#I've got an MFA in creative writing

[beezelbubbles]

Okay. I don't know what to do anymore. Every choice seems bad. (Probably because I need to refill my antidepressants and ADHD meds but you know, whatever.)

I keep getting ads for a data analyst boot camp. IDK if I should go for it. I think I can manage the work. I'm a little wary of the math involved. I'm alright at math, but I don't super enjoy it. I do enjoy problem solving. But freelance editing is not paying my bills.

So Tumblr nerds and adults. Do I give this a shot? It's about 13 grand for the program, which also involves several job fairs and career counseling. But I'm worried about this being one of those jobs that isn't going to exist fairly soon because of AI and general layoffs in the tech sector.

[goodluckclove]

I've been meaning to say something. (100 follower hot take)

Hey! Thanks for stopping by. I hope you've had a nice day. Why don't you rest with me for a while? I made some chocolate chip cookies - with shortening instead of butter, so they're very soft and very chocolatey. I made way too many and they aren't my wife's favorite, so I could use some help in eating them.

You're probably a writer, right? Or maybe you think about how you could be. Browse the tags here, or on other social media platforms. Maybe you used to write stories as a kid. I bet those were fun. Teachers might've thought they were impressive, or they dissected them line by line until the words didn't make sense in your head anymore. Either way, if you're here you're probably here for a reason.

(rant alert)

I dipped a toe in online writing communities on and off. My last attempt was forty-five minutes scrolling through the writing hashtag on Youtube Shorts (so TikTok, I guess? I don't know). I didn't like it. I really didn't. The thing that sticks out the strongest in my mind is one particular video where a woman claims that every story needs a second act plot twist.

Huh? Every story? All of them? Why? Since when? Who are you? What qualifications do you have to make a statement like that?

That's the common thread that makes a lot of writing spaces very uncomfortable for me. Successful writers are really only successful in their genre and for the given moment, so they don't have that much objective authority in the craft. And yet I see a lot of people deciding the things that you can't do in writing. Or the things you have to do, and how you have to do them. It was so much of Writeblr at first glance that I almost dipped out once again. I didn't, though, and I'm glad I didn't because now I get to watch some of the next great storytellers from across the world grow and examine and forge their way forward.

No one can teach you how to write. No, that's not true. Teachers teach literacy. Handwriting. Typing maybe - do schools still teach typing? Let me try saying it in a different way - no one, not one single person on this goddamned planet, has the right to tell you how to make a story.

I was supposed to get my MFA in creative writing before my first breakdown. My uncle stayed in the program I was meant to be in, and a few years after I dropped out he graduated. Recently I had the thought to look up his thesis novella, and as I searched I found myself regretting my decision to leave school. If I stayed and got to develop my writing in an actual class, with other writers and a knowledgeable professor, how much further along would I be than where I am right now?

It was bad. His novella was terrible. It was so bad I had a small existential crisis for, like, three days. He spent so much money on years and years of professional education and came out with a truly soulless story that read as if you prompted an AI to write the next Great American Novel. So if you think you need a writing degree to be a legitimate author, it could help connections-wise, but it ultimately won't be the thing that does the work for you.

Not all advice I see online on writing is bad. I find the people who are able to capture the "I" statements of therapy and phrase advice as things that have worked for them, or things that they personally enjoy, to be fine. Some writing advice can spark inspiration.

But if someone is the type of person to boil every story down to troupes and cliches, and then immediately say that every story that uses the trait they don't like is automatically bad for everyone? I'm dropping the kindness for a second - that's trash. That's a trash take and I see far too many writers use it as a reason to stop before they begin.

I don't like whump. I say my reasons in previous posts if you go back through my blog. But you will never hear me say that any story with whump in it is bad, because I don't know that. You might prove me wrong. I am an adult human being and I have the humility to admit that I can like something I didn't expect to. I genuinely enjoy the direction of The Human Centipede (only the first one) and if you cringed just now that probably means you haven't seen it.

There are so many types of books and movies and plays and comics out there. To enjoy a specific genre is fine, to ignore the existence of everything else is a really, really, really odd thing to do. Maybe someone will hate your story because they think everything should be Neil Gaiman, and therefore have no way to understand your epistolary high-Western. You are not the wrong end of that situation just for existing.

