Tag: writing

Saturation Point: Instagram Posts That Have No Business Being Books

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I’m quite active over on Goodreads, and am experimenting with bringing some of my book review stuff over here on this blog, too. Let me know if you like it, or if I’ve lost my whole mind. I’m also going to post this as a book review there.

I’ve reached saturation point with Instagram posts masquerading as whole-ass books. You know what I’m talking about, right? The endless self-help about setting boundaries, respecting your true inner-calling, and blah blah blah.

The discomfit has been rising in me for some time. Self-help used to be straight-forward hokey, like Susan Jeffers’ Feel the Fear … and Do It Anyway, which has a good message but also a whole lot of shameless copywriter tricks. You could see the exclamation points and know you were choking down a marketing platform, along with the timeless advice to get over yourself.

I’ve read many books of the Influencer Self-Help Variety before. It just so happened to be Pooja Lakshmin’s A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness: Real Self-Care (Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble Baths Not Included) that threw me over the edge. I feel bad about this, because in reading the book, I quickly come to like her as a person and more or less agree with her political inclinations.

And her basic point is spot-on:

“Self-care” as we know it is commodified and stupid (steamed vaginal eggs, anyone)? To retreat into floofy, femininey products or services for purchase won’t really get at the root causes of what you need. What you need is boundaries, girl! P.S. The world is an asshole to women. We’re expected to do everything, and enjoy putting others first. WTAF?

The problem is, the above can easily be accomplished in a short series of slides, or a quick video. Maybe an op-ed for those who hit it big time. And it is. All the time. By influencers. The author included. But the Penguin Life imprint slid in and decided to make this a pulp-and-cover thing, and got my library involved. Which is where I picked it up.

I have some regrets, because while Lakshmin’s basic message is sound, as a bound book it’s frustrating.

Instead of being straight-forward, hokey self-help, which back in the rugged, pre-social media days was at least honest about what it was doing (giving the author a platform for speaking engagements, where the money is!), it lulls into that luscious mix of glittering generalities and carefully negotiated vulnerability (with micro-doses of trauma dumping) that is associated with influencers. It speaks directly to you.

But also, it holds back. This is frustrating, because there is so much more that could be said. Lakshmin commits the error editor and author Susan Bell warns writers to stay away from–holding back your best material for another time. You’ve got to use your best material now. In this case, Lakshmin repeatedly alludes to having joined a female orgasm meditation cult because she bottomed out with stress, which ultimately wound up being the opposite of the real self-care she needed.

Holy batman, that’s such a good story! We could all learn something there! But instead of telling us that story, she alludes to it what feels like dozens times without ever trusting her readers enough to let us in. We receive an empty preach instead, with a small dose of “trust me, because I’ve been there.” Take us there, hon. We can handle it. We’d probably learn a lot.

Mostly, I found the book frustrating because it seemed an inevitable variant rejection of Lean In, and instead of getting interesting and embracing a dialectic, by which I mean resolving multiple seemingly opposing ideas to get at something deeper, it’s just backlash. In other words, instead of Sheryl Sandberg telling you to be the boss, whatever it takes, Lakshmin encourages you to tell off the boss, no matter how crummy that makes you feel, because you need to rest.

How do we get enough rest and build power? Seize power? How do we change the nature of power? Get comfy cozy with power? How can we do this when women are expected to do more, for less pay, or no pay, and 9/10 are not gonna simply ditch their family obligations? These are serious questions.

Too serious for an approach that mirrors content.

Writing For Democracy Because Our Lives Depend Upon It

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“Should you decide that writing is your way to serve your country, or to defend it, you are almost always writing about the country it could become.” – Alexander Chee, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel

I can’t get this out of my head: In fourth grade, my class completed an assignment in which we were supposed to take pictures of our lives, and paste them to individual letter paper-sized trifolds branded by Pepsi. This was 1989/1990, so I took pictures of my bike, my friends, and my simple, sweet life.

Here’s what was interesting about it. The teacher collected them all, and then they went to Russia.

Several months later, we received other trifolds containing pictures of Russian youth. The girl who got mine sent me hers. Her house was small. She sat on a step with a bowl and a spoon. It looked cold, there.

