributes are individualized instruction and structural flexibility for students.  Low-residency programs require at least two years of study.  Students study literature and craft by writing original fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, translations, screenplays, or plays; by analyzing contemporary and canonical works of literature; and by writing critical papers.  Programs also require culminating projects focused on the craft of writing—an extended craft essay, a lecture, or the teaching of a seminar.  The centerpiece of the course of study is a creative thesis, an original literary work in the student’s chosen genre(s). 

With its mentoring relationships involving one teacher and one student, or with small online workshops and seminars, the low-residency program excels in expediting the development of a writer.  Students in low-residency programs tend to be older than traditional graduate students.  Many students enter these programs intending to continue in their already established careers; these students find that their professional work is often improved by the skills they acquire in their artistic avocations.  Low-residency programs have a strong record of preparing graduates for careers in teaching, editing, publishing, public affairs, advertising, and administration. 

Lifestyle favorable: Low-residency MFAs are good choices if you aren't within driving distance of the school you want to go to and have a life you can't easily move. Great for people with kids in school, or a spouse that needs to stay put for work or family reasons, if you have a house you can't sell, or if you have a job. Yep, you don't have to quit your job to get an MFA if that's what you want to do. It'll be tough to juggle it all -- going to night school always is -- but it can be done.

Another perk is that low-residency MFAs do not (usually) come with teaching obligations to round out your funding. Although, if your post-MFA goal is to teach then this may be more of a con than a pro as the during-grad-school teaching obligations are also a form of getting experience. But if you know you don't want to teach -- ever -- then hey, bonus!

But remember that even though you get to keep your current normal life/job/living situation,  it is a form of "going back to school." Even though you meet in person only once or twice a year, you still have weekly homework, workshop deadlines, and scheduled internet chats/emails/etc. with faculty.

I've been told that to be a successful low-res MFA instructor you need to be good at expressing yourself in email -- that is, expressing yourself thoroughly and without confusion. So I'd assume that the flip side of that is that if you're a low-res student, you shouldn't be afraid of extremely long emails from your faculty; you should be willing and able to plow through those and learn whatever you can; you should be able to then express yourself succinctly through reply emails. Regardless of how well you can write a story, some people just can't email worth a damn -- odd, but true -- find out if this is you before you apply so that you can have a strategy for success or choose another route.

Niche and genre-favorable programs: If the classics aren't your thing and say, mystery writing is your thing, then odds are that there's a low-residency MFA program with a niche program for mystery writers. Same goes for screen writers, YA writers, science fiction, fantasy, romance, crime, and other forms of "commercial fiction," "popular fiction," or "genre fiction" (all three terms refer to the same thing and are used interchangeably). It's my experience that it's much harder to find programs that specialize in any of those things among traditional (high residency) MFAs, but there are quite a few now in the low-res world. The University of Southern Main, Seton Hill University, and Western Colorado are just a few I know off the top of my head. It's my opinion that more programs should be more open to training writers of popular fiction.

Non-MFA granting training programs: There are also non-MFA programs which are great.  Some of them, like the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop, are potentially better than MFA programs in terms of how much you grow as a writer. If you're a sci-fi/fantasy/horror writer, consider Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop, Clarion, Clarion West, and others. For romance writers, join the RWA -- I don't know how much of an education the local chapters will give you, but I know that they often run bootcamps for members nationwide which you can attend (which anyone can attend but by joining the RWA you actually get notified of the upcoming event). I have little doubt that there are similar workshops and bootcamps for mystery writers and others interested in commercial genres check them out. They may be the alternative to a high residency MFA which is perfect for you.

Resources: While a google serach for "Low-residency MFA" will bring back oodles of results, there's also a handbook you can get in paper or Kindle format. It appears to be made by the same people who made the Creative Writing MFA handbook, which presumably didn't have an in-depth enough section on low-residency programs and thus the low-res volume. I've not taken a look at either -- they were either not in print yet or had gone out of print when I was applying to programs.

What I recommend is checking out the Portable MFA in Creative Writing (a $10-17 book) before you begin. If the book puzzles you, presents items you never thought of, makes you feel in over your head (ever so slightly) or tantilizes you to learn more, then getting an MFA may be just the thing to do. I remember looking at A Portable MFA before starting my program, and everything that I read sounded vaguely familiar. At the time, my vocabulary wasn't up to snuff (particularly the vocabulary I use to talk about writing) so it presented a challenge when the authors were talking about writing. But mostly I remember reading that book and agreeing with them on the lessons and the theory ... and then putting down the book and having no idea how to apply that to my own work.

And that is precisely what a good teacher/mentor can do for you: teach you how to take what works theoretically and make it work for you.

Forthcoming MFA posts: 

• How to find a program
• Why you should pay no attention to "rankings" for any school or program

Reasons to get an MFA in creative writing

Here's my big question -- before we even get into the "are you ready for an MFA?" and "where should you apply/go?" -- why do you want to get an MFA, and are your reasons strong enough to hold you through 2-3 years of graduate study?

