One thing that I suspect many of us don't fully appreciate when we head off to grad school to study writing is how difficult it can be to actually make a living. I knew that it would be tough or unlikely that I would manage to pay rent and buy food and essentials solely from writing, but I more or less assumed that once I completed my graduate degrees I would be able to land a full time teaching job. Even when I was directly told that wasn't necessarily the case, I don't think it fully sunk in. Now I realize just how difficult it is. I've read statistics that even a majority of folks with Ph.D.s in English cannot find full time professorships. As I look for jobs, I realize that I don't even meet the minimum requirements for most full time positions.
At the university level, they want substantial publication credits, which I don't have yet, or a Ph.D., which I don't have. Many universities require a Ph.D. even to teach the basic composition courses. At the community college level, they want experience. I'm currently in my seventh year of teaching, but the first five years were in grad school, which I've come to understand doesn't count for much. The key number at the community college level seems to be three to five years, and I'm in my second year at the community college. The notion that I will someday have a full time job is not unrealistic. I suspect it's within the next five years. But that's much longer than I expected it would take when I was in grad school.
I remember a professor in grad school who was talking about being a professor and what a noble calling it was and how nobody should pursue that life just for the money because there are so many other jobs out there where one can make much more money. I thought at the time he was full of it, and I still do. Those of us who spend years in grad school essentially don't have other marketable skills. Sure, I can work retail, but that pays far worse than teaching. It's not like my MFA qualifies me to work on Wall Street. The reality is that many of us who earn MFAs need to teach for a living because we don't really have other reasonable options.
But the nice thing is that even though I don't have a full time job and adjunct teaching doesn't really pay a professional wage in proportion to my level of education and experience, it's still a decent paying part time job, or at least it can be (I guess I'm lucky enough to have landed a position that pays toward the high end of the adjunct scale). For 2009, I will have made more money than I've ever made in my life. My taxable income will be about double what it's ever previously been. So that's not all bad (of course, I've essentially been on or below the poverty line my entire adult life). But even so, it still feels like I'm getting a bit ripped off. I teach four classes a semester. Full timers at my school teach five. If I had a full time position, I'd make close to double what I make now, plus I'd have benefits like insurance. That's a ridiculous difference. Plus, there's the factor that I'm technically part time, but teaching isn't like other part time jobs. I have to take my work home with me. I'm emotionally invested in the progress of my students. I work weekends. I stay up late at night grading papers. But the reality is this: what other choice do I have?
I think there are a couple of ways to think about this pickle. One is to realize that my efforts now will (I hope) pay off in a few years. It often sucks to be an adjunct. But in a few years, when I land a full time job, I'll be in a much better position. If I were to abandon teaching in favor of a better paying low-level office job, I could do that and probably make more money right now. But there wouldn't be much future in that. If I were to get a $10 an hour job filing paperwork or answering phones, I'd be okay, but ten years from now, I'd still only be making $11 an hour or something. But if I put up with the hassles of being an adjunct for a couple more years, I could be making double what I make now, maybe triple or quadruple. My professor was totally wrong: it does make sense to get into teaching for the money. Although the money isn't great now, I'm sowing the seeds that will grow in the future.
The second thing I think I have to consider is that it might be useful to reevaluate my efforts. I'm working a part time job. A full time professor at my school is expected to teach five classes, advise students, attend faculty meetings and so forth. I'm only expected to teach four classes. So if a full time position is forty hours per week, then my job should be less than thirty. I'm at school in the classroom or office hours about eighteen hours a week. So I shouldn't reasonably spend more than about ten additional hours grading papers or doing prep work. If I spend more time than that, then I'm really a bit of a sucker, working on my own time rather than the time I get paid for. But that is how I've regularly worked. I ordinarily spend much more time than that because I care about my students and I want them to succeed, and how much they get out of my class depends on how much work I put into the class. But is that fair? Should I care? Is it reasonable to expect me to put out that much effort for the amount I'm being compensated? I honestly think I should do less work. Maybe what this means is that I should collect fewer drafts of papers so I have less work to do at home. I should write fewer notes on students' work and adopt a simpler rubric for grading, where all I have to do is check a few boxes. The advantage to me would be obvious, yet I feel like my students would suffer. But then again, If I reduced my efforts I think my students would probably get a comparable experience to what they get from other teachers. I've often had grateful students say how nice it is to get such detailed feedback from me, which leads me to believe they aren't getting that elsewhere, and I've had students say that in their other writing courses, the teacher's expectations seem to be nothing more than that a student hand in a paper that is typed, that the quality of thought and skill are not full evaluated. If I lowered my standards and made my life easier, I think I would then be a fairly average teacher. Maybe being average is fine. After all, I'm not being paid to be above average.
