I've been thinking again about the old question of the value of the MFA, whether it's the best approach to becoming a writer or if other paths offer greater benefits. Although I certainly wouldn't say I regret getting my MFA, I think I would do things differently if I were to live the past several years over again with my current understanding and knowledge.
It's not that I wouldn't still want to go into an MFA program, take those classes, go through workshops, study for a comps exam, and all that. I would still want to do that. But I think I would have gained even more from the experience had I waited longer first. I remember reading a memoir by John Irving where he describes his experience studying under Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut told Irving that the lessons he was teaching were nothing that Irving couldn't discover on his own, but by studying them in an advanced program under the guidance of an established writer, the learning process could be streamlined. I think this is really the great benefit of a formal program, and yet I also think there is a lot to be gained through the trial and error of figuring things out for oneself. Finding the appropriate balance is the tricky thing.
When I finished college, I was twenty-two. I had a BA in theatre with a performance emphasis and no intention to actually become an actor, which is what I thought I wanted to do when I was eighteen. Instead, the four years of college had taught me that I was not a great actor, that instead my greatest talent was writing. Furthermore, I discovered that the most satisfying experience for me was writing. So I planned at age twenty-two to take a one year break from school and then go into grad school to study playwriting. A year later, I applied to a few playwriting MFA programs and made it all the way to first alternate in a good program, so if any of that school's first choice students declined their admission, I would be in; but, alas, they all said yes and I had to figure out what else to do with myself. I regrouped, considered my options and decided that what I really wanted to do, what would be a better fit for me anyway, was to leave behind the theatre and pursue prose writing. That had indeed been my first love.
But in my four years of college, although I took a playwriting course and many courses that involved writing essays, I had actually never taken a single class offered by the English department. I considered myself a serious reader and a good writer, but my credentials to go into a graduate program in English were limited. So I returned to school to fill in some of the gaps in my undergraduate course list. I took some literature survey courses and a creative writing workshop. Then, as I completed those, at age twenty-four I applied to graduate programs in English. I was admitted to an MA program with a creative writing emphasis and offered a TA position there. This seemed like the perfect fit. I could continue to fill in the gaps in my background by studying literature at an advanced level, but I could also work on my creative writing. Then, if I decided to continue on after the MA, I would be well prepared for an MFA program.
So I spent the next two years getting my MA. At this point I wouldn't really change anything. If I could do it over again, I'd probably keep things more or less the same up to this point in my life. But the next step I would do differently.
When I completed my MA, I wasn't burned out on school. I loved being a grad student and wanted to continue that life for a few more years. So I applied and was accepted into an MFA program. It went well, and two and a half years later, I had that degree. But doing the two Master's degrees back to back feels now like a mistake. I grew and developed as a writer during the first program, and I grew and developed in the second, and I continue to grow and develop now. But I think a lot of the growth and development I'm experiencing now on my own would have been useful a few years ago. Had I taken a break, say two to five years, after my MA, I could have taught composition, worked on my writing, and honed my skills on my own. Then, when I'd reached a point where I was far along--not necessarily as far as I could possibly go on my own, but something like that--I could have entered an MFA program. If I were a better writer when I began my MFA, I think I would have ultimately gained more from the experience. If I had more years of working things out on my own, the lessons of the formal program might have sunk in faster or clicked more readily.
One advantage to this alternate route would have simply been financial. I didn't yet have a ton of debt when I finished my MA, and had I taken a break at that point, I could have survived handily on an adjunct's paycheck, paid off my student loans, and entered an MFA program perhaps with a little savings, whereas instead I added more debt throughout the second graduate degree that I'm only now beginning to pay down. So rather than easily surviving on my meagre adjunct's pay, I'm instead working two jobs. Furthermore, if I spent the latter part of my twenties studying writing on my own, submitting, improving, and working hard, and then I got the MFA in my early thirties, I think by the time I completed the MFA, I would be at a more advanced stage in my abilities, and perhaps I would already have enough publications and experience to more quickly land a better teaching job than I currently have or can expect to have in the next couple of years.
