It took me years to admit I wanted an MFA in creative writing. I mean, YEARS. When I first graduated college, I would have laughed in your face if you told me I’d be willing to write admissions essays and fill out that stupid FAFSA again. But by the time my sons were starting school, I started feeling the itch. I read a lot of publishing blogs back then, and this one blogger girl was embarking on MY DAYDREAM LIFE. (Not the dream life I thought I could actually have. Please note, I actually went after that one. Sort of.) Anyhow, while I was cleaning up Legos, soaking my whites, and vacuuming goldfish crackers out of the sofa in between chapters of my first two novels, this young woman was actually working for a lit agent, talking about books and publishing and all sorts of intelligent sounding things, and I’d think, well isn’t she just a whipper-snapper? I’ll have what she’s having. Turns out she was having MFA for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Before I knew it, I was window shopping grad schools, admiring studious faculty headshots, studying course outlines, and thinking, “I think I could do this, but could I get in?”
Well, flash forward five years later, and this gal was long gone from the blog scene. I can only fantasize that she is now living a wildly successful life of lit agentry, editing for a major publisher, or sitting pretty on some best seller list under her real name which I don’t know. The reality may be that she is vacuuming goldfish out of her sofa, but I respect that, too. As for me, five years later? I was farther along in my dream job (which turns out is a bit of a nightmare, boring paper-shuffling variety, hold the hot vampires), and STILL looking at the same damn website, daydreaming about getting my graduate degree. Only difference was this: now I was thinking, “Damn it, I know I can get in, and I can do this, but will my family stand by me if we go broke while I do it?”
I hemmed and hawed for another year, people. Because slow and painful is how I roll. During the aforementioned year, I changed jobs three times, trying to get my happy back, and ultimately ending up in exactly the same place I started but with much less seniority. And then it finally hit me why the job changes didn’t take, and why I was still feeling like crap. I needed to be in school. I needed to be writing. I needed to be in school for writing, studying the thing that I didn’t study the first time around because it seemed so impractical–the thing that I love doing the most.
So I applied to Stonecoast at USM last year and was accepted into the Popular Fiction program starting January 2015. I was sick with nerves all fall, wondering if I’d bitten off more than I could chew, doubting my ability to hold my own. And then my first residency in January happened, and not to sound completely corny or anything–OKAY, WHATEVER, IT’S CORNY–I knew for the first time in a long time that I was exactly where I was meant to be. And since then, things have started lining up that I hadn’t thought possible.
On some level, I wish I had applied sooner, so that maybe I could have skipped almost eight years of confusion and bad days. But on another level completely, I know the timing just lined up for me because I was ready to change my perspective. I was ready to do something. And now I’m thinking about writing from a totally different place than I was just a year ago. Not very long ago, I only wanted the publishing contract. I thought I’d be happy just to see that bunch of books on the shelves with my name on the spines. I still want that. But I’m seeing that there is a lot more work to do on the writing scene than just turning out books. There are a lot of writers out there who are struggling with the idea of putting their needs first. I see writers who don’t think they’re good enough. I see writers who don’t know how to take the next steps to get what they want. And I see so many, many really good writers who might be missing the stars just by not shooting a little higher and expecting more from themselves.
As I’m switching professional gears to put writing first in my own life, I want to help other writers make the decision to do the same in their own time. And meanwhile, I want to encourage them to never give up on their writing. Because giving up on your writing is like giving up on yourself. And that’s just not an option.