I don't know. I can probably do some of that, streamline my process a bit to make my life easier. But I don't know if I could ever fully detach myself from my students. I really wish I could. It would be nice not to think or care about them. But I do care.
Anyway, back to the main point. The need to make a living is a giant obstacle that has to be overcome. The greatest thing a writer needs is time to write, but when one is trying to pay bills, it becomes tough to find enough time. Maybe the issue really is just that I have to put up with the unfortunate situation now and things will be easier down the line. If I can manage to publish enough in the next few years, then maybe I'll actually land a full time creative writing professorship some day. And then I'll be able to teach fewer classes, make enough money just from teaching where I won't have to worry about additional income in the breaks between semesters, and basically it will feel like I've got tons of time to write. But actually reaching that point is tough.
I think one of the toughest things for me to accept about the dreaded real world that we all must enter when we leave school is how hard it is at the beginning. I always figured it would be easier at the start and would get harder as one went throughout life, but I actually think it's the opposite. When one is young, one still has all the expenses of an adult life, but one has less ability to make an income that will fully cover those expenses. I figure my basic needs won't substantially change in the next ten or twenty years, except that I have loans to pay off now that will be paid off then, so basically I need more money now than I will need in ten years. Yet my earning ability will likely be far higher in the future than it is now. Right now I'm barely scraping by, but if I have a full time professorship in ten years, I'll have more money than I need. It just seems unfair that I can't swap out my situations and make that money now and then comfortably live on less then.
Showing posts with label age. Show all posts
Showing posts with label age. Show all posts
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
I wish that I knew what I know now . . .
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.
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.
Monday, June 22, 2009
What It's About
I've been thinking recently about the difference between craft--that is being able to convey things well and interestingly through good diction, style, structure, etc.--and actually having something to say. In particular I was reflecting on the benefits of studying writing in a formal program and what one learns there compared with what one doesn't learn there. I feel that my experience in graduate school was useful in developing my craft abilities as a writer. I have no doubts that I am a better writer today than I was five years ago. And, in a strange way, writing is harder for me today than it was then because I know of so many various factors to pay attention to now (when I'm rewriting, I can spend a couple of hours and only get through a paragraph). I've studied craft and, I think, become a decent craftsman.
However, one thing that isn't really addressed, and I don't know if it's possible to address, in an MFA program is content. It's great if one can write well, but if one has nothing to say, then what's the point? And I think that's one of the problems I'm encountering at the moment. I feel like I can write well (of course I've still got more to learn and more developing to do, but basically I write well), but I'm increasingly unconvinced that at age thirty I have anything worth writing about. When I start to develop the ideas I have, I usually become excited about a new prospect and start to think through the implications of the idea only to become discouraged because it's nothing very original or different. Now I don't think this is strictly a problem that I have. I think most writers probably have this basic problem. Great writers have been producing work for so long, how can we, now, add anything new to the discussions? That isn't necessarily a problem. Approaching something old from a new angle can work. Or even doing something old, but doing it well, can be solid. The problem for a young writer, though, is that sometimes the ideas that seem fresh are actually old. Or if I recognize that an idea is old, but I think I can still do it well, that might not be enough. Why would an editor want to publish some old idea from some young nobody? I recently received a very nice letter accompanying a rejection. The letter said that my story was well written, but essentially takes on an old idea and adds nothing new. And I couldn't disagree with their critique.