Maybe this is in part coming from a certain sense of dissatisfaction with my current situation. Perhaps in my early thirties, I'm looking back on my twenties and wishing I could go back and relive some of those experiences. Maybe it's merely that I'd rather be a grad student right now than a teacher, and if I had done things according to this alternate plan, I would now be entering into a grad program rather than having it my past. I'm not sure. And, of course, pondering these issues doesn't change anything. I am as I am right now and can't really change it. And maybe in a few years I'll look back at this time and consider it the perfect path for my life. But at the moment, I kind of wish I'd made some other choices a few years ago.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Thursday, October 1, 2009
And Now For Something Completely Different
I'm getting another piece published, and this time it's something totally unlike what I normally write. I think of myself as a fiction writer, primarily as a novelist. I worked hard on one nonfiction piece that came together and is soon to be published. But I also wrote one poem that has recently been accepted for publicatoin. Apart from a handful of poems to fulfill a high school English class requirement, I don't think I've written any other poetry. But a couple of years ago, I had an idea for a poem and sat down and wrote it. It seemed halfway decent to me, but what do I know? I'm not a poet, and I don't read a lot of poetry, so I never bothered to submit it to journals or anything. Then this summer, I decided to pull it out and look at it again. I rewrote it and decided I might as well send it out. On the off chance that it got accepted somewhere, it would be nice to have an exra credit on my CV. Plus, unlike with my fiction, I didn't have much at stake in the submission process. If it got rejected, it wouldn't much hurt my feelings because I know I'm not a poet. So I sent it out, and it got accepted.
Of course, I'm thrilled to have one more thing published. This will be another credit on my CV, and publishing in multiple genres could help me get teaching jobs as it demonstrates that I am qualified to teach a mixed workshop course without completely alienating those writers interested in poetry. And when I looked over the poem again, I must admit that I think it's pretty good. The language is carefully chosen, there's a nice rhythm to it, and there's some alliteration that I think really helps the whole thing resonate. But having this piece of writing accepted while I'm still waiting for acceptances for my fiction, which I've worked much harder and longer on, leaves me wondering if I can draw any conclusions from this experience.
One thing that I've decided about this--one great, wonderful, positive thing--is that I do in fact have an ability to use language well. I've long felt that, as a writer, beautiful writing is not my specialty. I've read a number of stories in workshops over the years where I have greatly admired the writer's ability to put words together into beautiful sentences even when I didn't much care for the actual story the writer was telling. I've seen this same thing with published stories as well. Literary journals are full of beautifully written, boring stories (this is often what I think about when I hear criticism of MFA style writing). And while I admired my peers' abilities, I accepted that I wasn't so naturally gifted. But I've worked hard to hone my language skills. I try to pay attention to my diction and to the rhythm and flow of my writing, and I think my prose is much nicer now. So having a success in the world of poetry, which is so much more about one's ability to use language than it is to convey meaning or be clear, well, that tells me that I have been successful in developing my skills there. So, well done me.
But there's another conclusion I draw. I'm hesitant to bring this up because I fear it will seem derogatory and I don't intend it that way. I have admiration and respect for poets. I fully acknowledge that I am not one of them and apart from this one instance of dabbling in their field, I cannot do what they do. But the conclusion I draw is that it may actually be easier to get poetry published than to get fiction published. And what I mean by this is not that it's easier to write poetry or that the standards for poetry are less vigorous. I mean that purely from a numbers standpoint, there's more room for journals to publish poetry. I was glancing at a few journals the other day and counted up the different types of work. From my extremely limited survey I concluded that many journals publish in a typical issue perhaps four or five short stories, two or three essays, and twenty or so poems. This, of course, varies greatly. Some journals will publish dozens of stories. Others publish no nonfiction at all. But of those journals that publish both poetry and fiction, it is highly likely that while the number of pages dedicated to fiction in a given issue outnumber the pages of poetry, there are more actual poems than there are stories.