And at there is a definite threshold on how many writing tips you can gather before they stop being useful. If you find them interesting, that's one thing. That's fine. But if the culture of creativity online has made you feel like you need to educate yourself on every possible angle before you can write a story, you are actively harming yourself.

Imagine taking the level of structure you put on yourself in that way and putting it on children playing pretend in the backyard. Oh, Susie, don't you know that it's overdone for your Kitsune have dead parents? Xyler, shouldn't you ask someone else before you decide how Spiderman would react to this? It would make no sense and they do not need it. Kids will make a whole world out of nothing and it's the most fucked thing in my heart that at some point they get access to Reddit and dipshits start insisting that's wrong.

They aren't wrong and you aren't either. Your favorite creative influencer can't tell you your story, strangers on the internet can't tell you your story, your teachers and loved ones can't tell you your story. They can influence it, but they can't write it honestly the way you can.

You do that. That's the thing you do.

Man that makes me upset. I can't tell you how to make a story, either. If anyone sends me asks for writing advice the most I'll do is say what I've done before hopping into your DMs and starting a direct conversation. it's so personal to each individual artist, and I'd like to think that the people selling these classes and software and promoting these platforms haven't thought about that before. Otherwise it does feel manipulative. If you have a willingness to practice and imagine and really experiment with the possibilities, you are ready to write your story.

And if it doesn't work? Try again. That's what you do.

Stephen King has written roughly a thousand books and maybe five of them have decent endings. He is unimaginably successful.

I'm rambling now. I think I got that out of my system. I was really worried to say this out of fear of being too weird or somehow reverse-gatekeeping so hard that it circles back into also being a bad thing. I've just spoken to a lot of people who I still think of throughout my day, and I truly ache for them to get past the fear of creation. Because it's worth it. It's worth it and it's fun, even when it's messy and you're tired.

Let it Be just came on. Beatles. I haven't listened to The Beatles in a long time. Feels a little apropos.

I love you, reader. Reader, Writer, Colleague. Take care of yourself. Especially the little you, still sitting there in the backyard of your soul, bathing in the sun with their bare feet in the damp earth.

Consider joining them, maybe.

[shepherds-of-haven]

I've been wanting to ask this for a while but this story has stayed in me and my bff heads for literal years (this rarely happens)

How did you learn to write!? This is like a brainworm that won't leave. Sometimes I'd lay in bed and remember something from this story. It'll flash before my eyes like a mirage

You're magical wtf. Tell me your writing secrets.

This is one of my favorite messages! 🥹 You have no idea how gratifying it is for a writer to hear their story has taken up residency in someone else's head :') Thank you so much for the lovely message!!!

I learned to write the conventional way, I think: by reading my Favorite Things voraciously, and then chipping off little bits and fragments of them to plant in my own garden, where they mutated into their own variants and permutations over time. (This was everything from fantasy novels to manga to fanfiction to story-heavy video games and martial arts films, by the way, all of which you can see flavors of in Shepherds.) After that, it's just a matter of time, practice, and persistence!

For the sake of answering your question fully, though, I'll note that I did attend writing workshops at different colleges from a young age, then got my undergraduate degree in Creative Writing, then my MFA in Fiction, then taught writing at the university for a handful of years. But I don't want to make this sound like a deterrent of any kind! I genuinely think you don't need any of that to write or to be good at writing (I am also somewhat notorious in my programs for having stubbornly done my own thing for years and not really incorporating anything from my coursework into my writing, haha). But writing is truly special in that I think a lot of fiction from "amateurs" or hobbyists with no special background or degrees in writing can far surpass published works from established academics and professionals. So I don't think the path I took was necessary to learning to write at all: in fact, I think it can sometimes be dangerous, which is a ramble for a whole other day.

But my writing secrets? Patient and diligent practice. Absorbing and observing the writing you want to emulate, figuring out what about it you like and what speaks to you and how to replicate it in your own work. And! Telling a story that you are excited about, even if that's not the consensus from other people. The passion and love you have for a story will always shine through, whereas it will always be equally obvious if you're listlessly toiling away on something that fits others' desires, but not your own vision.

