Tag Archives: fiction writing

Perspective: Why “to MFA or not MFA?” is the dumbest question I have ever heard

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If I was given a nickel every time I mentioned I had an MFA in writing and someone told me in not so many words that it was not worth money, I would have paid my student loans off years ago.

First, I would never consider telling someone their dreams were worthless. Second, the debate is so tiresome. I understand people don’t want to “waste time” or “waste money” or “make a major wrong life step.” Still, to think that hard about it means those people who say mean-spirited stuff like “it’s not worth it”  have missed the point altogether.

We hear the sentiment “If you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life” all the time, but when someone actually adheres to that as a life mission statement, we tell them it’s a mistake. It’s not worth it. Perhaps those who say that need to look within themselves a little deeper.

I didn’t make the decision to get an MFA lightly. I wanted a new direction, an authentic direction, not a direction someone else felt was good for me. I wanted to do something that moved me. I had dreamed of focusing on my writing in that way for a long time, but had been afraid for one reason or another. One day, I heard one of those Story Corps interviews on NPR. In this particular interaction, a husband was interviewing his wife. She had stage IV cancer of some type. I don’t remember now what type. He talked of her strength and how she had not let her cancer stop her from following her life dream of getting a Master of Fine Arts degree in visual arts. That story stuck with me. After hearing that story, I wondered why I was waiting any longer to follow my heart and do what I wanted. I dreamed of teaching and writing and being home more for my children. I dreamed of being in a wonderful community of writers and making lasting friendships. Mostly, I dreamed of doing something I was so passionate about that I would literally tell people who thought I was crazy to bag it.

Some did think I was crazy, but I had had a lifetime of being sane, of being the good girl and doing what good girls do. Good girls are practical. Good girls do what they are told. Good girls do something like major in something that everyone around them thinks will be good for them, even if everyone around them has no idea who that good girl really is. So, I embraced crazy. I embraced the idea that I’d read in Anne Lamott‘s book Traveling Mercies that you have to leap and the net will find you.

I lept. I went for it. I didn’t think about the stupid debate. I just knew that I would make the darned thing work for me because I wanted to do it. I learned that rather than fear that the net won’t be there, know that the net is always really there. I wanted to dive into the study of something I loved. I was tested in many ways. My first attempt at getting into schools failed, but I tried again and got accepted to  two schools. That, of course, was not the most difficult test. Ironically, I was diagnosed with cancer in the midst of grad school. In the midst of working full-time, raising two children, and attending grad school, to be exact. I didn’t let it stop me. I finished. I did it. I wouldn’t change it or say it wasn’t worth it. I am doing what I love. I am writing. I am teaching. Do I still have loans? Yes. I’d have them if I did something others thought would be more “worth it.”

I posted a status on my Facebook page that says how I feel about this topic best. I posted it because I heard, yet again, someone who does not have an MFA tell me how worthless or useless it is to get one. I am proud of my MFA. I worked hard for it. I knew going into it that it was not the end all, be all to my writing career, but there is no end all, be all. There are only choices we make in the moment that help us see that this moment is all we have. We have to keep writing. We have to keep taking the path we know deep within is right for us.

Here is my Facebook status posted 3/2/13:

I got a Master of Fine Arts degree in writing because I followed my heart. I listened to the creative Crissy within. I got a bachelor of science degree in sports medicine because I was too young and naive to think for myself. In essence, I did what everyone thought I “should” do. I love words. I love inspiring others to discover they might love words as well. Nothing makes my life resonate more than spending a day working through even a single line of my novel. I have not taped an ankle in more than 20 years and I don’t miss it. I was never able to get a halfway decent job until I started writing. It baffles me how often I hear people tell me in not so many words how my writing degree is some how worthless. Not one person ever told me going into sports medicine wouldn’t be worth it. Perspective:/

The Literary Fiction Query/Pitch

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The bag I got from the Midwest Writers Workshop.

I’m tired. I’m tired because I spent the last three days at the Midwest Writer’s Workshop, an intensive conference for writers held at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. I don’t want to nap before I offer this little post, mostly because when I started on my query journey I found a lot of information on writing queries, but the queries were always focused mystery, or YA paranormal, or romance, or sci fi or other genres. That’s all fine and good, but I don’t write any of that. I don’t want to write any of that. It’s not that I think I am better than that in any way. I don’t think that at all. It’s just that I write what I like reading. I like reading literary fiction. I like great images. I like great characters. This post is about sharing the nuggets of wisdom I found at MWW that really hit at the heart of how to condense the essence of a literary story into a three line pitch. I figure if I was struggling with this there must be other.

First, I must say that while I can write a good compelling piece of prose filled with details and images that bring a scene to life. Give me a cover letter or a query and I’m lost. Suddenly all the faculties that allow me to bring you into fictional scene and linger there for a while slip out the window and my queries and cover letters sound, well, extremely stiff. I knew all this going into my pitch. I also knew that while it was easier to find good examples of how to whittle adventure novels or mysteries or other genre novels into little pitches that popped, I was having a difficult time finding examples or explanations of how to wrangle multiple themes, plots, character quirks into three lines without losing the essence of the story and the voice. Honestly, my queries sounded more like “and then this happens and then this happens and then this happens” kinds of things. My voice was nonexistent in my pitches and queries.