Good reasons to get an MFA:

• You want to work on improving your craft.
• You are encouraged by having deadlines for your writing.
• You want funded time to write (assuming you get funding).
• You'd like to teach writing at the college level including composition.
• You learn well in a school-setting.
• You have a high threshold for pain when it comes to people critiquing your writing.
• You enjoy classic and contemporary "literature."
• You want to push yourself.

Poor reasons to get an MFA:

• You got a BA in English and don't know what to do next.
• You hate the thought of teaching freshmen to write essays and only want to be an artist.
• You want to be an artiste.
• Your writing doesn't need any work, you just need to network.
• You believe that once you're in an MFA program, you need only stay long enough to network your way to an agent/editor/publication.
• It will look good on your submission cover letters. 
• You think a masters degree in creative writing will make you employable.

An MFA, in theory, is the terminal degree for a creative (or artistic) form.  There are creative writing PhD programs out there, but for the moment both a PhD and an MFA are considered "terminal."  As a creative discipline, the Fine Arts part of your Master of Fine Arts degree makes you not terribly employable.  There are no ready jobs for MFA holders they way there are ready jobs for holders of JDs.  (Although lately there's no ready jobs for them either.)

With an MFA in creative writing you can teach college level writing classes -- most of these openings will be college level composition classes not college level creative writing classes. With an MFA in creative writing a couple publications, you can also teach community ed. classes in creative writing. You must have substantial publications in your creative field and substantial previous teaching experience to land a decent job teaching creative writing full time.  Know this ahead of time if it's what you want.

The time spent getting the MFA is a time to learn, but it's also a time to write.  That is the most valuable part of the MFA for any funded student: funding to write.  The most valuable part for the unfunded student: a chance to learn craft from people who (usually) are good teachers.

MFAs are horrible places to network your way to publication. Unless you make it into Iowa.  If you make it into Iowa and convince them to give you a degree, it will be easier (eventually) to get a teaching position and/or your first book contract. But every other MFA in the country is not Iowa.  Only Iowa is the Iowa of writing programs. No other MFA holds that clout -- no matter its "ranking."  More on that ranking nonsense tomorrow.

The MFA community can sniff out those who are there to network not learn. And it takes them about as long to find the fakes as it does the new family on the block to figure out if their neighbor is bringing them a casserole to welcome them in and save them from ordering pizza while unpacking, or it the goo and noodles in the corning wear is really just an excuse to get in the house and snoop. And those who are identified as using the program to network, don't ever integrate fully into the community. Although I will say that most of my faculty are the biggest name droppers I've ever met ... but that doesn't mean they'll introduce you, the student, just because you're there.  If you're looking to network, then go to local readings. Find out about readings, get on email listserves.  The university, library, or community group in your area likely brings writers and editors to town to talk and you don't even know it. Ask to be included on those email list serves and then, you know, attend readings -- it's one of the best ways to meet writers. And it'll generally cost you the price of their book (to get it signed) and not the few grand it would cost per semester of MFA.

It's MFA application season

Application season for would-be MFA students lines up roughly with that of American collegiate football:

The anticipation, the planning and preparation, starts right around Labor Day weekend -- often a little before. The actual games/activity begin in September and stretches though most of the fall months, culminating in the final sendings-off of applications in the end of December and first part of January. Then there are bowl games and, for collegiate football, things are done. We wait a few weeks and then everyone goes to a Superbowl party even if they're not big on pro football because, hey, it's the only football there is for a long time, and everyone's making a big hype over it so why not?

Once the Superbowl is over, however, MFA applicants are still waiting, waiting, growing more nervous and neurotic by the day. They spend their time on the MFAblog or the Poets & Writers forums checking to see if anyone is reporting a rejection or acceptance to the schools they applied to. It is a dark few months.

Then, late-February through mid-April, the response letters and emails slowly trickle in. Rejection. Acceptance. Rejection. Rejection. Acceptance without funding. Rejection. Waitlist. Acceptance.

You jump for joy. You pout. You call your mother, wife, girlfriend, college roommate. You make plans. You worry your lip. You talk to other people. You worry some more. You get frustrated. Your buddy buys you a celebratory beer. You develop a sore from worrying your lip so damn much every day. Then you get to take a deep breath and watch the Stanley Cup finals because this application season has extended beyond the confines of a single sports season (or a single metaphor), but at least it's over ... unless you're reapplying.

In which case, you plan all summer for the start of next season.

Thankfully, for most people, this cycle does not happen more than once or twice in their life.

This week on Speak Coffee to Me, we'll get back into the MFA talk and particularly the application talk because it's that time of year and hey, I really have nothing to say about football that you can't hear on Sports Center.

Love to hate

Recently, my favorite listserve has been going on something of a bender. I missed the original post/question that sparked the fire, but the resultant damage is wide ranging, and it all has to do with literary vs. genre fiction or, perhaps more accurately, bestsellers being the shit-novels we love -- or, in this case, what we love to hate.

I'm certain you can think of at least one bestselling novel that you think is absolutely abysmally written. For me, I immediately think of ... well, that wouldn't be prudent to name. But needless to say, there are novels which I wouldn't put on my list of "shit novels I love to hate which are bestsellers" which other people proclaim need The Top Spot on said list.