But basically we were the same. I’m sure that was the point. I’m also sure selling Pepsi was the point.

Those were the years that Russia was liberalizing under Mikhail Gorbachev.

I can’t get this out of my head, because when I see pictures of old men being dragged into the winter cold without warrant or explanation, wearing only shorts that may as well be their underwear, pictures of a five-year-old boy being taken by masked agents, videos of protesters being shot, or sprayed in the face with toxic chemicals, or dragged, what I see doesn’t feel all that different from the imagery of Putin’s Russia, and its harsh, deadly crackdown on dissent.

Basically the United States has become the same as Russia or any other autocracy that is willing to harm its own people in the name of the supreme power of the supreme leader. That is the point of what Donald Trump is showing us in real time on the streets and in the schools of Minnesota. He’s showing us who he is. It’s not “like” a repressive government. It “is” a repressive government. And it is a danger to us all, no matter where we live, our citizenship status, and even our political beliefs.

But I also can’t get this out of my head, from “Requiem” by Russian poet Anna Akmatova:

In the terrible years of the Yezhov terror I spent seventeen months waiting in line outside the prison in Leningrad. One day somebody in the crowd identified me. Standing behind me was a woman, with lips blue from the cold, who had, of course, never heard me called by name before. Now she started out of the torpor common to to us all and asked me in a whisper (everyone whispered there):
“Can you describe this?”
And I said: “I can.”
Then something like a smile passed fleetingly over what had once been her face.
—-Leningrad, 1 April 1957

I believe writers of conscience have a patriotic duty to describe the subversion and destruction of our democracy, and its murderous impacts on real people, real lives, real neighbors. In doing this we are committing the ultimate patriotism.

So I don’t say casually, we have become quite similar to the Russia of today. Our country is run by a madman who doesn’t care who lives or dies, as long as he has ultimate power. We have a situation where it appears European leaders are more likely to hold American fascism to account than our own Congress and courts.

We are past the point of warning where we are headed. We are already there now. I write this knowing full well that our liberty to write words like this may be gone already, or retroactively declared gone at any point. And I refuse to give up that liberty. For me, or for you, whoever you are.

When the federal government lies, we have a moral obligation to speak the truth. I believe in the promise of a country operating under the rule of law. I believe in the power of love and community to overcome the horrible activities our government has weaponized against our own people. I have zero interest in our country igniting the world war our ‘MY COUNTRY, MINE’ president seems to want.

I believe in the importance of writing words, speaking words, sharing pictures. Whether they are exposing the harms of fascism in our country, or celebrating what a real government for the people is actually all about. We must fight for democracy everywhere, including the streets. And the page.

Writing Memoir Will Warp Your Brain

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I’m writing a memoir. I have been trained to think that’s self-indulgent and nauseating, but I’ve also been trained to hate myself because I’m a woman. I have figured out the latter is bullshit, so fuck it. I’m writing a memoir.

It is much harder than writing fiction.

True, fiction demands a higher level of engagement upfront: You have to figure out your characters, your plot, your narrative arc. But once you’re jamming, you can pretty much throw whatever sauce you want on the spaghetti. It’s fun to keep writing your characters in the face of new challenges that change them, but still leave them utterly, unmistakably themselves.

Writing memoir demands a different set of skills. I am prone to writing badly, and it’s quite easy to write badly when recounting what happened. Facts, facts, summary. Dull! Plus I have opinions about things. So many opinions. Too many opinions. (Husband: I’m sorry.) In any case, recounting facts and opinions is not creating emotion though action.

Writing memoir has warped the crap out of my brain. I have begun to deeply probe my actions, my beliefs, and the gaps between what I think I do and what I actually do. This is a big paraphrase, but Mary Karr advises to be gentle to others and go hard on the self. Writing memoir is all about self-accountability. This lens doesn’t go away when I step away from the computer.

But also, there is honesty and grace. To know oneself, to really embrace the warty self, brings a feeling of freedom and compassion. Isn’t it strange to be human? To have these flaws? To persevere anyway?

Are Art And Activism Incompatible?

