For years (probably 7, I lost count) I tried to get into an MFA program. No matter the number of thin, legal-sized envelopes that crossed my threshold, year after year, I ponied up the fees, gathered the collateral and applied. Then one year I got serious. I signed up for two continuing education classes and one undergraduate fiction writing class taught by a professor from its MFA program to get three letters of recommendation from writers, not just friends. Thumbing through Poets and Writers magazine, I saw an advertisement for the inaugural Rutgers-Newark MFA program. The following week, as I was walking around with a friend, about to celebrate my 35th birthday, I stopped and said, “I have to get an MFA or else.” I didn’t finish the “or else,” wasn’t ready to give myself an ultimatum, I just knew that I wanted — needed — help with my writing and I honed the cover letter to make it less confessional (Professor Tayari Jones once said you can read “crazy” instantly in a cover letter, which made me blush remembering how I had trotted out all my and my familial oddities on one sheet of paper).
Finally, I received a big thick welcome envelope to the program. I was in! This, I thought would be my ticket into being a real writer. I took a workshop led by Jayne Anne Phillips in the fall semester of 2007 and submitted a short story “Unruly.” It was 37 pages long. There were really two short stories in it and a whole lot of other extraneous ideas. One of the issues involved with the story was race, and I was anxious to see what fellow workshoppers thought. There were some misreadings, but finally, at long last, I heard confirmation and a new concept that informed the story and all others since when one workshopper stopped the conversation and said, “this story is about race and class.” Race I knew about, but class? What is this class business? Class has been this invisible encasement in my life. I didn’t know it was what I had been rubbing up against all of my life and yet, when this person said it, I was like, “holy shit. He’s freaking right.” This notion put me in a tailspin and I read all kinds of other works of fiction looking for these same themes — yes, I know, this theme is pervasive in literature, but I am late bloomer in many things, especially reading.
Two years later, I sat down in the law library at Rutgers-Newark and asked myself why this story, originally told in third person, wasn’t flying. Then that 12-year-old voice piped up and I transcribed what she was so angry about and out the story came.
Now PANK magazine has published this first-person narrated 17-page story, “How to Be a Better Girl.”
I thought the journey to being a published writer would “end” at the MFA program, but it was really only the beginning. I wanted to publish, even more than write, and when that equation gets lopsided, it screws up the intention behind writing and removes much of the feeling. So I vowed this year to recalibrate my intention, to remember why I like to write in the first place. And, I also took notes from those who are passionate about the work that they do, the skater Johnny Weir, the writers Suzan-Lori Parks and Roxane Gay. Roxane writes a lot, especially on her blog titled “I Have Become Accustomed to Rejection,” she also publishes a lot and she edits PANK magazine, which is why I am so enthused to have my work appear in this particular publication. Yes, it’s nice to be published, but it’s even better when it’s by someone whose work you admire.
I have stopped thinking about a destination with my writing, that one publication or one story will catapult me into this imagined idea of what a “real writer” is. Gone is the guilt for taking the time when I could have been more productive — cleaned the bathroom, worked on the website or done something for somebody else. In comes the guilt when I let a day, two or three pass without putting thoughts to the page. Most days I write, and that feels pretty good.
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great, Brett. You’re not alone in your fear, it just manifests differently in me and I bet others. I have fears about EVERYTHING! One thing, though, rather than deny your fear, maybe just know it’s there and you can write anyhow. You can write into the fear, about the fear, with the fear. You can write and be nervous through and through. To continue your sports analogy – sometimes when I am on my way to my bball game, I get fearful; sometimes I feel queasy, or worse. But I keep driving, and get on the court and start playing and miss a bunch of jumpers or hit a bunch and before I know it, I’m not thinking, just shooting and playing. And it’s fun. I don’t have any idea if that’s how writing could work. But I’ve spent lots of hours at my desk, looking out the window (as Amy stated) and thinking myself out of it. Then I put something down. And then I get up and go for water. Sooner or later I have a paragraph, which I am afraid to show a soul. But I have it -and then when it’s time to show someone (NLWG, mostly) I’m freaked. But I do it. So be afraid. It’s fine.
I also wanted to thank NLWG for your comments on Friday about my in-progress novel. As I told you all I have so many apprehensions about it and have been wanting to chuck it. So… I really appreciate your thoughts and comments and the support. It’s given me lots to think about, and I feel excited (and dreading) to get back to it next week. I’m still searching for it, but events and plots and structure are happening, little by little. Thanks a ton!
My week ahead will be to continue working on it – not sure if I’ll start where I left off or re-write sections. And I am getting to my high-water mark with Moby DIck, somewhere around Pg 125 is when I’ve stopped the last four time I’ve read it, never to finish. I’m enjoying it lot this time, and reading closer and more attentively than I had in the past.