I read a blog today about a similar issue, and that is whether one gains better experience from the "real world" than from the academic world. In essence, that's part of my concern. I'm thirty years old. I spent my entire childhood up to age twenty-two in school. Then after only a short break, I returned to school for almost the entire remainder of my twenties. Now I'm out of school as a student but still in that world as a teacher. Most of my life experience is from that world. I like that world. It's a good world. But it does leave me feeling limited in my understanding of humanity. When I interact with my students, who are largely from very different socio-economic, cultural, and intellectual backgrounds than me, I feel perplexed by their attitudes and behaviors. Likewise, I feel that I might not be able to properly imagine other situations and lives. I've heard that a writer doesn't need any real experience because it's all about imagination, so the great writer has learned everything they need to know about humanity by age seven or so, and from then on it's a matter of making up stories. This contrasts with the other view, that a writer would be better off spending years on a failed marriage than on an MFA. My sensibilities lean toward the imagination camp, and yet I'm not sure if that actually works.
The difficulty for me is that I fear my own views of the world, or something about the way my mind works, might be different enough from the average that my work doesn't quite resonate with others. On more than one occasion I've written fiction where characters were created from my understanding of how people think and act, and the reaction of my readers was puzzlement as to why the character acts and thinks as he does. Or I've had the reverse experience as a reader, where I read a story and find the motivations of the characters completely baffling, but the others around me see those characters as everyman types that anyone can relate to and understand. Maybe it's a matter of life experience, that I simply haven't done enough to understand the world around me as much as I'd like to. Sometimes I think that the best plan of action would be to sort of set aside the immediate goals of publication and so on and to simply live life for a while longer to try to come up with something worth writing about. I could continue to work on my craft to keep my skills up, but maybe I simply won't have any stories worth sharing with the world for another ten or twenty years, if then. I don't know.
The downside of a plan like that is that, essentially, I've never felt that I was very good at living life. Many of the basic experiences that people have and that then produce the inspiration for good writing are beyond my experience or understanding. And I don't know that there's any way to have those experiences merely for the sake of having them. I don't think life works that way. When I was younger, I sort of attempted such a thing. I had never really dated before, and I suspected that it would not be a good idea to date this one particular girl who was interested in me. However, part of what convinced me to do it was that it would provide good life experience for me as a writer. The relationship ended as I always knew it would. I've long felt that the anxiety of the experience while it was happening followed by the depression when it was over was plenty of reason to avoid the experience to begin with and I should have followed my rational brain that told me not to do it. But at least I now had this life experience that is a rite of passage for most people. I had experienced a young romance and could now write about it. But it turns out, the way I experienced that was not similar to how most others experience such a thing. I wrote about it, and people felt like my character was an enigmatic freak.
I don't know that there's any way to overcome this obstacle. My inclination is to hope that continued living will somehow magically transform me into someone with greater understanding and more significant ideas to put into my writing, but I also suspect that there's a lot of truth to the notion that one learns the essentials by age seven, and somehow I just never quite learned them the way others do.
However, one thing that isn't really addressed, and I don't know if it's possible to address, in an MFA program is content. It's great if one can write well, but if one has nothing to say, then what's the point? And I think that's one of the problems I'm encountering at the moment. I feel like I can write well (of course I've still got more to learn and more developing to do, but basically I write well), but I'm increasingly unconvinced that at age thirty I have anything worth writing about. When I start to develop the ideas I have, I usually become excited about a new prospect and start to think through the implications of the idea only to become discouraged because it's nothing very original or different. Now I don't think this is strictly a problem that I have. I think most writers probably have this basic problem. Great writers have been producing work for so long, how can we, now, add anything new to the discussions? That isn't necessarily a problem. Approaching something old from a new angle can work. Or even doing something old, but doing it well, can be solid. The problem for a young writer, though, is that sometimes the ideas that seem fresh are actually old. Or if I recognize that an idea is old, but I think I can still do it well, that might not be enough. Why would an editor want to publish some old idea from some young nobody? I recently received a very nice letter accompanying a rejection. The letter said that my story was well written, but essentially takes on an old idea and adds nothing new. And I couldn't disagree with their critique.
I read a blog today about a similar issue, and that is whether one gains better experience from the "real world" than from the academic world. In essence, that's part of my concern. I'm thirty years old. I spent my entire childhood up to age twenty-two in school. Then after only a short break, I returned to school for almost the entire remainder of my twenties. Now I'm out of school as a student but still in that world as a teacher. Most of my life experience is from that world. I like that world. It's a good world. But it does leave me feeling limited in my understanding of humanity. When I interact with my students, who are largely from very different socio-economic, cultural, and intellectual backgrounds than me, I feel perplexed by their attitudes and behaviors. Likewise, I feel that I might not be able to properly imagine other situations and lives. I've heard that a writer doesn't need any real experience because it's all about imagination, so the great writer has learned everything they need to know about humanity by age seven or so, and from then on it's a matter of making up stories. This contrasts with the other view, that a writer would be better off spending years on a failed marriage than on an MFA. My sensibilities lean toward the imagination camp, and yet I'm not sure if that actually works.
