Three years ago

April 3, 2007 at 11:26 pm (MFA)

Three years ago, I searched everywhere online to find some sort of “how-to” or a support group of sorts for prospective-MFAs.  (That’s how I met jadepark, via her blog!)  I wanted someone to show me the answers to questions I didn’t even know how to ask.  I felt like I wanted to vomit all the time as I waited for notification on programs.  I wanted someone to tell me “yes!  this is the right program for you!”

Three years ago I wept over dinner with the BF (whom I had just started dating) because I had just gotten two, mean-as-hell rejection letters from what I viewed as my last two chances to get to NYC.

It was never that easy. Read the rest of this entry »

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Hitting My Stride

January 31, 2007 at 11:49 pm (MFA, Writing)

People who don’t know me well often think that  because I dare call myself a writer, I must hole myself up and not sleep and hunch over a keyboard (or a typewriter) and bang away at it instead of, you know, living.

If that were the definition of a writer, then I would be a very bad writer.  I suppose that other writers (because, like African-Americans and Jews, we apparently all know each other) would give me a scarlet “B” to wear on my coat for “bad”.

 Cough.  (On the other side of cyberspace, I’m rolling my eyes.)

In truth, lately I have been a very good writer.  I sent out two applications for summer writing workshops and a contest entry.  All of those submissions feature work that I feel strongly about.  I want someone else to read it.  I want someone to pay it the attention it deserves.

I also have started a new piece.  All because instead of hoping for some magical eight-hour block of time to devote to my writing, I’m writing instead in fits and spurts when I have a moment.  I’m forcing myself to write when I have short moments to myself–and it’s working.

It makes me feel better about calling myself a writer.  And maybe, just maybe, someone else will think enough of what I’ve submitted to call me one, too.

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The Secret Twin

January 27, 2007 at 3:38 pm (MFA)

One of my favorite professors has her new book coming out on Feb. 6.  I’ve pre-ordered it–have you?

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Today is the Day

January 13, 2007 at 4:39 pm (MFA, Teaching, Writing)

Warning: Somewhat sappy inspirationalism ahead.  I needed to remind myself of why I’m going to be focused today and for the rest of the term. 

What day?

The day I decide to get everything done.  Somehow.  With the BF visiting family and most of my friends out of town for the holiday, I’m getting my syllabus done, finishing an essay to submit for a contest (it’s almost done), writing a reference letter for a student, and then–in true triage fashion–once all of that is done, work on my short story/possible novel-in-progress.

I’m being ambitious, but it’s necessary.  My “resolutions” this year involve being more goal-oriented.  I think it’s assumed that most people have a basic sense of “wanting” something and doing what needs (or they feel needs) to be done to earn or achieve that something.   I used to be a “go-getter.”  I used to make plans and execute those plans meticulously in order to achieve my goals.  I earned accolades, leadership positions, entrance into my first-choice undergraduate college.  And then. . . I stopped. Read the rest of this entry »

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Crafting, Cooking, and the 90,000-mile Checkup

December 10, 2006 at 11:42 pm (Crafty, Food, MFA)

Yesterday, I made Chocolate Peppermint Bar Cookies.  (And they are yummy and rich and delicious.)  Today, I made Spicy Red-Pepper Jelly, and will be making the accompanying Parmesan Black-Pepper Biscotti.  If you can’t tell, I am totally enchanted with the current issue of Gourmet magazine.  (Although I agree with Slate’s Sara Dickerman questioning the dark covers and spreads.)

My arm and shoulder and wrist are killing me.  Any time I type or stir ingredients for too long, pain shoots from my elbow and wrists.  I see the doctor about it on Friday.  Tomorrow I go see the podiatrist.    Later this week I see my shrink to check in.

My friend L. asked if I was going to have my shocks and brakes checked, too.

In other news, I just read Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison.  My workshop leader, D-Momma (as two of my friends christened her), gives each workshopper a book that speaks to the person’s style.  Apparently D-Momma does this every term.  I was incredibly touched, and–after reading Bastard–I am even more so.

I wept for half an hour after finishing it.  Go read it.

I have papers to grade.  I have shit to write.  Oy.

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knitting on deadline

November 28, 2006 at 12:55 am (Crafty, Drama, knit, MFA, Writing, yarn)


knitting on deadline

Originally uploaded by loosegreentea.

I have to finish the Big Bad Baby Blanket by Saturday. And grade papers. And do this thing they call “work”. And deal with apartment management b.s.

I realized today, as I wrote an old professor for guidance into the big bad world of PhDs, that I’m in a crisis of faith. No, not as in “is there a God” or anything actually worth having a crisis of faith about. I’m having a massive crisis of identity: I’m having a crisis of faith in myself.  Do I teach?  Do I find a “real” job (ick)?  Do I go get my PhD?  Is it even worth continuing to write when I’m too afraid to even submit my work?

Even knitting is hard these days.  My right shoulder and wrist have gone berserk and I’m in excruciating pain.

I wish I could hibernate in the winter.  It would all be so much easier.

