Retrospection

Well, I've read about as many top ten lists as I can take. Actually, I quit reading them over a week ago, along with the articles about the futility or stupidity or redundancy of such lists. Still, it's natural to look back, and at the turn of a decade, always interesting to go back to the last turn of a decade, so.

I've been thinking quite a bit about the changes in my life over the last ten years, and despite the busy-ness of the last few days, fully intended to sit down at some point and write about it. It's writing that helps me understand myself. Ah, narcissism.

Anyway, this post over on Mira's list (which, if you don't know, is a gold mine of info on artist's grants, residencies, and fellowships, subscribe now!) inspired me to sit down and get to reminiscing.

In January of 2000, I was still living in the basement of my struggling little bookcafe in Kimballton, Iowa. I was still swathed in pressure garments from the waist down (and would be until sometime in 2001.) Still taking several medications that swathed my brain in a grayish haze as my body slowly rebuilt the burned tissue. (Yes, doubly swathed. Should I say swaddled? Swaddled in despair, cuddled in gloom?) My marriage was a grim deadlock. My "business" was a joke. Things were not looking good, and I had no hope for the future, could not imagine any scenario where my life might turn out alright.

Soon, my husband would be gone and I'd pay off the building by myself. I'd teach part time in Omaha so I could keep the bookcafe open at least a few days a week. From January-June of 2002 I would close up the shop and live in NYC, helping my sister with her new baby.

In January 2003, acknowledged my failure and sold the building for half what it cost (it needed a new roof, and because of the debt incurred after my uninsured hospitalization, I couldn't get a loan.) Moved back to Omaha with my first dog, a handsome young mutt named Alice, and started over at the age of 45.

Moving out.

Young Alice.
Fast forward: Spend 2 1/2 years living in a studio apartment over a garage, chip chip chip away at the debt. For the first time since getting my teaching license in 1991, I apply for an actual full-time teaching gig. And get it! And don't really want it! But take the job, full of fear and trepidation, whatever, fear and trepidation is by now my confirmation name. Forward.

2005 become a homeowner. 2007 begin (oh, fear and trepidation!) an MFA in writing with the University of Nebraska's low-residency program, enabling me to continue teaching full time. (They are down there right now, at the Lied Lodge, having their workshops and lectures and readings without me; this is the first new year I've spent at home since I began the program.) Finished the book I'd started back in Kimballton, graduated in August, 2009.
Writer friend Erin Arellano marinating in the ambiance at Lied Lodge, January 2009

It's January 2010. It's 0° outside, but I have a warm Gertie on my lap as I type, and Alice snoring on her pillow at my feet. Though ten years ago home ownership was a distant dream, a fantasy I didn't dare indulge in, I am in a little house that is mine all mine (ok, and the bank's.) I have a job with benefits, even insurance, even a retirement plan. Ten years ago I didn't even think I could want those things, much less get them.

In two weeks, I am flying to Santa Fe for an education conference, courtesy of my employer. I'm seeking representation for my book and some days that seems an impossible dream, but though it's colder than a warlock's heart outside, the sun is shining. I fully expect this to seem a quaint yearning when I look back in 2020.

In answer to a question: Balancing work and art

I just plagiarized an email to a full-time teacher who is contemplating taking the plunge into an MFA. In my defense, I told the recipient I was doing it. Here's the meat of it:

So, balance? Well, I'll be honest and say I think I did a rather poor job of it, but everything that needed to be done got done. I didn't try too many new things on the job, and I got lucky my last semester a had a wonderful, capable student teacher. But basically, I made the MFA my life. Went to bed ridiculously early so I could get up at 4am and write before work (found that after work, I was too spent to do anything but read.) Weekends were totally dedicated. I am fortunate that I have nobody to take care of or cater to except my dogs, but if you have a family, and they support you in this, it can still be done. I can hook you up with a couple of married high school English teachers, both with children, who also got through the program.

The bottom line: most of the time, the sacrifices stopped feeling like sacrifices. I finally had what felt like the perfect excuse to decline invitations-- I didn't just want to write, I had to write. It got me into a practice that I now no longer feel I have to make excuses for. It felt like an amazing gift I'd been waiting all my life to give myself. Bad sentence, but you get my meaning. I wouldn't trade the experience for anything.

In Defense of the MFA (and Praise for Low-Residency)

So over at the Rejectionist the other day, a guest post by one Cherie L'Ecrivain (clever!) gave me a little bit of brain rash, and always in search of a topic, I decided to take it on.

