The other day I got an email from an admissions employee from the Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine. She wanted to know why I hadn't replied to my acceptance letter and whether or not I planned to attend the school's low-residency Creative Writing Master's program come January.
The letter came as a surprise; I'd applied for the program along with my other MFA applications about eleven months ago and had heard back in the spring, when the school told me they'd placed me on the waiting list for the winter semester. Then I left my job and moved across the country and kind of forgot about the program.
Of course, since I moved, I didn't get the acceptance letter and had no idea where I stood as far as the program was concerned. And I made plans for the next year or so that didn't include spending ten weeks per semester in a writer's retreat on the coast of Maine while devoting 25 hours of every other week for the next 2.5 years to pursuing an MFA degree.
But then the admissions email came and everything was kind of thrown on its ear.
***
I always thought writing about writing was kind of like masturbating. It feels good and it's kind of fun (so I've been told), but in the end you're only really indulging yourself. And you might go blind. But writing is my life at the moment so I'll have to risk it.
I've been spending the last seven weeks or so at my mom's house in St. Catharines. It's been a productive couple of months. In September I wrote a short 60,000 word mystery novel that came out unabashedly hard-boiled and sleazy. It's the kind of book that I would feel awkward about dedicating to my parents if I were to see it published because it's not the kind of book I'd want my parents to know I'd written. But I'm in the process of editing it now and I'm pretty happy with what I've written.
Anyway in October I put another 130k words on paper in another project, a thriller-type novel with multiple third-person perspectives and a host of characters to juggle. It was a pretty challenging project but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, as well, though I'll re-evaluate when I dust it off in a month or so to start the editing.
My unofficial goal is to write more or less a novel every month while I still can, which shouldn't be too much of a problem since I spend my days doing nothing but writing. I wake up in the mid-morning, have a bowl of cereal and write until my mom gets home from work and typically I get around 6-7k words written in that time.
in the evenings I walk down by the river that runs near our house and then watch procedurals and wedding shows with my mom. Then when she goes to bed I try to work through last season's House or Grey's Anatomy DVDs and then I read for a while and go to bed. It's decidedly unglamorous and sometimes I find it hard to believe I was living on jet airplanes and in European hotel rooms just six months ago.
But I like it. I spend the weekends driving the 90 minutes or so up the road to Yummy Udon's house in Toronto. We took a road trip to Kingston once and I went to Windsor and London this last weekend to visit some of my Southern Ontario friends, nearly all of whom are married and/or property owners and/or expecting children. I feel like I missed the memo or something.
Anyway it's kind of fun to be able to devote all of my time to doing something that I want to do. I remain hopeful that it will pan out into an actual career, but since I've started the editing process I've started to feel a bit daunted about the prospect of finding a literary agent and/or a publisher. Everyone and his dog thinks they can write a novel; what makes me so different?
I've never had a problem writing a ton of words, either. My problem has always been editing, so I'm a bit leery of what will happen when I try to turn all of these first drafts into something salable. But I guess if I wanted a life without insecurity I would have become an accountant or something, or at the very least I wouldn't have quit my job.
So I kind of vacillate between being excited about what I'm writing and slapping myself in the face with the cold hard reality of the writing world. I guess I'm equal parts cocky and scared, but what keeps me going is the thought that somebody has to write airport bestsellers so why can't it be me?
And no, I don't feel bad at all about wanting to prostitute my negligible writing talents for money. Stephen King says if you write for money you're doomed to fail, which is an awfully convenient thing for him to say. We all write for money and you're kidding yourself if you're not thinking of a paycheck whenever you sit down at your computer. But I enjoy the process as well, which I think might have been his underlying point.
Anyway I'm writing a lot. I'm happy that I've put myself in a position where my talent and drive (and luck) will decide my future.
***
About a week after I got letter from Stonecoast I wrote them back, thanking them for their interest and telling them I wouldn't be attending their program in January. I had a number of reasons, among them the fact that it would cost me about $40k USD all told to get the degree.
