Tag: mfa

What I’m Really Getting From My MFA Degree

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I’m about to graduate with my MFA in creative writing.

I enrolled in my program because I wanted to become a better writer. On that level, I think I have succeeded. Here is what I’ve gained:

More rigor toward my own writing. When I turned in my thesis novel, I instantly knew that I needed another big project of that scale, or I would lose my mind. I have realized I like having something substantive to work on, and enough structure to make real. My program has taught me that big projects don’t just happen. I need to outline, have daily writing goals, have reading goals, and a game plan.

Acceptance that I need to revise things over and over. And over. Any first draft that I love, that I feel is on fire? It’s likely shit. My MFA program has helped me to understand that I am a horrible writer. Like, truly terrible. That I am only as good as my willingness to keep rewriting. Rewriting. Then rewriting, again.

An eye toward craft while reading. I’m a different reader than I was when I entered the program. I now am far more interested in how choices around point of view, voice, and narrative arc shape a story. I have grown obsessed with the choices authors make.

Reverence for the literary community. I now understand literary magazines, and what treasures they are. I understand how much work goes into editing. Publication. I’ve been a professional writer in much of my career, and with a fair degree of success, but I was not a literary writer. I now have appreciation for this whole other world, on the literary side.

Friends. Making new friends is no trivial matter when you’re 45! It’s been a rare gift to make a handful of close friends from my program. Friends who write! I read their stuff, they read mine. But the friendships are deeper than that. These relationships are life blessings.

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An MFA degree is a degree no one cares about. As for me, it does nothing to advance my career or earning potential. I have already been a professional writer and communicator. Thus, this degree opens no doors for me. It could matter if I wanted to go on and teach at the university level. But I don’t.

Still, I’m super glad I did this. I’m proud. Though I admit I have senioritis. I’m ready to say, “it’s over.”

Soon. Three weeks, to be exact.

I’m Writing A Novel, For Real This Time

On By erintothemaxIn Commentary1 Comment

In my twenties, I quit my job several times to write a novel. The premise was: working was incompatible with writing a novel.

This assumption of needing to stop everything to write a novel is especially hilarious now. Fast forward to 45, when I’m writing a novel, for real this time. And leading a non-profit organization. And married with a school-age child. And providing elder care support as the only child of my lovely parents. And completing an MFA in creative writing. And chairing a board of directors. And volunteering with the school. And going to church. And running a few marathons a year.

Writing a novel while I’m doing an ungodly number of things is weird, but I’m actually doing it. I’ve puttered around the margins of this story for years, trying to write my way in. How many times have I started a new draft, a new outline? It was time that I needed. Because now, the real novel is on.

I’ve written hundreds of pages, and write four a day on average. Every day. No matter what. I have an outline I’m more than halfway through, and am 136 pages into the draft that is actually going to be the real first draft, the serious first draft. The first time I ran a marathon I started tearing up around mile 24 because I realized I was far enough to actually finish. I have reached this feeling with this novel. I trust it. I will finish this first serious draft.

How is this possible? Especially given the number of commitments I’ve listed above?

Here’s my secret: Writing my novel is actually the most relaxing thing I do.

It’s gotten to the point where I’m in out-of-body mode when I’m writing my novel. I just zone out and let ‘er rip on the page.

Perhaps I have reached the maturity to write in flow (I am a merciless self-editor) because I have finally come to accept the real thing they teach you in MFA programs. Everything you write is only going to be rewritten. Again. Again. And again. And just when you think you’re about done, someone new will tell you to take it from the top once more in this new way that requires more work, more time. (The never-ending workshops of the MFA are their own topic, but I will note with envy the wise words of one of my favorite colleagues in my program: “I hate these people.”)

I have an Oura ring, which is constantly mad at me, in its polite Finnish way. I have learned: My body is showing a physiological stress response pretty much all the time. For example: Folding laundry is especially rough on my stress levels, apparently. But this is not addressable. I am a mom. I am always folding laundry. This fact is only made worse by the fact that I’m a distance runner. Talk about heart rate. (In an amusing paradox, whereas my husband very much wants his Apple Watch to track every bit of exercise he does for tracking purposes, I sometimes take my ring off for a long run so it won’t dock my readiness scores for the next few days.)

The amazing thing is the proof of my novel love is in my pulse. Short of sleep, there is no time my body is more relaxed than when I am writing my novel. Interestingly, this doesn’t apply to other times I am writing (creatively or professionally) or working at the same computer and desk. But if my vanilla novel-writing candle is lit, and I’ve got my coffee cup beside me, and the for-real first draft is open, it’s on.

And this is how I know that I’m writing a novel for real this time. That I’ll actually finish. That it doesn’t matter if I have a million other things going on. Because writing the novel has become the best part of my day, and I miss it when I’m not doing it. I want to be in that seat even when the scene is sputtering. The novel is not an aspiration, a chore, or even an end. The process has become the point.

As with running, when I’m writing the novel I am free. In a trance. Who cares if it’s any good? I don’t think I’ve done anything as beneficial for my mental and physical health in years.

Another Semester Of Grad School Complete

On By erintothemaxIn Commentary1 Comment

Tonight, I finished my final “normal” semester of my part-time, low-residency graduate MFA program. By this I mean, I am done with my last regular class. This end came unceremoniously, in the parking lot outside my daughter’s gymnastics, with me hunched over my laptop in the dark in the passenger’s seat, using my hotspot from my phone. I responded to the required reading for the week. I have already turned in my final project early.

It is best to turn things in early when you’re a sandwich-generation student working a full-time job. You just never know when real life will blow up. In my experience it does all the time.

The more time I spend studying writing, the more I come to believe I have no business writing. Or that I have no business doing anything but writing. The absolutes come flying at me strong, and with feeling, as if by embracing the extremes I can avoid the dull reality of what it means to keep up with the work and the laundry on a regular basis.

Next semester, I start thesis. I will do this for two semesters. My thesis is a novel I have been trying to write for years.

I know I will emerge with this degree, and this novel draft, one year from now. And I accept that I’ll probably have to revise that draft eight times or more after the degree is over.

What I’m learning most of all in this program is that it’s not about writing, which I have always done. It’s about revision. It’s about ruthlessly staring at your own words and asking how they could be better. About excising the phrase you thought was so clever. About building the eye, and then the courage, to find and eliminate that wicked phrase. And to sharpen the next one. And to try rewriting the whole damn piece, again. A fourth time.

And it’s also about managing to do all that ego-whipping grunt work when the parking lot of your child’s activity is the only available option to getting it done. I’m continually struck, reading male authors, how little they talk about the needs of daily life, of interdependence, cohabitating with their precious writing time. This imbalance is part of what inspires me to keep going.