First, a confession. I used to harbor my own prejudices about MFAs in writing. I assumed (and unlike the author of this post, had no actual experience to base this on) that most MFA programs were groovy, rich-kid playgrounds, factories churning out pasteurized products every year, each bearing the stamp of the latest trend in literature. I wanted none of it. I would be a unique voice, raw and untamed. It had nothing to do with how those grapes were dangling so high above my head or that I couldn't jump that high and was afraid to climb. There were bugs on those grapes, yuck, phooey.

I dibbled and dabbled and dribbled for years, feeling always the lack of the community that M. L'Ecrivian skewers in her post. I wanted writers in my life. I wanted feedback. Having found a project that inspired passion in me, I toiled and spun in a vacuum for almost a decade.

At the tender age of 48, I finally admitted I needed help. Despite my debtanoia, I applied for student loans. Following the advice of a poet friend, (yes, I had some poets in my life, but I am not a poet, really, and knew no prosers, so) I applied to the University of Nebraska's Low-Residency MFA in Writing. It fit my lifestyle. Five nine-day residencies at Nebraska City's beautiful Lied Lodge, one in the middle of the summer and one during winter break, each followed by four intense months of reading, writing, and regular correspondence with a mentor.

I worked closely with four amazing (yeah, an adjective; I debated, but I'm sticking with it, and if you knew them you'd understand) mentors over the two years, and each of them contributed immeasurably to my growth as a writer. Sometimes I disagreed with their suggestions, but usually I went ahead and tried them anyway. Sometimes I decided I was right (can't think of an example right now so this may be a big lie) but usually these suggestions led to me breaking through a fear.

During the residencies, the days and nights were full of lectures, readings, and workshops. Nine days of hard work and camaraderie, then you go home for more hard work.

The blog post I'm responding to said, in part:

Beyond actually acquiring the physical diploma, it’s difficult to gauge the success of your tenure as an MFA student. It’s not like the degree is meant to help you land a well-paying job.

This I agree with. Sure, we all want to be published, but anybody seeking a fine arts degree because they want to make money is dangerously naive. That's what jobs are for, silly.

Then Cherie swerves off into less informed territory:

Most of the workshops are heavily focused on short stories and then once a semester an agent visits the class and tells you that story collections are completely unmarketable and no one will even consider publishing yours until you have a novel to back it up. At least this way when you graduate without a book deal or salable manuscript it is only partially your fault. However, your time in an MFA program can be considered a triumph if you clock more hours actually writing than you do vomiting up your student loan money in the bathroom of every bar in Park Slope.

I think she's writing memoir here. Speaking of memoir, in my workshops (of eight or nine people, and each residency I was with a slightly different group; the Boss Lady threw our names in a bowl and let her cats fish us out) there were almost as many essays and excerpts from longer works as there were short stories. And let's face it, short stories are a wonderful form and efficient for learning craft. Unless, yeah, you're in it for the money.

Cherie also had trouble with her playmates, and I can see how that could happen in a traditional MFA program, where you workshop weekly with the same people. Especially if you are young and have not yet spent decades paying off that first round of student loans you squandered in saloons all over Montana or wherever.

With low-residency, this is more easily avoidable:

You will also know how well you have done based on who you are still speaking to when school is over. All MFAs are composed of people who are used to being the standout writer in any workshop they’ve ever attended. So, take twelve to forty people who are equally good at something but accustomed to being the best and put them in a situation where they are required to critique one another and compete for praise and prizes. Have fun navigating that obstacle course of loyalties and animosities, particularly when the participants are perpetually steeped in sleep deprivation and alcohol. In any workshop you'll be lucky to find one or two people who are good readers for your “work”—yes, you will call it that, eventually—and that's nice and all.

I do feel lucky. I graduated three weeks ago. I am proud of the work I did, and I'm grateful I had to keep my day job and write when I used to be sleeping. I'm grateful for the discipline I learned and the tools I've acquired. Most of all, I'm grateful for the relationships, both online and face to face, with writers of every genre-- poetry and prose, literary fiction and nonfiction and fantasy, multi-media-melange and memoir. These are people I've watched grow over the last few years, and they've watched me. I have a community now, and I guess that's what I'm defending.

I'm sorry that some people have had such bad, expensive experiences with higher education, but in this brutal business, all I can say, Cherie, is better you than me.