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I’d just quit my job as an officer of the National Organization for Women (NOW). What did I do the next morning? I pulled my laptop into bed, and launched this blog. This sounds fairly anticlimactic, but it was a huge deal. I had pulled my old blog offline after being elected action vice president. Too much stuff was getting scrutinized by too many people.

The truth was, I felt horribly stifled. To be a spokesperson for the nation’s largest feminist organization was awesome, exciting, and an honor–and a lot of the time, it really fucking sucked. I was an activist and an artist. At the time of my election, just after my twenty-ninth birthday, I had been in a phase of life when I’d been deeply expressing my artistic side. But all that changed when I moved to Washington.

At the time I told myself that abandoning my writing was about the climate surrounding me. In Minneapolis, I’d been surrounded by artists. Those were my people, my friends. In Washington, I was surrounded with feminists and activists and political types. In Washington, what do you do? was the transactional question when you met someone. The question really meant this: what power do you have, and how can that benefit my agenda?

So, I basically stopped writing for three-plus years. I didn’t have the time to do it, because I was a workaholic. But I also didn’t have the frame of mind to do it, because as a primary spokesperson for NOW, I knew that everything I said would be taken as a reflection of the organization. There were many people out to get that organization. And the organization also had bitter infighting, over a variety of topical and identity fissures. One glance outside the invisible lines and the grenades would come.

Today I have found a healthier balance with work, life, activism, and art. I still apply myself to more endeavors than almost anyone I know, but that’s also just kind of what I like to do. It’s who I am. I like to do stuff. Life is short, and I like to live it.

I kept the same old crutch from my NOW days, though: I felt like my feminism and my writing had some serious incompatibilities. While I am most definitely a feminist writer and these things are intertwined, there is a tautology in movement life. There is much saying of the same things: a climate of stifling agreement. Even though in my current activist posture there are no longer decades worth of NOW resolutions of policies and platforms (many of them predating my life) I have to reflect throughout my words, as when I was in leadership there, I still find myself at times contending with the deep and incredible pressure not to challenge group wisdom as it exists in movement spaces. There are stories to be championed. Stories that fall outside those lines are often branded harmful.

The problem is, that’s not how life works. It’s certainly not how writing is supposed to work. You need to go for the truth, no matter how damn uncomfortable it is, or you’re writing absolute schlock. You need to let the words get away from you. Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in What Is Literature?

“A work is never beautiful unless it in some way escapes its author. If he paints himself without planning to, if his characters escape his control and impose their whims upon him, if the words maintain a certain independence under his pen, then he does his best work.” (160)

I was afraid to write freely. Might I write outside the lines? Would it get me cancelled?

I’d also felt a certain self-imposed pressure to downplay the work that I do as a writer, because would that mean that I might be perceived that I’m not committed to my professional leadership roles?

I’ve been in the process of getting over this. I’m beginning to see that I can integrate my life more, and that it’s okay for my nonfiction writing self and my fiction characters to reflect the messy that is real. I’m beginning to see that I can be an artist and activist at the same time, and that these things are not necessarily in opposition to each other, but rather, that they offer different outlets for expressing my desires for a better world.

One more Sarte quote from What Is Literature?:

“The ‘committed’ writer knows that words are action. He knows that to reveal is to change and that once can reveal only by planning to change. He has given up the impossible dream of giving an impartial picture of society and the human condition.” (14)

As I’m starting to see it in my newer integrated conception of myself, both art and activism are tools. They are not the same tools. I am not a writer in service of anything but truth, no matter how uncomfortable that truth may be. I still get to be a feminist when I do this. I’m also starting to understand it’s on me, too, to model the change I wish to see regarding the non-productive pressures for group-speak in activist spaces. Finally, I’ve stopped hiding in my professional life how much writing matters to me, personally, outside of work. These moments are liberatory.

This is journey of abandoning my own dogma (“my art and my feminism are in conflict with one another,” as I’ve said for years), and woo-ee, is it refreshing.