And then somewhere along the line the conversation devolved into people arguing for the need for literary merit within the world of genre, and those arguing that pleasure reading needs no other merit than pleasure itself and ... holy cow, you know what? I stopped paying attention the first time the phrase "literary vs. genre" was thrown around.

When it comes to people debating "literary vs. genre," I will not tell anyone to get the hell over it because it took me a really freaking long time to get the hell over it.  Being a lover of fantasy and sci fi and romance who was actively engaged in an MFA and desperately trying to hide her genre-identity from the community like a gay teen in small town Texas, probably didn't help.

But let me say this: life has completely changed since I've gotten the hell over it.

It's like arriving in nirvana. I know that no matter what I do, someone is going to thumb their nose at me, probably because they're ignorant of the other side of "literary vs. genre." And I really don't give a fuck, a flying fuck, or a flying fuck shot out of a cannon.*

And, if I'm to follow my father's theory of life: If you're not pissing someone off, then you're not doing something right.

The whole debate isn't actually about writing (I say); it's about attitude. If your attitude is that writers have an audience that they need to appease, then you come from one mindset.  And if your attitude is that a writer has peers that should be appeased and impressed, then you come from another mindset.  Realize which you are, and accept that or change it -- either will do so long as your happy with the end results.

I no longer fume when I think of my MFA peers, nor do I brood when I think of how my genre work will be received by them.  Nor do I write "literary realism" and think about its merit vs its financial unsubstantiality. I do what I want because I want to do it. I've also come to realize that the biggest bestest literary markets will publish genre work if you coat it in chocolate, and the same goes for genre markets. If you mash the beets into chocolate cake, no one knows that they're eating vegetables for dessert.

And so I will once again not tell anyone to get the hell over it, I will merely recommend the health benefits, mental and physical, to letting it be and following what you love regardless of opinions. And that in not making your own opinion widely known on the "vs" debate (ahem, attempting to trump other opinions with your own), you save yourself a lot of stress and a lot of wear on your treads.

*Kelly Link story reference = 10 points for making reference, 100 points for identifying Kelly Link story to which "flying fuck shot out of a cannon" refers.  And another 10 points for choosing an author who is championed by both literary types and genre types without the other types actually knowing that she's being championed.  But I'm certain Link knows, and that she's quietly smiling and enjoying a glass of wine while everyone else runs up their blood pressure.
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Image credit: Skley on flickr

MFA Survivalist

In one of the more anticlimactic moments of my master's program, I have received the email informing me that my MFA in creative writing has been granted.  The diploma to follow shortly by mail.

That's it. I'm done. Really done. I've survived.

And now for others that have "survived": a great humorous vid that I've been forwarded (thanks MonkeyLOLogist).  This will likely be funnier for those who watch Mythbusters, but should provide a special type of glee for all geeks.


I decided not to walk during the summer commencement ceremony.  And maybe it would have been more momentous if I had.  Instead, on that day, I chose to do something more meaningful: I had coffee with my advisor and brunch with other fiction program students.  I walked at my undergrad commencement and that was momentous -- then again it was a more meaningful ceremony for me.  There were less than 700 students in my graduating class.  We had our names called individually, we walked across the stage, shook the university president's hand, and got our diplomas.  Here, at a large, state university, lumped in among thousands of undergrads and sundry grad students getting their degrees, I didn't feel like the pomp was worth the circumstances.

Yes, I made a pun.  Forgive me.

Instead, I received word of my degree completion while sitting at my computer, wearing gymshorts and a t-shirt, fighting off yet another heat wave.

But isn't this just exemplary of the writer's life?  Here, solitary, at the desk, at the computer, doing the writing until the writing can be done no more.  The friends, the cheers, the drinks and the toasts will come later.  For now, it's back to work.

You're basically finished with your MFA -- how do you feel?

Shell-shocked.

That's pretty much sums it up.

It's been a crazy dash to the deadline -- a self-imposed deadline nonetheless -- and it doesn't seem like it's over. Perhaps because I finished the project, lined up a cat-sitter, and madly dashed out of town for a family graduation party four hours north. There was no great sigh of relief, no celebratory beverage (unless you count the coffee with my cat-sitter), and no happy dance in the end zone.

Although there was some bouncing on the balls of my feet but that's more nervous excitement, and the giddy feeling of turning in something that you think really should have gotten one more proof reading.

All and all, it just seems unreal.

My project committee has the next three weeks to peruse my collection of stories, send back their comments and decide if they're going to sign off on the project and therefore my degree. I've listened to my advisor, so I'm not terribly worried that they won't sign off on the project -- maybe if I was worried there would be more finality to the actual finishing.

As it is, I'm off to do some errands today and on to the next project.

Anyone else feel this way at the end of their degree?

Forest for the Trees

Lately I've been reading the new edition of The Forest for the Trees: an editor's advice to writers by Betsy Lerner.  It's not a "how to write" book, but a collection of insightful, well written essays about all that Lerner has seen during her years in the creative business.  She writes with perspective on her experiences and a keen sense of perception that cuts through the bullshit and the fantasy of what it is to be a "writer."

This book should be required reading for everyone who finishes an MFA.  Like a detox kit they hand you as you walk out the door.