From minute one of the Part II of the conference it seemed the focus was on what makes a good pitch. I absorbed so much information, it’s way too much to try put in this little post. I’ll probably write more on it in the weeks to come, but for now I thought I’d relay the information I received from one of the agents, not the one I pitched. Still, she accepts literary fiction and had a lot of good information to offer on breaking into literary fiction during a brief buttonhole session I attended.

I sat at the table with other attendees, most who I gathered did not write literary fiction because of the questions they asked, the first being, “What is literary fiction?” It was good to hear her define it. She said it was fiction that was more about character development than plot. It is has more layers, more subplots and themes that run through the narrative. I did know that. Of course I know that. I write that. Still, it was valuable to hear from an agent’s perspective. It also opened the door for me to ask the burning question, “So then, when one writes literary fiction with all these layers and subplots and such, how does one contain that in a short query or pitch without losing the essence of the story?”

The agent advised focusing on the key characters and said that if she really is compelled by a character she will want to read more.

I took that piece of advice and all the little tidbits of information I gathered from workshops, panels and practicing my pitch with peers and somehow, after 20 or so revisions, got to where I could find the essence of my main character and her struggles and the story. Essential I focused on what she wants, what’s standing in her way, what is the catalyst that makes her push through what’s standing in her way, and what she finds when she pushes through. That is essentially the whittled down version of what Writer’s Digest editor Chuck Sambuchino offered in his conference opening remarks on how to craft a good pitch.

It all worked. I came away with a successful pitch after reworking early drafts that I knew were duds. I could feel it inside me. I could feel it in the blank stares of some of my peers who I shared the earlier pitches with, but I knew I hit the sweet spot with the final version. I knew I captured the essence of my story and the essence of my voice. That was the key. Now, I have to get back to work. I have a manuscript to send off.

Gathering the Roses: The Glamorous Life of a Writer, Take Two

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So, I set it all out there in the last post. It felt good to just say what I was feeling at the time. It also shows that nothing is an easy ride. This life, this writer’s life, is full of ups and downs and days of unexpected calamity. It has been a difficult couple of weeks.

First, my Dear Partner J got sick, really sick, which put him out of commission for the last week of food cart season. He has been running the show pretty much on his own since I went back to work. I help here and there, but he is Debajo del Sol. So, that final week there was no Debajo del Sol. He couldn’t get out of bed. We got through that only to have a dog crisis on Tuesday.

I am to blame for that. I thought the day started out well, even if it started out at the doctor’s office with my daughter. That was a planned, routine thing. I dropped her off at school after that and stopped at grocery store number one. I made a quick stop home and went to grocery store number two. I had this grand plan of making all this stuff and gathering lessons for my classes. In the interim, between my two grocery store runs, I failed to secure the pantry doors. That meant our dog, Maynard, had full access. Of course, the two things that were in his reach were chocolate chips and raisins, the two worst possible things a dog could get. That tripped the switch on an afternoon of chaos. I made repeated failed attempts to induce vomiting with peroxide, per the vet’s recommendation. The dog just burped and lollygagged playfully around the backyard. I ended up taking him to the emergency clinic where they had much better luck inducing vomiting, and sure enough he had eaten raisins and chocolate. I understand that was irresponsible of me. That was why I had such a rough day. The lesson I learned from this is that all canned goods go on the lower shelves and all chocolate chips and raisins go on the top shelf of the pantry where Maynard can’t reach them even if he gains full access to the pantry.

In our defense, we are not used to a chow hound like Maynard. With his predecessor, Maggie, we could leave a whole Thanksgiving dinner out on the counter and she would never have touched it. Maynard, however, will find a way to get the Thanksgiving scraps, do or die. Thankfully, I realized what he had done fairly quickly, so he seems to be doing well. We are still keeping a close eye on him.

I, too, am feeling a whole lot better. I am back on track, not with NaNoWriMo numbers, but I have some off time next week to get caught up. I can’t wait to bake a pumpkin pie. I can’t wait to have the unfettered time with my family. It will be the first time ever that my holiday week isn’t packed with deadlines and work.

A long time ago, I did a couple posts on the glamorous life of a writer. That, of course, was the irony. There is not glamor. There is toil, rejection, small victories, rejection, a kind rejection for an editor or agent, just plain rejection, and the more than occasional day of complete chaos. It’s up to us to continue to gather roses, even when it’s not a rosy day or a rosy week. That means gathering the gumption to write as much as you can in those times. I did that. It wasn’t much. It was zero on the day of chaos, but I put a few words down yesterday. I’ll put some more down in the days to come. Really, that’s what pulls me back up, back out of the chaos. Folks, this is the glamor–the sticky, messy, chaotic glamor. There’s nothing shiny, new or rosy about it.

NaNoWriMo Count: just over 19,000 words.