I hope that answers your question, or helps anyone else who's been thinking about writing out there! And thank you so much again for your lovely message!

[deermouth]

bitchy post i'll probably delete but I've been reading lolita on and off for a couple months right. well the other day i wanted to share a passage with my roommate, and we had the following exchange:

her: "oh yeah, i've been meaning to ask why you're reading that." me: "i'm not sure what you mean by 'why?'" "well isn't it like... bad? it's got pedophilia in it?" "...................well. um? i've been trying to move away from evaluating works of fiction by their didactic merit? and i'm reading it because nabokov's prose is fantastic." [trying really really really really really hard to not make some snippy remark about why on earth she is approaching any text like that while finishing up a CREATIVE WRITING MFA. A GRADUATE DEGREE.]

[naranjapetrificada]

Fanfic Friday!

I still don't completely understand it, so this week I'm just gonna reflect on things that happened while writing this arranged marriage longfic, some of which I posted about on here and some of which I didn't.

I gave up on the Soup Paragraphs that were haunting me and realized I can introduce them later if I must.

I got in some "let go and let god" practice when I realized I don't have to get every little throwaway detail right, especially when it slows down my progress/makes writing miserable.

My therapist wants me to see about applying this Free Yourself skill in my non-writing life, to which I say I know you are but what am I

Characters put themselves in situations without my input and it was great!

Ceremonies are hard to write but at least I now know what Ed and Stede would be like if they were kids in a school play.

I started watching Rome again after thinking about it last week in the wake of the cancelation (I've had it on DVD for years). Still problematic in the way something made in 2005 will be, but otherwise it holds up incredibly well.

I've also stopped caring as much about all the people using the world's problems as a bludgeon against OFMD fans and the campaign to to save the show. For all the reasons other people have already articulated well but also, on a personal note, because of what this show has done for my relationship with writing.

I won't get into too much detail but suffice it to say I have a lot of baggage around writing, because of all the "gifted" nonsense of my childhood and my MFA experience as an adult. I don't blame anyone per se, but unhelpful social frameworks were unhelpful. Let's just say that when Pop-Pop said "if you were ever good at anything go do that" to Ed, it didn't not remind me of feeling obligated to do something that used to be rewarding but isn't anymore because it's what you're "supposed" to do. Anyway.

I wrote three short (<2000 word) fics between seasons 1&2, the first fic I've felt like writing in over a decade. It was liberating as hell to write again in a low-stakes environment, and with blorbo motivation to power me through the difficult parts. I never, ever thought I would write anything longer than 2000 words, but for the past (several?) weeks now I've been alternating between two drafts in tropes I can't get enough of, the shortest of which is around 10,000 (admittedly unedited) words.

The other is longer, and every time I work on it I keep having to break shit up so the chapters stay under 5000 words. This is unprecedented for me, and I've wanted to share it so much that I'm running out of shit to post on WIP Wednesday that won't reveal the plot or require too much context. I've never been in a fandom as creative (and creatively inspiring) as this one, nor have I every written so much in a single fandom before.

My relationship with writing wouldn't be healing like this at all if it weren't for this show and this fandom, and in particular I want to highlight the freedom in embracing the "David Jenkins School of Historical Inaccuracy." In fact, I've been keeping a running list of AO3 tags for the fic I've made the most progress on, and there are several "David Jenkins School of ________" tags, including Archaeology, Theology, and Comparative Politics. Thanks to seeing DJ's philosophy at work it's now possible for me to move on from certain details when I get stuck because they're "inaccurate" for the setting or whatever in a way I never could before. Now I feel empowered to move on from tricky details by asking myself:

Is it funny?

Is it related to the plot?

Is it character-building?

And if the answer to all of those is no, then so is the answer to question 4: "does it matter?"

Assuming I finish these longfics they'll be the longest creative pieces I've ever written and beyond the longest works of fiction I ever thought I would write, and for that I'm eternally grateful. Even if the world we live in is a crumbling disaster. Especially if the world we live in is a crumbling disaster.

[zalrb]

Could u tell us about ur time in college? Where’d and what did u study. What did do while studying (work , parties). Did u go abroad? Do u think it was useful for ur career present day?