Lerner writes:

To say that attending graduate school is the end of innocence is not an exaggeration.

Lerner's experience in an MFA program is definitely of a different era, but she doesn't dwell on the superficial differences, instead her focus has found such truth that bit still applies to today's MFA programs.  And she does this without being disparaging or whipping out some chicken soup for the soul.

She doesn't focus on writing programs, but they feature in the occasional essay because they were part of her experience.  Nor does she focus only on the "literary" writers.  In fact, she pokes a bit of fun at those who think they're "literary" and discuss writing a "commercial" novel to make a bit of cash, like it's that simple.  She also pokes at notions of selling your first story to The New Yorker and those groups and mythos that perpetuate such notions.

I'm only 80 pages into The Forest for the Trees and I'm already prepared to recommend it to everyone.  Not only are the insights in-the-know yet down to earth, the prose itself is a joy to read. And there's a sly sense of humor which appeals to me.

To collect or to novel?

When fiction writers get to the end of their MFA they're expected to produce a project that is "book length," but they face the decision: do I make a collection of short stories or do I write a novel?

The short story collection tends to be the favorite in practice while the novel is what everyone says they'd like to do until they face having to do it.

There's points in favor of each.

Short Story Collection
The reason I say the short story collection tends to be what most people do is because it's what MFA workshops have set you up to do. In workshop you write and submit short stories, you get feedback, you find things to change and you make them better. Now, all you need to do is edit those stories on your own and you're halfway to a collection.

For people whom revision is easier than drafting, this is a the option of choice.

For people who can't get their minds around the length or structure of a novel, then the collection is, without question, the way to go. Often MFA programs don't have coursework on writing novels, or it's not as in depth as the course work on writing the short story.

Often, the collection seems like the ready-made option. Particularly when you have that moment of realization where you realize that the path of least resistance to your degree is to brush off a group of desperate stories whose only connective tissue is that you wrote them and call them "collected." It seems like a cop out to me, but a reasonable cop out. Particularly if your style/subject matter hasn't changed much while you've been in the MFA program. Then your stories are probably much more cohesive than mine as I tried a bunch of different styles and then switched gears from realism to fantasy.

Also, the "MFA project" asks you to present the fruits of your education. It is not specifically designed to ask you to produce something that anyone would ever want to publish as a book.

Which brings me to: short story collections are hard to sell.

There are three main ways to get a short story collection sold. (1) You win one of the short story collection contests that have publication attached to them like the Flannery O'Connor Award, the Iowa Short Fiction Award, or the AWP Award Series (there are a couple others but they don't come to mind). (2) You get a contract for a novel in which your agent convinces them to buy your collection as a "bonus"--mostly this is a "bonus" for the writer and a grudgingly accepted ultimatum for the publisher, and another reason why agents are so cool. (3) You get 3-12 stories published by The New Yorker and some publisher wants to collect and reprint them. There are other ways, but those are the three big ones. All other ways are extremely hard sells.*

Now consider how many MFA thesis collections are out there in the world and you're suddenly wondering why you'd want to put energy into a collection when you could be putting it into a novel -- or at least that's what I'm wondering.

The Novel
The big thing the novel has going for it is that it can be sold. That is, it's likely that (all prose being considered equal) someone will want to publish it. All that time, effort, and editing will result in a bound, typeset version of something with your name on it. Even if the cover sucks it's still your book.

The big downside to writing the novel as MFA thesis is that the MFA is not geared toward getting you to produce a novel. As mentioned above, it's the short story that's the perfect size and shape for weekly workshops, not the baggy monsters. Therefore, you'll likely be generating new material and editing it in a shorter span of time.

Then there's the whole has anybody taught you how to write a novel? question which seems to trip people up. I've heard quiet a few people say that they won't try to write a novel (including well published short storyists) because they just don't know how to put one together. Although if you look outside your MFA you can almost always find someone to teach you or materials to use to teach yourself. (Screenplay structure, as I understand it, is where to start looking.)

Then there's the not to be overlooked notion of having an idea big enough to fill a novel.

Where I'm at
See, I thought I had a plan (a novel). Then I had another plan (a story collection)--a plan I put in writing this time! And now I don't know if that plan is as good as the new-new plan (a novel, different from the first novel which I now know I couldn't sustain).

The new-new plan is, albeit, new and shiny. But I might be in the throws of saying hey, if my short story collection idea is going to be as much work as my novel idea then why don't I write the novel, have more fun, and end up with a more viable product at the end?

My advisor recently asked me to crunch numbers and find out where I'm at so that we can think about how best to spend my time. She didn't commit to one side of the debate or the other, but the mere suggestion of number crunching had me thinking all weekend.

The question is not as easy to answer as one would think. I've known a lot of people who said they were going to write a novel for their thesis project. It was only logical, and when it came down to it, logic changed and the logical thing to do was a collection. And now I don't know where I'm going to land with four months until it's due.


*This, of course, makes me laugh. Like any of those three are particularly easy.

(Not) Writing to the trend

Advice to genre writers is always "don't write to the trend."  Teenage wizard goes to wizarding school is hot? Don't write it. Teenage vampire romance is hot? Don't write it. At least, don't write it if your heart's not in it 100%. Don't write it just to hop on the bandwagon because (a) your book will suck if you're not in love with it and (b) the bandwagon might be gone by the time your book comes to market.