It would also require that I spend a week in early January and another in early July in Maine, which sounds ideal but would interfere with some other plans I have in the works. And finally, it would require that I put a lot of concentration into writing literary fiction, which used to be my bag but which I've kind of set aside for more commercial fare.
Ultimately, I decided that my plans for the next year were strong enough that I didn't necessarily need to invest the time and money in an MFA program with an uncertain outcome, and some timely input from my friends seemed to bolster that decision. But if I'm working at McDonald's in a year or so and nobody wants to publish my shlock I'll probably look back on this moment as the worst decision of my life.
In better news, it looks like I'll be prawn fishing on the west coast of British Columbia come the spring. My uncle's agreed to take me on his boat again, which is thrilling news for me since my summers in the wilds of northern Vancouver Island were among my happiest. So I'm ecstatic about that.
I have nothing else to say. If you are a literary agent, for the love of god, represent me.
Oh! Things I recommend:
- Zombieland
- David Simon's Homicide
- House Season 5, especially the last two episodes
- literally anything produced by RedOne
- the Buffalo Sabres and Colorado Avalanche
- the Phillies (and Derek Jeter, who is impossible to hate, though Red Sox fans will argue)
- the Raptors
Things about which I have mixed emotions:
- Couples' Retreat (I liked it fine)
- Jennifer's Body (would have been great without Diablo Cody's ridiculous dialogue. Also I'm not a huge slavering Megan Fox fanboy)
- Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer detective novels
- Grey's Anatomy Season 5 (though the Doc named Owen is better than I expected)
- Cobra Starship
- the Toronto Maple Leafs (by now I just feel sorry for the bastards)
- the Vancouver Canucks
- the rest of the NFL
Things by which I cannot abide:
- The Proposal
- Wedding reality shows, particularly Rich Bride Poor Bride
- Tommy Lee's autobiography
- LMFAO
- Brett Favre
- Sean Avery
Also, happy belated birthday to the main geezer Benjo. Miss you, pal.
The letter came as a surprise; I'd applied for the program along with my other MFA applications about eleven months ago and had heard back in the spring, when the school told me they'd placed me on the waiting list for the winter semester. Then I left my job and moved across the country and kind of forgot about the program.
Of course, since I moved, I didn't get the acceptance letter and had no idea where I stood as far as the program was concerned. And I made plans for the next year or so that didn't include spending ten weeks per semester in a writer's retreat on the coast of Maine while devoting 25 hours of every other week for the next 2.5 years to pursuing an MFA degree.
But then the admissions email came and everything was kind of thrown on its ear.
***
I always thought writing about writing was kind of like masturbating. It feels good and it's kind of fun (so I've been told), but in the end you're only really indulging yourself. And you might go blind. But writing is my life at the moment so I'll have to risk it.
I've been spending the last seven weeks or so at my mom's house in St. Catharines. It's been a productive couple of months. In September I wrote a short 60,000 word mystery novel that came out unabashedly hard-boiled and sleazy. It's the kind of book that I would feel awkward about dedicating to my parents if I were to see it published because it's not the kind of book I'd want my parents to know I'd written. But I'm in the process of editing it now and I'm pretty happy with what I've written.
Anyway in October I put another 130k words on paper in another project, a thriller-type novel with multiple third-person perspectives and a host of characters to juggle. It was a pretty challenging project but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, as well, though I'll re-evaluate when I dust it off in a month or so to start the editing.
My unofficial goal is to write more or less a novel every month while I still can, which shouldn't be too much of a problem since I spend my days doing nothing but writing. I wake up in the mid-morning, have a bowl of cereal and write until my mom gets home from work and typically I get around 6-7k words written in that time.
in the evenings I walk down by the river that runs near our house and then watch procedurals and wedding shows with my mom. Then when she goes to bed I try to work through last season's House or Grey's Anatomy DVDs and then I read for a while and go to bed. It's decidedly unglamorous and sometimes I find it hard to believe I was living on jet airplanes and in European hotel rooms just six months ago.