I also imagine (and again, this is pure speculation) that there are fewer poets out in the world submitting their work. Because it is something that many view as specialized and difficult and almost magical, many writers are reluctant to attempt poetry. But many of those same people assume they can write a story because it's the same kind of language they use everyday when writing e-mails. Any literate person knows how to write prose, so why not a piece of fiction? So I would guess that there are more aspiring fiction writers than aspiring poets in the world and more writers submit fiction than submit poetry. But even if I'm wrong there and the numbers are even, that still means that a journal could recieve a hundred poems and a hundred stories and find space in an issue to publish twenty percent of those poems and in the same number of pages only two or three percent of the stories. So while all of those poems may be wonderful, it's quite likely that some wonderful stories are rejected at the same time because there simply isn't enough space for all the good ones.
It's possible (or likely) that I have no idea what I'm talking about and this is all wild speculation, but I'd guess that on a whole it is statistically likelier to have a poem accepted than a story. Once again, let me emphasize that I don't intend to show disrespect for poets and what they do; however, when I finally get a story published, it will feel more significant to me than having this poem published.
Of course, I'm thrilled to have one more thing published. This will be another credit on my CV, and publishing in multiple genres could help me get teaching jobs as it demonstrates that I am qualified to teach a mixed workshop course without completely alienating those writers interested in poetry. And when I looked over the poem again, I must admit that I think it's pretty good. The language is carefully chosen, there's a nice rhythm to it, and there's some alliteration that I think really helps the whole thing resonate. But having this piece of writing accepted while I'm still waiting for acceptances for my fiction, which I've worked much harder and longer on, leaves me wondering if I can draw any conclusions from this experience.
One thing that I've decided about this--one great, wonderful, positive thing--is that I do in fact have an ability to use language well. I've long felt that, as a writer, beautiful writing is not my specialty. I've read a number of stories in workshops over the years where I have greatly admired the writer's ability to put words together into beautiful sentences even when I didn't much care for the actual story the writer was telling. I've seen this same thing with published stories as well. Literary journals are full of beautifully written, boring stories (this is often what I think about when I hear criticism of MFA style writing). And while I admired my peers' abilities, I accepted that I wasn't so naturally gifted. But I've worked hard to hone my language skills. I try to pay attention to my diction and to the rhythm and flow of my writing, and I think my prose is much nicer now. So having a success in the world of poetry, which is so much more about one's ability to use language than it is to convey meaning or be clear, well, that tells me that I have been successful in developing my skills there. So, well done me.
But there's another conclusion I draw. I'm hesitant to bring this up because I fear it will seem derogatory and I don't intend it that way. I have admiration and respect for poets. I fully acknowledge that I am not one of them and apart from this one instance of dabbling in their field, I cannot do what they do. But the conclusion I draw is that it may actually be easier to get poetry published than to get fiction published. And what I mean by this is not that it's easier to write poetry or that the standards for poetry are less vigorous. I mean that purely from a numbers standpoint, there's more room for journals to publish poetry. I was glancing at a few journals the other day and counted up the different types of work. From my extremely limited survey I concluded that many journals publish in a typical issue perhaps four or five short stories, two or three essays, and twenty or so poems. This, of course, varies greatly. Some journals will publish dozens of stories. Others publish no nonfiction at all. But of those journals that publish both poetry and fiction, it is highly likely that while the number of pages dedicated to fiction in a given issue outnumber the pages of poetry, there are more actual poems than there are stories.
I also imagine (and again, this is pure speculation) that there are fewer poets out in the world submitting their work. Because it is something that many view as specialized and difficult and almost magical, many writers are reluctant to attempt poetry. But many of those same people assume they can write a story because it's the same kind of language they use everyday when writing e-mails. Any literate person knows how to write prose, so why not a piece of fiction? So I would guess that there are more aspiring fiction writers than aspiring poets in the world and more writers submit fiction than submit poetry. But even if I'm wrong there and the numbers are even, that still means that a journal could recieve a hundred poems and a hundred stories and find space in an issue to publish twenty percent of those poems and in the same number of pages only two or three percent of the stories. So while all of those poems may be wonderful, it's quite likely that some wonderful stories are rejected at the same time because there simply isn't enough space for all the good ones.
It's possible (or likely) that I have no idea what I'm talking about and this is all wild speculation, but I'd guess that on a whole it is statistically likelier to have a poem accepted than a story. Once again, let me emphasize that I don't intend to show disrespect for poets and what they do; however, when I finally get a story published, it will feel more significant to me than having this poem published.
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