This advice is readily available to writers seeking instruction in commercial fiction, so why is no one saying it to MFA students?

I've become aware lately that many of the "rules of good writing" spouted off with great authority by students in writing programs are, in fact, trends. Faculty tend not to spout as definitively or level as broad, sweeping statements about the art and artifice of writing. Faculty tend to encourage experimentation. Students, however, encourage sameness in their peers: Trendiness.

In their written critiques of my work, I've had fellow students deliver "reminders" to not experiment. Remember: followed by some supposed rule of narrative. To which my faculty member asked, Why? Why does that have to be? and could not get a satisfactory answer from the students.

Certain pieces of craft like grammar and clarity (sentence level and story level) are tools not trends. But just about everything else -- prose styling, subject matter, and point of view included -- is a trend.

Particularly smacking of trendiness is the desire of today's American MFA student to write like Hemingway -- the idealized version of Hemingway, not the actual one. Trend.

Fiction goes through trends. "Highbrow" fiction goes through trends more slowly -- perhaps because fewer people write or read it, and therefore the impetus to change and innovate isn't as strong because the field isn't as deep -- but it's still changing. Look at fiction from 50 years ago, compared to today, or 100 years ago or 200 years ago: the high minded fiction of any given time period is different. It changes based on trends.  It changes based on what today's readers expect and what they're willing to accept.

I refuse to believe the New Critical notion that there is such a thing as "imperatively "good" writing that is "good" without taking into consideration the context in which it was written. If that was the case then no one would still be studying Shakespeare (his language is wordy and obtuse and the plots are unoriginal [even back then] and melodramatic) or Hawthorn (his novels crawl along like a dull snail in order to get to a few poignant and beautiful passages). Their work is not inherently "good art" yet there are myriad other reasons why we study those writers and why their prose endures, most of which can be appreciated contextually.

Don't believe me?  Try taking a piece that shifts between free verse and rhyming pentameter to your MFA workshop.

Perhaps the slowness of trends in supposedly high minded fiction has as much to do with the depth of the field as it does with the training of writers moving into academia.

Precisely when writing attached itself to the academy is debatable. It depends which self-important entity you choose to believe. Was the first writer's program at Bread Loaf? Harvard? Or was there no creative writing in the academy until Iowa? (all of them claim the distinction) Where it started doesn't really matter. What is certain is that after WWII, writing programs began appearing more and more regularly at colleges until there was a boom of them in the 80s -- a boom which has not yet slacked off. In fact, it might be in a second boom with the 21st century improvements in communication that allow for long distance and low residency MFA programs.

The MFA allows for a single style to be perpetuated and touted over all others. For a trend to be codified into the rules of fiction. For the production of the McPoem, as Donald Hall called it, ten billion served.

It's true that there was no way the peer who wrote to encourage me to Remember the "rule" could have known that I had already considered said "rule" and discarded it in order to serve my purposes. But that doesn't change the fact that it's a prime example of the rules of the trend being touted as the rules of all fiction.

And there have been other examples -- okay one example -- from my experience where my peers said fuck the rule, you should really run with it. 

You could probably show up to an MFA program and learn all the trends, be praised for your ability to recreate fiction that fits the trendy comprehension of the genre, graduate, and never challenge yourself to experiment. And, given the glacial pace of literary fiction, you work wouldn't date itself until the tail end of your life. However, the data shows that it's much more likely that you'll leave your MFA and never write again.

November Doldrums

10,359 / 50,000 words

November slogs on. The MFA process slogs on. Recently, while wishing for Christmas -- the sparkly joy of the season as well as the break it entails -- I was reminded to not wish days of my life away. Good point.

So I refined my wish: I wish that Christmas was now and that I wouldn't have lost any days of my life by having it come early.

Hey, if we're wishing to impossibly manipulate time, why not be specific?

I have roughly two weeks to get a short story into shape for workshop and a week after that I have another short story due for a "forms" class (as in, theory of the form of fiction). Ug. Neither story is particularly, um, written at the moment.

I'm so close to being done with degree, and yet so far away. Big sigh. I'm going to bed early tonight. Just thinking about the damn degree and all I have to do is making me sleepy.


But like I said, I'm tired and being cranky. And I'm in the November Doldrums. And way behind on NaNoWriMo novel as well as everything else. So I've been pouring all my time into escapist reading. Mockingjay marked the 52nd book I read and finished in 2010, therefore completing my New Year's resolution.

State of the MFA: Year 2.5

After writing the State of the MFA: Year One, Year Two and Year Three, I realized that I'd left out a great deal. I'd left out all the revelatory information that came between the end of one and the beginning of another.

It was in this nebulous 2.5 time frame that I started asking the question (and answering it) Who am I as a writer and what is it that I care about?