But I like it. I spend the weekends driving the 90 minutes or so up the road to Yummy Udon's house in Toronto. We took a road trip to Kingston once and I went to Windsor and London this last weekend to visit some of my Southern Ontario friends, nearly all of whom are married and/or property owners and/or expecting children. I feel like I missed the memo or something.
Anyway it's kind of fun to be able to devote all of my time to doing something that I want to do. I remain hopeful that it will pan out into an actual career, but since I've started the editing process I've started to feel a bit daunted about the prospect of finding a literary agent and/or a publisher. Everyone and his dog thinks they can write a novel; what makes me so different?
I've never had a problem writing a ton of words, either. My problem has always been editing, so I'm a bit leery of what will happen when I try to turn all of these first drafts into something salable. But I guess if I wanted a life without insecurity I would have become an accountant or something, or at the very least I wouldn't have quit my job.
So I kind of vacillate between being excited about what I'm writing and slapping myself in the face with the cold hard reality of the writing world. I guess I'm equal parts cocky and scared, but what keeps me going is the thought that somebody has to write airport bestsellers so why can't it be me?
And no, I don't feel bad at all about wanting to prostitute my negligible writing talents for money. Stephen King says if you write for money you're doomed to fail, which is an awfully convenient thing for him to say. We all write for money and you're kidding yourself if you're not thinking of a paycheck whenever you sit down at your computer. But I enjoy the process as well, which I think might have been his underlying point.
Anyway I'm writing a lot. I'm happy that I've put myself in a position where my talent and drive (and luck) will decide my future.
***
About a week after I got letter from Stonecoast I wrote them back, thanking them for their interest and telling them I wouldn't be attending their program in January. I had a number of reasons, among them the fact that it would cost me about $40k USD all told to get the degree.
It would also require that I spend a week in early January and another in early July in Maine, which sounds ideal but would interfere with some other plans I have in the works. And finally, it would require that I put a lot of concentration into writing literary fiction, which used to be my bag but which I've kind of set aside for more commercial fare.
Ultimately, I decided that my plans for the next year were strong enough that I didn't necessarily need to invest the time and money in an MFA program with an uncertain outcome, and some timely input from my friends seemed to bolster that decision. But if I'm working at McDonald's in a year or so and nobody wants to publish my shlock I'll probably look back on this moment as the worst decision of my life.
In better news, it looks like I'll be prawn fishing on the west coast of British Columbia come the spring. My uncle's agreed to take me on his boat again, which is thrilling news for me since my summers in the wilds of northern Vancouver Island were among my happiest. So I'm ecstatic about that.
I have nothing else to say. If you are a literary agent, for the love of god, represent me.
Oh! Things I recommend:
- Zombieland
- David Simon's Homicide
- House Season 5, especially the last two episodes
- literally anything produced by RedOne
- the Buffalo Sabres and Colorado Avalanche
- the Phillies (and Derek Jeter, who is impossible to hate, though Red Sox fans will argue)
- the Raptors
Things about which I have mixed emotions:
- Couples' Retreat (I liked it fine)
- Jennifer's Body (would have been great without Diablo Cody's ridiculous dialogue. Also I'm not a huge slavering Megan Fox fanboy)
- Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer detective novels
- Grey's Anatomy Season 5 (though the Doc named Owen is better than I expected)
- Cobra Starship
- the Toronto Maple Leafs (by now I just feel sorry for the bastards)
- the Vancouver Canucks
- the rest of the NFL
Things by which I cannot abide:
- The Proposal
- Wedding reality shows, particularly Rich Bride Poor Bride
- Tommy Lee's autobiography
- LMFAO
- Brett Favre
- Sean Avery
Also, happy belated birthday to the main geezer Benjo. Miss you, pal.
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