The truth about the truth

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I know I tend mostly to be upbeat. I tend mostly to be a cheerleader for writing and the writing life. Still, my life is far from perfect. I don’t even know what the perfect life would look like. I have chosen to be candid here, because I have been inspired by a fellow writer, a fabulous blogger, and a friend–Linda Cassidy Lewis. She writes about her successes as well as her frustrations. I write about writing, the good stuff, and then have long periods where I fail to post. I give the excuse that I have been busy, but what I really mean is that I have been struggling.

I sat in a hospital waiting room today. I sat there and waited for X-rays with my daughter. It’s part of our routine. It’s been part of our routine since she was only weeks old. Every six months we visit the orthopedic. Still, we are fortunate. We live near one of the best pediatric hospitals in the world. Today, it was made clear how fortunate we were as we watched two young boys from somewhere in Asia (I didn’t ask where) who were flown here for surgery. I know I am lucky on so many levels. I know this. I know.

Still, there is only so much pulling up of bootstraps one can do before, ya know, the arms start wearing out. I don’t know where to begin really. I have been putting on a good face for a long time. I put the face on to hide the shame I felt about being a single mother. I put the face on to show I can handle my daughter’s disability or the horrors of my own cancer. I put the face on to get me through college, yet again, because I blew it the first time. I can feel the throbbing muscles in my cheeks. They throb because my real face can’t hold those facades up much longer. This is not a pity party. This is the real me, the real tired me. Part of carrying all those faces, part of looking like it’s all going perfectly is the act of doing way too much and forgetting to be in the moment. So, in this moment I am going through a decompression. It happens when I pile it all on, and I work and work and work, but things go in reverse instead of going forward. Bills pile up, disasters happen, and the crap just keeps coming. My whole adult life has felt like a race to nowhere. I don’t know what the game is or how to play it or what to do anyway. I write. That’s the only game I know, whether I am good at it or not. I just write, except for today. I didn’t write today because I was dowsing fires all day. Perhaps I’ll get into that in a future post, but today I’m tired and have accomplished nothing except to say in this post that I am tired and that’s the the truth.

 

NaNoWriMo word count for the day: 0

NaNoWriMo word count to date: somewhere over 18,000 (the site was down)

 

Welcome to Peony Hill

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Yesterday, as I was making fresh drop biscuits and gravy to go with Jay’s homemade sage and ginger sausage, I came up with the idea of naming our little homestead. It’s a tiny lot in a suburban neighborhood, but paradise is growing in three little trays that I planted last weekend. Okay, so it’s really lettuce, leeks, eggplant and peppers, but to us that’s paradise. My children love the idea of having food growing indoors that will eventually be planted outdoors.
So, back to the name. My daughter, Kiki, and I came up with Peony Hill. I tried thinking about what’s around our house and there are two peony plants in front. They belong to our neighbor, but they bloom so full and beautiful and they are right near the property line that I don’t think it matters who they really belong to. Do they really belong to any of us anyway? Peonies also has special comical meaning to me and my kids. I’ve written about it before, but on a trip home from an outing we happened to catch Donald Hall reading his poem “Weeds and Peonies” on the radio. The poem itself is a beautiful reflection on missing his wife Jane Kenyon, who died from cancer. In the poem, he talks about her peonies and expecting to see her coming in from a walk, but he comes to the sad realization that that won’t happen because she is gone. It’s a beautiful, beautiful poem, so we mean no disrespect. Still, peonies to an adolescent ear teeming with a mixture of innocence and discovery sounds an awful lot like another word. I suppose the fact that this adolescent ear is mostly deaf doesn’t help either. So, as Donald Hall read his lovely poem and my heart broke for him, all I heard from the back seat of my car was laughter and then Kiki said, “Penis. That’s funny.” I laughed, too, and I will never forget the beauty of that poem because of that moment. So, peony it is.
The hill part comes from the fact that our subdivision was built in a small valley and our house seems to be on a hill. Looking out our back window, or doorwall as we call it here in Michigan, I can look over the homes in back of us, so we are “hill.”
It’s early morning at Peony Hill. All is quiet. I’ve noticed the new leaves on the trees surrounding our house seem brighter green than in past years. Perhaps, it’s just because I’ve noticed them at all that they seem brighter green.
I hear the call of birds. Yes, that happens even here in the smallest of homesteads on a neighborhood street.
The two cats are curled up on either ends of the couch, perfect models of living in the present. The dog is sprawled out on the floor against the couch, her favorite spot.
Morning chores have been done. Yes, we have chores here at Peony Hill. Animals need feeding, clothes need laundering and seedlings need watering.
I did leave the homestead yesterday for a beginning fiction workshop that I taught through Community Arts of Tecumseh. Outside of giving my home life great attention, I love the act of writing, and I love the act of talking about writing with others eager to write. I did a bit of both in the three hours I spent with three fabulous new writers. I think what charged me up the most was seeing how they began to really see that writing is all about showing up at the page and letting go of fears and apprehensions about where the end product will go.
Well, it’s time to let this moment go.

Peace, love and stillness