Here's how it goes...

Here's how it goes: you write like mad. You write because you can't seem to stop yourself from writing and really, you have so much to say. People notice. Someone recommends you go to grad school. You start filling out applications, but picking literature apart doesn't hold the same value for you. You keep writing, writing for class and then writing what you need to write. You graduate and apply for an MFA.

Stuff happens and life feels hard for a while, but you keep writing through it and for once, what you're writing is the same as what you have to get done for class. You write your way through that MFA with a novel at the end. You submit it to an agent, get accepted, find gainful employment writing, and somewhere along the line, you stop writing in the same way. Writing becomes a forced thing, a job. You second guess yourself. You struggle. The agent comes back with edits, then more edits, so you edit. You stop writing. You forget how to create a new character. You forget how to write that first sentence on a blank page. Sometimes you write a poem and this makes you feel like maybe you aren't quite a fraud.

One year passes this way, then another six months. You edit old stories. You edit your novel once, twice, three times. You re-alphabetize your book collection. Then, you decide: enough. You submit to journals and accumulate rejections. You start a writing group. Then, one day, one of your stories gets accepted. You know that if one story can get an audience, another one can too. You stare at that blank page and you stare it down. You start writing. Six pages later, you look up. It's not the best thing and it's rough, but it's yours and it's new. You know now that you can start again.

On Your Mark, Get Set...Write

Coming out of the MFA program, my primary concern is in finding an agent and getting published. (Though, I still haven't sent anything out to any lit mags. I may become the Emily Dickinson of the American novel-in-stories.)

I never considered the other concern I now find myself having. The thing is, I just finished a book, and while I celebrate that fact, the next inevitable fact presents itself: that means it's time to start another one. Not only do I have zero ideas in the way of novel-worthy concepts, I also find the prospect of starting anew on another three-year minimum venture not just daunting but utterly unimaginable.

At graduation, the former and future heads of the program gave good speeches as to the important task: keep writing. Then, they gave us beautiful bound (I assume faux-leather) notebooks with the program logo on the cover. I generally agree with this statement and, frankly, also can't imagine a life in which I am devoid of writing. At the time, I thought, "yes yes, of course I will write and write often." This is easier to say than do, especially with a full time job and the prospect of whoring sending my current novel out for potential publication and representation, not to mention the June wedding plans and knitting fixation. And of course, it's spring, so I have to take time aside to re-remember the chords for another summer of acoustic family bonfire jams, now that I don't get to practice as consistently as I'd like. (I almost have "American Pie" back in the playlist, which is no small feat, as it has a wide variety of chords, as well as variations of those chords. There is no simple repeat to remember. It's anarchy.)

Add on to all of that the fact that staring at a blank page with no idea of what to put on it and it all equals me sitting at my desk with a word doc open, watching back episodes of House. Sometimes I'm also knitting. Meanwhile, that leather-bound tome sits empty and weeping in my desk drawer. I keep telling myself to snap out of it, and then I tell myself that when I'm ready to write, an idea will come and I shouldn't go all panicky about it.

It amounts to this: I'm in the post-MFA place. It seems like each MFAer goes through it. You know that the degree doesn't equal establishment into the profession, but you have these grandiose ideas of all that you'll accomplish by the end of your three year emersion into the creative writing world. Really, the degree is a starting point, not an end point, and I need to get back up on the horse and show that I'm one of those people who keep going. I'm one of those people who work hard. I'm one of those people who keep writing.

For now, I'm not quite in the mindset to jump back into a book-length project. Sometimes a book feels like too much. I took book breathers during my MFA. Two springs I spent focused on poetry instead of my fiction. It allowed me to cleanse my writing palette so to speak. I think maybe that's what I need now, so my current writing plan is this:

I'm going back to the roots of my writing bug. I'm going to take that leather-bound notebook and, just like when I was in high school, I'm going to take it with me and I'm going to write in it. Short thoughts, fun quotes, poems. If I'm lucky, I'll start writing down ideas for potential novels. I've never had to work to be a writer, but I'm going to work hard to stay one.