For years, I tried quite desperately to write to please other people. As an undergrad I wrote stories like the ones I was assigned to read (all realism). And when someone in workshop said, hey, this sorta reminds me of that Pam Houston story we were assigned I knew I had struck gold. Yes, my writing was quirky and snarky, but it was as much that way because that's how my brain functioned as it was because that's how I knew I could get a laugh from people. Next I wrote to get into the MFA program. They needed to like me and my work to accept me, right? I arrived and the first night of workshop my instructor swiped a hand across the desk and said none of that genre stuff. I wasn't surprised, but I complied. He talked about his great interest in slice of life stories so I, like much of the class, tried to write plotless slice of life stories.

Things kept on like this for a while. I wrote what I wanted in my own free time and wrote what they wanted when I had to show it to them. I was happy (or so I thought) in my knowledge that
what I wrote on my own was important to me and considered worthwhile by other people even if those people were not the ones sitting in class or issuing grades. I thought I would just play the man's game long enough to learn what I needed to. At an AWP panel this past spring I heard a panelist say My goal was always to smuggle out the pretty sentences and take them to Tolkien.

Then it came to a head. I no longer cared to write for other people. I had my This matters TO ME moment.

Someone recently described when she had that same moment some fifteen years ago. Her instructor told her that the story was well written but in the end it was still a story about [dismissive fluff]. She had to work around to it, but she eventually put metaphorical fists on her hips and said, hey, this particular breed of dismissive fluff matters to me.

In my mind, this is the great thing about Year 2.5 of the MFA: you learn to separate out content from style and you realize that you no longer give a damn whether your content is on the approved list of sufficiently weighty topics we can write about.

And once you've had that moment it's hard to go back. Right now I'm working on a story and I'm really sad that it's not as ME as others because it'll be better received if it's less ME and that pisses me off.

Year 2.5 was when I came out of the genre-writer closet, so to speak. In my short profile on the side-bar, you'll see that I love paranormal and urban fantasy novels and I no longer care who knows it. I do love them and I don't care. I used to think that I had to engage only in discussion of aforementioned sufficiently weighty subject matter. Now I honestly admit that I've never given a rat's ass about the boring stuff.

I'm not saying that all MFA students will become genre writers or that we all think the same things are boring. But I do think that it takes a couple of years trying and failing before you realize what's important enough to you that you want to keep trying. To find what it is you'll fight for. If you wouldn't fight whole heartedly in defense of what it is you're doing right now, then why are you doing it? Reasons of learning or pleasing people will only last you so long, and when those reasons expire, you have nothing left except to be yourself.

State of the Me: Prospectus

No, that's not a typo: This isn't a State of the MFA post, it's a State of the Me post. One is greatly intertwined with the other, but as I have nothing profound or reflective to say about the degree program, I'll focus on the Me side of things.

I regained a bit of my sanity earlier this week. I finished a scary array of projects and then discovered through repeated inquiry precisely how many more credit hours I need to graduate.

Good news: it's fewer than I had even hoped. I had feared a credit-need that would cause me to kill myself this semester, kill myself next semester and into the summer. Now, blissfully, I just go crazy during the current semester.

But then I let go of my fall job hunt notions (as in applying this fall) and decided to just focus on course work. I'll start applying next spring.

And just like that, I'm feeling much less nutty.

State of the MFA: Year Three

It's completely crazy around here. And I'm sleep deprived.

I've been referring to this week as The Eight Day Slog Through Hell and that was accurate ... until the slog got extended to ten days.

After The Ten Day Slog Through Hell is over, I will take a deep breath, a long nap, and then attempt to put together my first job application dossier.

I've talked with people who think my third year is my thesis year. There are programs that work that way. You do two years of coursework and then draft your thesis project on your own time away from the school. For me, yes, year three is thesis year, but I'm still doing course work. Lots and lots of coursework.

For me, year three is the year where I take all the extra hours over the "normal" amount because they wouldn't let me take them when I arrived -- back when I was bored because I had so much time on my hands. Now, when I am an editor and going on the job market, now I have to take extra classes. Yes. Brilliant people. Thanks for talking me into this wonderful set up. Not. Really. So. Much.

I'm sort of working on my thesis. Sort of. Mostly I'm just doing what I need to to get by. And I'm trying to write new stories for workshop that will fit in my thesis.

Official guidelines for writing your thesis project: completion of a book length work of publishable quality. That's all the guidelines say. ALL. Nine words to describe the project without which you cannot get your degree. Thx.

Popular student opinion on how you write a thesis project: take everything you've turned in for workshop, dust, polish, write a table of contents. Which I think is kind of lame. There were a lot of stories I wrote back in the beginning of this workshop that I have no intention of touching again, let alone polishing. Actually, Allison wrote a recent post on something like this.

For one, I'm a much better writer than I was back then. I can't do cosmetic surgery on those stories and expect them to be part of a publishable collection. They'd require surgery on the Dr. Frankenstein level.

For two, I have different interests now. I've written a bunch of disparate stuff over the past couple of years -- realism, fabalism, non-fiction, fantasy -- stuff that's only common thread is that I'm its author.

So I'm writing a bunch of new stuff. I've got two pieces that are done, edited, boom, ready to go. And another four short stories and one would-be-novella that are drafted and need major overhauls. So that's what I'm doing. I'm leaving out stories because they don't fit the collection.