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Walk Softly and Carry a Big Pen

November 15, 2006 at 4:32 pm (MFA, Writing)

Workshop Rant Warning: This is a run-of-the-mill indignant workshop rant. Don’t bother reading if you think workshops are pointless, MFA programs are worthless, or you don’t have time to waste. 🙂

Workshop Rant: I just turned in my last submission for the term. This last one is a total piece of bullshit–at least that’s how it started out. I think perhaps it will have meaning or purpose later on. The previous piece I turned into my nonfiction workshop got a ridiculously pointless reception. It was a profile piece, and I specifically said in my cover letter that I wasn’t sure what the “point” was, so I just included as much as I could and was hoping for advice on it. What did I get? Comments like, “I don’t really know much about X Topic so I don’t feel like I can really comment on it.”

What the flipping eff? Are you kidding me?! You’re in grad school. You’re in workshop to comment on other people’s submissions At least try! If you don’t understand after reading it, then at least say, “I needed more information to understand your subject.” And it was 30 minutes of nothing. Bland, useless comments. If people hated it, then tell me. Tell me what’s wrong. Even if I disagree with you, at least it’s something. But NOTHING. SILENCE, even, most of the time. I left workshop fuming.

I am taking this way too personally, mainly because I feel like I really try to give useful criticisms: whys and hows. Maybe I’m totally off base, though. Maybe people hate my critiques.So now, I am staying silent through their workshops which is the most difficult thing for a talker and loudmouth like myself. I am not wasting any more time on people who can’t spend five minutes on my work.

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The Old Guard

October 18, 2006 at 6:52 pm (MFA)

Last night, in my nonfiction workshop, we had a visiting writer “guest-host”. As one of the New Yorker’s old guard, the writer went in and did line-by-line critiques of people’s essays.

Holy God, it was the most painful thing I’ve ever seen. It caught the submitting writers completely off-guard. Instead of our usually nice, touchy-feely workshops where everyone says nice things and then says things they think need work, one very experienced and very well-respected writer went head to head with one student, and we all watched.

I like to see the workshop’s calm surface rippled and even destroyed now and then, and as a bystander, it was fascinating to watch this process. I had a problem, however, that what is usually a personal meeting between an editor and writers was made public. I am anti-public humiliation, and while the writer was clearly not aiming for that, I’m sure I would have felt some of that if I had submitted last night.

Someone asked our vistor about what he does to keep himself going, writing-wise. His reply was something none of us are used to hearing: “I’m a working writer. I can’t afford to have a day where I get nothing done.” He did not do an MFA program, nor did he study journalism. He just went to work as a writer (with some help from some sage and wise members of the New Yorker old guard).

I suddenly really missed the days when I was going to take over the world, one magazine at a time. I missed the rush I felt running around New York doing research for a 5 pm deadline, and I missed thinking that one day I could freelance full-time. More so than the actual work, I missed feeling as invincible as I did the summer I was 21 and working in NYC.

One submitter said his was a first draft, that it wasn’t ready for a line-by-line. Are we ever ready for a line-by-line editing?

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Energy

October 14, 2006 at 3:46 am (Drama, MFA, Writing)

So, yesterday I got a good dose of “shut-the-fuck-up”.

I took down a previous post because it turned out not to be true. Said individual is turning in work. I still don’t like said-individual’s comments, but there’s mud on my face there.

I also realized that I spent so much energy hatin’ that I forgot to spend it on anything else. Bad energy, whether your own or someone else’s, is like a vortex. It sucks you in and you implode. Read the rest of this entry »

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M is for Mentor

October 11, 2006 at 7:35 pm (MFA, Teaching, Writing)

M is my mentor from last spring’s teaching practicum. That was his title, Mentor. But in a lot of ways, he is a mentor beyond that. Yesterday I went to talk to him.

“M–,” I said. “I have no time.”

“Nobody has any time,” he replied. (Rather, he growled. He tends to do that.) “You have to make time. An hour a day.”

“I have nothing with which to make time!” I said. “I don’t have time to breathe!”

“–,” he said, because he always says my name a lot. “–, I leave my house at 5:45 every day to get here to write for at least one hour.” Here I begin to roll my eyes, because M is insane for getting up as early as he does and driving as far as he does three days a week. But he went on. “Even if it’s total shit. I write for that one hour a day. It’s the only way I can write. You set your own times. You say, ‘I’ll write for one hour,’ and you say, ‘I will get these papers graded within 2 hours.’ You fill the time you give yourself.”

For some reason I’ve always gotten a kick out of M’s rantings/pep talks. Sometimes I need someone to remind me that I can do all this.

That’s right. I am in control and I’ve been abdicating that control to a certain extent,up to the chaos surrounding me. Earlier this summer, I took a short course on meditation. When my teacher said to let go, that anxiety is a fear of nothing being out there (God, Great Spirit, Great Goddess, whatever), that we have to make space within ourselves for ourselves, I thought, “But I have no space for me.” The realization was so overwhelming that with my next deep breath that came rushing through me, I began sobbing uncontrollably.

So last night, after M’s pep talk, I went home and meditated for the first time in months. I kept telling myself, you have to stop. You have to give yourself space. You have to slow down.  Afterwards, I felt like I had been hit by a truck.  Or that I hit a wall.  Either way I realized just how drained I was.  I slept so well.
And today, after talking with my advisor, it looks like I’ll wait one more bloody term to graduate so my thesis can be what I want it to be.

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