The difficulty for me is that I fear my own views of the world, or something about the way my mind works, might be different enough from the average that my work doesn't quite resonate with others. On more than one occasion I've written fiction where characters were created from my understanding of how people think and act, and the reaction of my readers was puzzlement as to why the character acts and thinks as he does. Or I've had the reverse experience as a reader, where I read a story and find the motivations of the characters completely baffling, but the others around me see those characters as everyman types that anyone can relate to and understand. Maybe it's a matter of life experience, that I simply haven't done enough to understand the world around me as much as I'd like to. Sometimes I think that the best plan of action would be to sort of set aside the immediate goals of publication and so on and to simply live life for a while longer to try to come up with something worth writing about. I could continue to work on my craft to keep my skills up, but maybe I simply won't have any stories worth sharing with the world for another ten or twenty years, if then. I don't know.
The downside of a plan like that is that, essentially, I've never felt that I was very good at living life. Many of the basic experiences that people have and that then produce the inspiration for good writing are beyond my experience or understanding. And I don't know that there's any way to have those experiences merely for the sake of having them. I don't think life works that way. When I was younger, I sort of attempted such a thing. I had never really dated before, and I suspected that it would not be a good idea to date this one particular girl who was interested in me. However, part of what convinced me to do it was that it would provide good life experience for me as a writer. The relationship ended as I always knew it would. I've long felt that the anxiety of the experience while it was happening followed by the depression when it was over was plenty of reason to avoid the experience to begin with and I should have followed my rational brain that told me not to do it. But at least I now had this life experience that is a rite of passage for most people. I had experienced a young romance and could now write about it. But it turns out, the way I experienced that was not similar to how most others experience such a thing. I wrote about it, and people felt like my character was an enigmatic freak.
I don't know that there's any way to overcome this obstacle. My inclination is to hope that continued living will somehow magically transform me into someone with greater understanding and more significant ideas to put into my writing, but I also suspect that there's a lot of truth to the notion that one learns the essentials by age seven, and somehow I just never quite learned them the way others do.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Youth
I was thinking the other day about youth and inexperience. Mainly this was in regards to my novel about twenty-somethings. I was trying to figure out how to compose an engaging query letter that will snag an agent's attention, but it just seems like an impossible task. Is this because my book is simply not that good? I don't think so. Although I imagine it's not the greatest book ever or the best thing I'll ever write, I still feel pretty pleased with it. I've gotten good feedback from trusted readers. Even when it was at an earlier stage a few drafts ago, I got good responses. A couple people had the same major issue with it in their critique, which was simply that they wanted more of it, to spend more time with the characters. Hurray, right? But how do I distill what is decent about it into an engaging hook? There doesn't really seem to be a hook. Every time I tried to figure out what the conflict is at the heart of the book, what the major struggles are for the characters I was left feeling like it doesn't sound all that interesting. It's partly the high concept issue I discussed last time, but there's something else there, too. And that, I think, is the problem of youth.
I've written a book about twenty-something characters struggling with twenty-something problems. My hope is that those issues translate to other readers, that older folks could read the book and remember back to when they were younger. But maybe they wouldn't care much. They're past that stage of life and would rather move forward. Or another way of thinking about it is that for young characters there's an inherent lack of high stakes. Although the conflicts and struggles are very real and important to those characters experiencing them, they might not matter to an older reader. I'm not so many years removed from my characters, and already I'm starting to think that. I'm sure another ten or twenty years down the line and I'll have even less interest in young people. I remember a girl at the bookstore where I work was telling me why I should read the Twilight series of books. She said they aren't simply about vampires, but they're more about teen angst and young love. And I thought that was the perfect reason for me to not read those books. I might have some interest in reading about vampires, but teen angst and young love rank pretty low on my list of things that engage me.