And I want direction -- I plan on demanding direction -- from my advisors about how putting together a collection (and publishing it) works. That info is the kind of thing I've found you have to demand. Part of the art of paddling up river (to invoke the metaphor I started with the earlier State of the MFA posts).

I'm taking control now. I'm paddling. I'm threatening people with the paddle and I'll whack them with it if need be. I'm not waiting for the river to spit me out somewhere. In fact, I'm not entirely certain that I don't want to make my way to an entirely different river. That is, of course, if I don't pass out in my boat from exhaustion first.

State of the MFA: Year Zero

State of the MFA: this week's retrospective on the grad school process and plans for the future.
 
I begin before the beginning.  I begin with year zero.

I've posted in the past about how I finally came to the decision to apply to MFA programs. It was something that I'd greatly resisted when leaving college even though I majored in English writing -- my institution's degree that was half English lit, half writing classes.  I thought that writers had to be starving artists because they earned so little.

I rather liked food, so I applied to law school.

In short, law school sucked.  The parts of it that were cool, they told me I would not do as a practicing lawyer.  The parts of it that were a akin to waterboarding while watching paint dry, were the ones they told me I would do daily for the first ten years I practiced until I could afford to pay someone else to do them for me.  So I left.

Panic and whimsy hit me all at once.  I was in love with Chicago and I hated it.  I walked the South Loop and ground my teeth and hunched my shoulders against the wind and the drizzle.  I walked the lake shore and wanted nothing more than to sit next to a young tree and watch the waves.  I remember getting a copy of Poets & Writers mailed to me by my mother -- because for some reason you can't buy a newsstand copy of it in Chicago -- and going out to the marina during the last days of October.  I sat on the cold cement and dangled my legs over the edge.  Behind me, an occasional jogger or cyclist went by.  There were no boats tethered except one; the rest were already in winter storage.  One lone goose paddled up to me; he hung out with me the whole time I was there just in case I might feed him.  The chill seeped through my jeans, and my butt and thighs went numb, I gave the finger to the law school homework I'd been assigned and read every MFA related article in Poets & Writers until I could not feel my fingers for the cold.

Deciding to apply to MFA programs on or around November 1, is a difficult proposition.  I don't recommend it as a strategy.  But I was desperate, unemployed, not in school, and had just moved back into my parent's house.  It was a prove yourself by doing this situation.  So I did.

I applied to six schools.  Three were reach schools (fully funding all students), two were considered sleeper programs, and one was a safety school.  I don't necessarily recommend "safety schools" when applying to MFAs.  Wherever you apply to should be someplace you would actually move to and live there if you got in.  However, I was in a bit of a strange situation, what with the whole dashing of one plan -- I had done nothing but plan to be a lawyer for the 24 months prior -- and the unemployment, and the when are you going to move out of my house questions ... I was willing to go someplace I didn't really want to go to just to be moving forward.  I didn't get into the three schools that fully funded all students -- I later found out that they'd each had 2000-3000 applicants -- but I got into all of the other three, and went to one of the sleeper programs.

But in that dark period between Jan.1, when the last application was due and mid-March when they started letting people know, I did the smartest thing I could have done: I dedicated myself to writing the shitty first draft of a novel.  I finished it and proved to myself that I was a finisher not a quitter (quitting law school had put me in danger of thinking that way).  And I kept my mind off checking the MFAblog hourly.

At the time, the MFAblog was THE ONLY place to go.  Since then it's gone downhill and the Poets&Writers online forums for this sort of thing have improved drastically.  But don't post on either, or spend January and February checking either: it will only drive you crazy.  And then, two or three years later, you'll realize that you sounded just as naive, pretentious, impatient and whiny when you posted as those people who are posting today.

I think, in an ideal world, I would have asked more questions.  I would have taken my time applying.  I would have considered low-res programs that fitted my creative needs, instead of looking only for schools that would provide me with an excuse not to take my bizarre skill set into the job market during what was not-yet-called-a-recession.  Back then, my mindset was that if I showed up and applied myself, whatever teacher in whatever program could teach me to write well, and I could take that and use it as a foundation for whatever it was I wanted to do.  Back then, I also didn't know what I wanted to "do" in terms of my own writing.

I waffle between saying I would have been more successful if I'd waited until I'd known myself better, and saying that I learned more about my writing because I was in the MFA.  I think that if you're leaving nothing (like I was) to find yourself, then go and go boldly.  If you're leaving a job or moving a spouse ... maybe you want to find yourself first.

MFA progress update

I recently got this lovely question from HeathcliffsGirl in the comment section:

Heathcliffs Girl said...Hey! i Read a couple of posts,mfa related! i guess a few years back?
i cant find what happened next? did you happen to get through?

Nope.  Didn't get through it.  Still going.

I'm somewhere in the soggy middle of it all.  But approaching the bitter end.  So at this point, things are both soggy and bitter.  And kinda chewy to be honest.  Actually, a lot of it is like a badly cooked roast, the kind where the meat tastes like the potatoes and the potatoes taste like the meat, and then your mother-in-law asks you a question and you can't for the life of you answer because you can't seem to chew enough to swallow anything you just put in your mouth no matter how small a piece you took.