A Trip To Paris With Pictures And My Commonplace Book

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During my first semester of my MFA program, one of my instructors assigned us to keep a commonplace book over the course of the semester. A commonplace book is a file of quotations. It had to be at least 25 pages, so I had to be a bit of a bunny with our assigned reading. I couldn’t slough it off until the last minute.

More than three years later, I’m still going strong, although I’m no longer doing it in a document in exchange for class credit. I now have a small Moleskin notebook. I write in it by hand. No one is assigning me this. I just love to do it.

Please meet my commonplace book, as it records my readings during my stay in Paris over the past week.

“I always say that you can not tell what a picture really is or what an object really is until you dust it every day and you cannot tell what a book is until you type it or proof-read it. It then does something to you that only reading can never do.” – Gertrude Stein, “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas”

I picked up a copy of Gertrude Stein’s “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas” at Shakespeare and Company, just behind Notre Dame. I read it in one day. Admittedly, this is the day we flew home from Paris, so I had time on my hands. Let’s talk about the above quote, because not only is it the ultimate validation for my quest, it’s fascinating. I reread it several times as I transmitted it to paper. She really spelled “can not” as two words the first time, and “cannot” as one word the second time. This was a woman of great intentionality. I refuse to believe she made this choice casually. What does she mean?

Notre Dame at night. We stayed at an apartment so close by, sometimes you could hear her bells.

I read Gertrude Stein’s poetry, if you can call it that, during the course of my program. It was inscrutable. It made me want to craft shoe leather out of the roof of my mouth, anything, anything to get away from her words. But “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas” was pretty good. I’m glad I gave it a try.

“A little artist has all the tragic unhappiness and the sorrows of a great artist and he is not a great artist.” – Gertrude Stein, “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas”

Ouch, Gertrude. A little close to home, yes? Me and my tragic unhappiness and sorrows, and sloppy prose. Alas. We went to Musee D’Orsay and the Louvre. There are no little artists featured there. I’m not much of a picture-taker, though. I delegate that to my husband. He loves a camera. Thus I took no pictures in the Musee D’Orsay or the Louvre. But I did take this photograph of a coaster at Les Deux Magots, where James Joyce used to drink.

What kind of idiot looks at fine art for several hours on two separate days, and takes no pictures, but does take a picture of a used coaster presented with her glass of red wine? Alack, a little artist.

I read two other books during the trip. Haruki Murakami’s “1Q84,” and Jean-Paul Sartre’s “What Is Literature?” Technically, I started Murakami at home, but the book is bigger than the telephone directories they used to give you for free. It was totally genius. The two quotes from the trip that I’ve put in my commonplace book I’ll withhold for now, as I may use them in a project I’m working on.

I also still have a bit to go with “What Is Literature?” Perhaps 70 pages remaining. Maybe 60. I read that immediately after finishing “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.” I never got up from my window seat during that Air France flight. Why worry about blood clots when there is the threat of brain clots? These are the two books I purchased at the Shakespeare and Company bookstore. I worry that, like the maracrons purchased at the airport, I shouldn’t let Sartre go more than a few days if I hope to get back into it. It will be hard to finish that book in a not-captivity situation, but I’ll do it.

Things they do better in Paris, beyond the accurate “EVERYTHING” include public toilets and a genuine encouragement to give to the poor. This encouragement to donate sits inside the front gates of the Pere-Lachaise Cemetery. I didn’t take photos of these graves visited: Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Frédéric Chopin. I was too busy looking at them.

Cemeteries are among my favorite places. I go in a cemetery a half dozen to a baker’s dozen times a month, and have been doing this for years. They are great places to still the mind, to explore, to run. Thus, Pere-Lachaise is the place we visited that was my favorite. No contest. I can’t believe how packed together everything was. Rotting grandeur is my favorite vibe. This one had it.

“You must have deep down as the deepest thing in you a sense of equality. Then anybody will do anything for you.” – Gertrude Stein, “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas”

It is possible to lean on one another in life, and in death. This is what I see in this image.

Reviewing my phone, I took seventeen photographs during my seven days in Paris. The first photograph was of kohlrabi for sale in a market. My small-town Minnesota grandmother loved kohlrabi. As they say, wherever you go, there you are.

