4. Reason #4 not to get an MFA: Timeframe
Some people write everyday. I don’t. I can’t. If I had to write everyday I think it would actually hinder my writing. Ideas come to me at very inopportune times. I’ve written on many an airplane air sickness bag, on subscription cards in magazines and on electricity bills. I don’t think I’ve ever opened a blank word doc in the hope that something would just pop into my head. I transcribe almost everything.
I technically started writing my novel 10 years ago. At the time I didn’t know I was writing a novel. I didn’t even know that I was a writer. I just wrote when things came to me and threw all of those things into a cardboard box in a corner of my apartment. Years later I’d revisit the box, then put it away again, then revisit it again, then put it away again. I’m confident that I could not have finished this novel 10 years ago. I’d like to think it’s because I’ve gotten more disciplined with age, but really, enough hadn’t happened yet for me to know where my novel was going. The more I lived, the more stories I heard and ideas I had, and all of those stories and ideas ultimately contributed to the finished product.
I know that many people don’t write like this. Some writers start with outlines, others sit down in front of a blank Word document and just go. But whatever your method, it’s unlikely that the journey will take exactly as long as you anticipate. Not getting an MFA gives you the flexibility to only write when you feel like writing. You could take a week or a year off and not feel pressured to hurry up and finish your work. Sometimes you need to put something in a drawer and write when you’re excited about it again. And it’s important to be excited, because when you’re excited about what you’re writing the reader can feel it.
All of the MFA grads I know produced something substantial in their two years. One produced a novel, another a short story collection. I assume that they all showed up at their respective schools mentally ready to tackle a project by the end of their two years (or maybe they just worked quickly). But I know that I would not have been one of those students. Normal life is what inspires my writing. What I hear myself and other people say in daily conversation. I don’t know if I would have had access to those tidbits if I had spent two-years in solitude.
I’d like to qualify the notion of working on a novel “for as long as it takes” with the importance of goal setting. A friend once said that goals without deadlines are daydreams, so once I had a real handle on my book, when all that was left for me to do was fill in the gaps and smooth out the edges, I made myself a deadline. My first deadline was my 30th birthday and I worked hard to meet it. But I fell short, so I gave myself an extension until New Year’s Eve, seven months later. I strongly encourage writers who aren’t in MFA programs to assign themselves deadlines. A birthday, a holiday, a trip. There are too many reasons to put goals off otherwise.
Tomorrow we’ll talk about my fifth and final reason for not getting an MFA: Pride.
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Roselle, I agree, there is no way around doing the necessary work, and in my experience the real leave-me-alone-I-need-to-finish-this work comes late in the process when the whole of the book becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Until then some writers may benefit from writing every day like Laura V. or mulling things over like Laura A. There's really no right or wrong way to create art!
I must comment on a comment ...Laura, that you thought this to be the weakest reason only goes to reiterate how personal writing truly is for I felt this to be the strongest reason for not getting a MFA. Some people read, observe, mull over ideas, etc., in place of daily writing. I too have a novel I have been writing for well over ten years. I love every minute of it, eventhough at times I will go months without writing. Regardless, thanks Michelle, I'm very found of number four!
I truly respect your voicing this opinion because too many people feel coerced into following the MFA path, and it's honestly not for everyone, especially if criticism hinders you. However, of all the reasons covered so far, this is the weakest. I have been writing "professionally" for almost fifteen years and I have learned that one of the truest truism is that you have to write every day. Robert Olen Butler outlines the reasons exactly in his book From Where You Dream: for every day that you don't write, the next day that you try to write becomes harder, that page more intimidating, the words slower to come. There has to be a habit of writing, it has to be cultivated, and if you're working on a novel it has to happen every day on that project and nothing else. This is my experience, and I've resisted it for a long, long time. Ten years to think about a novel in today's market is kissing good bye to any hope to ever be taken seriously as a writer.
Whether or not taking an MFA will actually help you keep the schedule is another story. I've done two MFAs for reasons of my own, which is that every time I studied with a different writer I learned something new, and I felt that I couldn't get enough of professional advice. But MFAs don't necessarily help you write every day. In fact, some MFAs load you with so many other classes in literature and pedagogy that the deadlines you'll find yourself struggling to meet are the ones on lit crit papers and other things that, if anything, distract you from your schedule.
You should only do an MFA for one reason: time to write and be advised by someone whose writing and understanding of the writing process you admire. Any other reason for it, in my humble opinion, are just sales points for the school. I wouldn't toss out the baby with the water, though. There will never be another place with so many experienced writers focused intensely on your work, and you will never again have the kind of "permission" and "privilege" to make writing the focus of your life as you do in an MFA program.
I always felt an inferiority complex about not getting an MFA in creative writing. There always seemed to be so much emphasis put on having the piece of paper. Then I spoke to an agent at a writing conference. That agent said she had clients that hadn't even graduated from high school. So that made me feel better. I think the real secret to writing success is putting your bottom in seat and doing the necessary work of writing and revising.
Victoria! Good input, as always. It's true, isn't it, that when you have to meet deadlines you find a way to meet them? I realized this during my book editing process. I surprised myself by how fast I could write when I needed to. Carrie, I laughed at your comment. I guess you just need to know yourself. I'm pretty sure I would be the person in the MFA program who hung out drinking wine, talking about writing and having nothing to show for it during class!
It takes some sort of training to make yourself sit down and write on a regular basis. That can be self-training, sure. Though, that's a rough road to travel at times. I can think of a million "absolutely necessary" (but ultimately trivial!) things to do when I'm supposed to be sitting on my backside with my pen and a piece of paper--I can't draft on a computer. However, being in a writing program isn't fool-proof insurance against distraction. All of that socializing and networking can lead to lots of TALKING about writing rather than actually doing it. Then the poor student winds up in the same boat as the non-student...frantically rushing to make a deadline. Only their deadlines aren't as soft and friendly as those of the writer working on her own. Which, alternatively, means it's easier for the non-students to ignore their goals in perpetuity. Whew...the ball does go back and forth, doesn't it! MFA...no MFA. No MFA...MFA...
Because I keep my word, Michelle: I hear you, on this one, but do think (agree with you?) that it comes down to individual personalities, and where a writer is in her development. I think most of my classmates came in having decided to produce some kind of substantial writing, if they hadn't already. We got students with Rough stories and ones with more polished ones; all I think were made better. And really, to be admitted to the program, you've got to submit a pretty strong piece of writing. The demands of the program were also quite good for curing "writer's block" or for tweaking a technique to be more efficient; you simply learned to write through it. :)