I'm embarking on my third of three years in the program.  That is, I'm taking a year-and-a-half's worth of classes in one year because they wouldn't let me front load classes.  Nooooooo.  You gotta overload yourself when you're on your way out.  When you're reading for your thesis and trying to compose the thesis and attempting to get yourself ready to go on the job market, that's when no one curtly suggests that you only take 6 credit hours a semester.

A large chunk of the population is trying to figure out if they're going to apply to MFA programs right now.  And if so, where and when.  I'm trying to figure out what wisdom I've gained from this (opposed to knowledge) and how to succinctly put it.

This week, inspired by HeathcliffsGirl's comment, I'll be posting a "State of the MFA" series of posts, one covering each year.  Posting will begin tomorrow morning.

On Process: Waiting for Workshop

Fact: workshop causes anxiety.

Anytime you create something then ask people for their honest opinions, a certain amount of anxiety is involved. As you repeat this process again and again the amount of the anxiety diminishes but it never fully goes away.

It might reduce down to such a low level that you can look people in the eye and say I'm not worried, and you might be putting up a good front or you might honestly believe that you have no fear because the anxiety about workshop is so minimal that it has fused with the regular anxieties of day-to-day life: did I turn off the oven? Am I going to have clean underwear for tomorrow? Did anyone walk the dog before we left?

Then, if you're me, after you've reduced your workshop-anxiety down to the level of clean-laundry-anxiety, you go and write something different from what you've written before. Because it is different you can't anticipate the reception it will be given at workshop (being able to anticipate made you able to not worry previously). You won't know if you are out of your comfort zone or workshop is out of its comfort zone because the whole thing has so many variables that it has blurred into one giant mess. You will then re-initiate the old process of waiting for workshop.

First -- after doing everything you can (within the time limit) to finish and polish your story -- you continued to work after the time limit to further finish and further polish your story. Took a deep breath. Shrugged. And sent it off.

In the days between submission and workshop you decided the story wasn't all that bad. Then decided it was pretty good. Then decided it was awful. Decided everyone would make little happy noises as they read it. Decided you were going to get pigeonholed by your choice of material and/or conflict. Decided you were going to get your ass handed to you. Imagined the things people would say as they handed you back your ass.

Next you decided that you wouldn't let them hurt you by declaring that you didn't like them before they could do damage. Decided that you should be more open minded. Tried to be positive and think the best of people ... but being positive made you feel like a fake.

Stopped thinking about everyone. Started thinking about a larger project. Built castle in the sky. Started construction on castle. Got side tracked. Made popcorn. Found this guy's book with sweet ass comics in it. Loved this guy's book with sweet ass comics in it. Read No. 11 and said Rah! Rah! Yeah!

11. Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.

Then stopped. Couldn't figure out if you were avoiding or standing out. Went back. Reread. Worried.

Read No. 12. and forgot about No. 11.

12. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.

You accepted the pain -- no, accepted the pain-yet-to-come. Rethought it. Decided acceptance was stupid. Rejected the pain-yet-to-come. Accepted it. Ate more popcorn. Kicked the cat out of the office because she kept trying to tip over your waterbottle. Sketched blueprints for castle. Wrote blog entry. Read blog. Read blog. Read more of guy's book. Read physical book. Went to bed. Stared at dark ceiling. Thought some more. Though negative thoughts phrased positively and wondered if that was enough to improve your Karma. You have rotten Karma lately. Thought about ways to improve your Karma and whether or not they could be done over the internet because you can't go anywhere tomorrow until you get a load of laundry done because you have no clean underwear for tomorrow.

For Whom Do You Write?

There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.
G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)

To turn it around and think of it in terms of the writers writing those books not the readers reading them: Do you write for writers or do you write for the masses? Better yet, do you want to write for the man who wants to read a book or the man who wants a book to read?

My lit professor has repeatedly posed this question rhetorically to our class. She's not a writing professor but a literature one but her implication is that this difference in intention is the crux of the matter for writers and therefore a difficult decision. Is it?

Perspective

This is my coffee table. More precisely, this is the ten inches above my coffee table which is, obviously, occupied. Behind the books you do see are more books you don't see.


The table top itself is really freaking sweet. I found an old printer's typeset drawer at Treasure Mart in Ann Arbor, cleaned it up, got a piece of glass cut to fit it and rest the whole thing on top of two footstool/seating "cubes." The drawer has all these fabulous compartments in it which create an awesome geometric design ... when it's not covered that is.

I haven't been seeing much of that geometric coolness this semester.

Usually it's just my end table that gets treacherous.

I could do with some more shelving but floor space is limited and I'm hesitant to spend time adding shelving to the walls (finding the studs is more of an art than a science in this apartment) when I know that I've my time in this local is limited.

What these photos don't detail is the envelope stuffing process that has taken over my floor/coffee table between when the pictures were taken and when the post went up. I have about 400-500 SASE that need to be stuffed with replies from the Third Coast contest. I've probably stuffed upwards of 150 today.

BTW I am in love with envelopes that you don't have to get wet to seal. Sealing the traditional envelopes with a sponge is proving annoying slow and only about 75% effective.

And finally, for perspective of the current workload, I give you books and fluffy cat.