And that was me. Reading my books. Writing down quotes. Not taking many pictures. Eating croissants every day. Never looking once at social media (oh my God, yes). Drinking copious quantities of red wine. Not having Thanksgiving dinner because our family is vegetarian anyway. Rather, some nice wine and cheese.

This is what a nice Thanksgiving meal in Paris looks like when no one in your family eats flesh.

I was struck, landing at Charles de Gualle, and walking through customs, how different it felt to be in a country without fascist leadership. I felt much freer and safer than I did walking through U.S. customs on the way home. You never know what kind of shit they’re going to pull on the abortion people, and when.

But in Paris? I didn’t have to think about it.

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.

—

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

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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.

What Does It Mean To Be A Writer In The Trump Era?

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I’ve been thinking on what it means to be a writer in the Trump era.

It means nothing good.

The latest salvo in the assault on the press out of the dictator-elect looks like a lawsuit against The Des Moines Register and others for publishing a poll that suggested Kamala Harris would win the state on election day (she didn’t).

This comes on the heels of a $15 million settlement payment from ABC to Donald Trump following a defamation lawsuit he filed regarding George Stephanopoulos’ characterization of E. Jean Carroll v. Trump, a civil suit in which Trump was found liable for sexual abuse.

To wind it back, so what does this mean for writers?

The next phase of Trumpism hasn’t even taken the reins yet, and it’s clear that speech is out for punishment.

As a hobby I study authoritarian governments and their effects on societies, and I think an instructive example is to look toward Russia, the country that gave literature Tolstoy, Chekov, Gogol … and then,

nothing.

There is nothing like a vindictive, hostile state demanding obedience to kill the publication of creativity.

I’ve also been thinking about the disturbing trend of book bans, and the edict in Project 2025 that school librarians be registered as sex offenders if the censors deem they have been providing sexually explicit material.

And I’ve also been thinking about trends within the left that also hamper free speech. I’ve noticed a definite uptick among colleagues and friends with concern that speaking out of turn will lead to getting cancelled. This is quite frightening at a time when the left needs to robustly champion open and free debate. The right is sure as hell not going to do it.

I’ve heard it said before, “reading is thinking on the page.” So, too, is writing.

So here’s what I think: To be a writer in the Trump era–a writer, not a sycophant–is going to require taking creative risks at even greater levels than before. It is an audacious thing to believe one has something to contribute. Only growing moreso.

I Actually Have No Idea How Fast I Am Going

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I write about running a lot, because I run a lot. Perhaps too much. It is entirely possible that my running is detracting from my writing. It used to be the case that when I got up early, I would write. Now when I get up early, I run. Or I start working on my job so that I have time to run when it gets light outside. If I’m being honest, I have too many [waves hands] hobbies.

But running gives me energy. That feeds my ability to write. And my ability to give my best thwack to fighting the hateful ideas behind gender-based oppression, which, tbh, is not an easy nutcracker to ballet.

I work out many ideas on my feet.

I am a middle-age recreational lady runner. For that demographic, I take it seriously. For years I’ve kept a daily journal noting time, distance, pace. I schedule my runs. I compete against myself like whoa. (The only person you’re ever really competing against is yourself, I’ve learned. All these lessons are for running and so much more.)

One thing I’ve been focusing on is my speed. Training myself to run faster is fun. In this process, I have realized that I actually have no idea how fast I am going. Sometimes, I look at my device and realize I’m going like a minute per mile faster than I thought I was. Much more often, I think I’m going fast, and I’m like slo-mo runner in actuality.

I think to the times in my life when I’ve crashed or burned out, and how this lack of self-awareness about self in relation to time and space chases me. Me chasing me without realizing I’m doing it. But also how there are times that I think I’m going fast when actually, it’s an illusion and I need to buck up to hit the mark.

To know oneself in relationship to an actual measurement of velocity is somewhat akin to the experience of seeing yourself on video. This is how I look from outside the blinders of my body? Really?

Sometimes I think I can understand others better than I can myself. And to be clear, I’m constantly confuzzled by others. Who is this me in the sneakers? How fast is she going? I dunno.

Another Semester Of Grad School Complete

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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.