So is my book then doomed? What interested me about that story when I started it a few years ago seems less significant to me now. But there's a good chance that my newer ideas will stay interesting to me for a while. Really, the kicker came when I was trying to come up with a hook opening line for a query, and I was thinking about what it is that my main character really wants and what the challenge is for him. He's a young writer who hasn't experienced enough life yet to have much worth writing about. But if that's the case, and the book is a metafictional work that he is writing, then doesn't it follow that there's not much worth reading there? Not entirely. By the time the character starts writing the story, more has happened to him. Yet, I can't quite crack how to explain that in a snappy few sentences. I just kept getting into the mind of an agent and reading a query letter that describes a novel by a young novelist about a young novelist with little life experience struggling to write a novel. How could that be anything but an automatic rejection? Even if it's good (which I think my book is), it seems so clichéd and self-referential. The chances of that kind of book being very decent and having much appeal to a wide audience seem pretty remote. If I can't imagine me requesting the manuscript as an agent, how could I expect an actual agent to want to look at it? But that's not to suggest writing it wasn't valuable even if nobody else ever reads it.
So when it got me thinking about youth, I started reflecting on young I still really am. I dreaded my last birthday when I hit 30. That seemed so old to me. It was depressing to reach that point and have so little to show for my life, to not even have a full time job. But when I think much about it, thirty is awfully young for a writer. How many writers do much that's any good by that age? Sure, there are the handful of Hemingways and Shelleys out there, but most don't get going until much later. Even Philip Roth, who made a splashy debut in his twenties, didn't hit hit his stride for about another decade, and then he arguably didn't climax for another three or four decades. It takes so much practice to get good at writing that the chances of getting in enough practice by age thirty are pretty slim. So for now I'll keep practicing and living, and eventually I'll have plenty to write about and the skills with which to write effectively.
I've written a book about twenty-something characters struggling with twenty-something problems. My hope is that those issues translate to other readers, that older folks could read the book and remember back to when they were younger. But maybe they wouldn't care much. They're past that stage of life and would rather move forward. Or another way of thinking about it is that for young characters there's an inherent lack of high stakes. Although the conflicts and struggles are very real and important to those characters experiencing them, they might not matter to an older reader. I'm not so many years removed from my characters, and already I'm starting to think that. I'm sure another ten or twenty years down the line and I'll have even less interest in young people. I remember a girl at the bookstore where I work was telling me why I should read the Twilight series of books. She said they aren't simply about vampires, but they're more about teen angst and young love. And I thought that was the perfect reason for me to not read those books. I might have some interest in reading about vampires, but teen angst and young love rank pretty low on my list of things that engage me.
So is my book then doomed? What interested me about that story when I started it a few years ago seems less significant to me now. But there's a good chance that my newer ideas will stay interesting to me for a while. Really, the kicker came when I was trying to come up with a hook opening line for a query, and I was thinking about what it is that my main character really wants and what the challenge is for him. He's a young writer who hasn't experienced enough life yet to have much worth writing about. But if that's the case, and the book is a metafictional work that he is writing, then doesn't it follow that there's not much worth reading there? Not entirely. By the time the character starts writing the story, more has happened to him. Yet, I can't quite crack how to explain that in a snappy few sentences. I just kept getting into the mind of an agent and reading a query letter that describes a novel by a young novelist about a young novelist with little life experience struggling to write a novel. How could that be anything but an automatic rejection? Even if it's good (which I think my book is), it seems so clichéd and self-referential. The chances of that kind of book being very decent and having much appeal to a wide audience seem pretty remote. If I can't imagine me requesting the manuscript as an agent, how could I expect an actual agent to want to look at it? But that's not to suggest writing it wasn't valuable even if nobody else ever reads it.
So when it got me thinking about youth, I started reflecting on young I still really am. I dreaded my last birthday when I hit 30. That seemed so old to me. It was depressing to reach that point and have so little to show for my life, to not even have a full time job. But when I think much about it, thirty is awfully young for a writer. How many writers do much that's any good by that age? Sure, there are the handful of Hemingways and Shelleys out there, but most don't get going until much later. Even Philip Roth, who made a splashy debut in his twenties, didn't hit hit his stride for about another decade, and then he arguably didn't climax for another three or four decades. It takes so much practice to get good at writing that the chances of getting in enough practice by age thirty are pretty slim. So for now I'll keep practicing and living, and eventually I'll have plenty to write about and the skills with which to write effectively.
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