Mardi's Link

MFA: Master of Frigging Anything

I have always thought that online nit-picking was silly.

I mean, Twitter wars? Facebook fights? Grow up, people.

I enjoy social networking, mostly for keeping up with friends and family, funny one-liners from my favorite writers (Moms Who Drink and Swear!) and photos of picturesque places around the Midwest. But if I want bickering, I can just tell my sons to mow the lawn or clean the bathroom in the real world. I don't need the internet for that.

But then I stumbled on a seemingly innocuous question (it's always the innocent looking conversations that get me into trouble . . . ) in the Book Publishing Professionals group on Linkedin.

"I was accepted into an M.F.A. in Creative Writing program, at a senior stage of my life, but a junior stage of my writing," asked a group member named Phillip F. "I feel I am starting at the right time; others say I'm too late. Ideas?"

Bring on the warm fuzzies, I thought to myself, and the responses were almost all encouraging. "Sometimes it takes a lifetime of experience before you have something worthwhile to say," was a standard reply. 

Then, this reply showed up in the discussion: "DO NOT PAY FOR AN MFA," someone named "Amy Charles" lectured. (Amy, lowercase letters are your friend.) "Unless you really want to make a gift of money to the university and the professors in the writing program, who make more money than you likely ever will from writing."

About this same time, I clicked over to some blabbering in the London Review of Books that advised writers considering an MFA to get a real degree.

And I am here to tell you, I nit-picked. And I bickered. Since when does someone named "Amy" know what's right for every single writer? Since when does the London Review of Books get to compare Master of Fine Art in Creative Writing programs to "Stuff White People Like" and get away with it?

Not here and not now. I'm paying for an MFA, I'm white, and you know what? I don't like that stuff. Not at all.

Blanket statements get me riled up because no matter how well intentioned, they are the voice of the oppressor. Do as I say, or else.

Well, my life to date is practically a living, breathing monument to doing the exact opposite of what people in authority have demanded. And you know what? Things have turned out even better than I could have hoped for. And, unintentioned side benefit? My struggles have made a half-way decent story.

Looks like I've made it this far; there's no reason for me to start listening to bad advice now. Guess what, Amy? I'm currently a tuition-paying MFA student in Queens University of Charlotte's low residency program. When I graduate in another couple of years with my MFA degree, I plan to be a Maelstrom of Future Action. If I really apply myself, Marshal of Funky Authority is not out of the question. And maybe, just maybe, if I keep up with all the required reading, this intense and devoted study of writing will truly make me a Master of Frigging Anything. 

You don't earn a title like that by paying attention to blanket statements that begin with "don't," "can't," or "won't."

Hey, stranger things have happened. And you know what? Most of them have even been good ones.

 

Beginings

Here it is, almost the end of January, and I'm still thinking about beginnings. I'm pretty sure that's because I'm mulling over how to start a new project.

From a recent NPR interview with one of my heroes, Elmore Leonard, here's how the great man sits his story down:

"I have no idea where it's going to go. I don't want to know, because the idea is accumulated in the four months, five months, six months. . .  of the writing process. You get better ideas while you're writing. Ideas come to you, scenes come to you that (are better) than if you were to sit down and list scenes. So I don't outline."

The "to outline or not to outline" argument is one writers have long grappled with. And not allowing rigid A, B, 1, 2 scaffolding to dictate to creativity has always been my instinct, too. I didn't outline either of my two previous books and when I finished them I was convinced that lack of early structure helped, rather than harmed, their narratives. The ideas did arrive just as Mr. Leonard said.

And, I had a pretty good idea of where the story was going when I began my latest project, a memoir now in the hands of my editor. Not because I outlined it first, but because, well, I lived it. 

When you're writing from your own experience, my logic went, it's even more impossible to get off track than when you're telling someone else's story. Stick to the truth, mine your emotional highs and lows, and, as Mr. Leonard also advises, "leave out the parts that people skip."

Do all that,  everything is sure to turn out just dandy, I reasoned. Outline? I don't need no stinkin' outline.

Revisions, though, have a way of picking up the glare the warm sunshine of just writing away, free and easy, without a care in the netherworld of your imagination, misses. I ended up crafting a detailed outline after I finished the first draft.

It was a good exercise, and helped me identify both the cuts and additions the book needed in a way my own "just sit down and write" process had not.

So, despite the advice of Mr. Leonard, I've reconsidered the value of outlining a long work first, before beginning to write. I'm starting to believe outlining will organize my creative impulse, not stifle it.

Writer and writing teacher Adair Lara has a great article about how to do this here. Good advice for those of us writing about our own lives, particularly if, like me,  you have previously eschewed outlines.

January feels like a great time to sit down and dig in to something new, doesn't it?