Yeah, I've spoken about it before. I even posted grad photos because I was graduating when I first got on tumblr lmao. So I always knew I was going to do something with writing or something with film so I curated my studies, I did English and Cinema Studies in undergrad plus a creative writing certificate at the school of continuing studies, which was in Toronto and then I did my MFA in New York. I did one summer semester in Italy in undergrad. In undergrad, I volunteered at the Toronto International Film Festival for three years and worked all four years, mostly retail, sometimes at amusement parks. In grad school, because I was an international student, getting a job was a little bit harder, I did one summer job on campus and then I interned at a literary agency where it was basically my job to read the slush pile, which was a really interesting experience. Because it was difficult to get a job in New York, I would come back home during holiday break and do seasonal work. But I was extremely, extremely broke during those years. Literally the best part of the summer job I had was that I worked for a summer program and employees got to eat lunch with the students so that was one less meal I had to worry about but we were all struggling because they also weren't paying us on time so my friend/colleague was nearly evicted from his apartment because he just did not have the money, I had to cuss everyone out to get our first two pay cheques, lmao.

Undergrad I didn't party that much because I was living at home, I had a strict mom, I also had to commute about two hours to get home, and I was working, and my friends also had very strict parents so like there wasn't really much of an opportunity for a busy social life, although Italy was like a crash course in undergrad partying because I went there the summer between first and second year while mostly everyone else was in third or fourth year so I was actually the youngest in the program and when I explained I'd never really gone to an undergrad party back in Toronto or had that much of a social life, it kind of became a collective goal for the other students to take me clubbing, take me drinking, and give me the sort of dorm experience. And then in third year for various reasons, I did more drinking and clubbing, it was also the year I had the heaviest course load so I think I just needed a lot of stress relief and I always tell people to never pack your schedule with courses, it's not worth it, haha.

My MFA was a loooooooooot of drinking but it was also just the culture of the writing program because, like, authors were teaching us, not profs, and authors do like to drink so we could literally be having classes in a bar or if an instructor didn't mark our stories because they had their own deadlines or their own issues, they would apologize by getting us a couple of rounds at the bar, sometimes we drank in class, haha, and then our program just had a lot of readings or a lot of parties so grad school was basically writing and drinking for two years. That was just fiction though. The nonfiction students and the poetry students had different experiences. Because I was New York, I got to see/meet a lot of different authors who would come through for lectures or book tours, I even got to introduce an author at one of her lectures, so that was also really cool.

[carlos-in-glasses]

Oversharing on the Internet

Thank you for the tag @liminalmemories21 @welcometololaland @theghostofashton @lemonlyman-dotcom @alrightbuckaroo and @bonheur-cafe ❤️

Let's prefix this with another giant grumpy baby in a gurney picture 🥰

ONE: Are you named after anyone? If you believe my mum, no. But I think it’s Karl Marx. He named all of his daughters Jenny. In the 80s/early 90s, mums in their droves rushed to name their newborn daughters Jennifer. Therefore, I have deduced I am named for the clandestine Marxist revolution going on between second-wave boomer mums. My mum denies this. She gave me an incredulous look when I asked, which seemed over the top, and claimed to have "just liked the name..." I think the first rule of the 80s Marxist Mums Revolution was to not talk about it.

TWO: When was the last time you cried? I’m not much of a crier usually, but I cried last week when I signed my boss’ leaving card and read all the other messages people had written for her. She’s someone who has had a massive, positive impact on my life and I’m so sad that she’s going.

THREE: Do you have kids? No, and I never will. Sometimes this makes me sad, but most of the time it doesn’t.

FOUR: Do you use sarcasm a lot? I save it for best.

FIVE: What sports have you played/do you play? I don’t understand this question.

SIX: What’s the first thing you notice about people? What they’re wearing. I was once on a plane sitting close to a woman who wore the most fantastic, long, colourful coat. I was so fixated on the coat that I didn’t realise the woman was Thandie Newton until we were at Heathrow.  

SEVEN: What’s your eye colour? An indeterminable grey-green-blue shade that changes depending on the light, what I’m wearing, and my mood.

EIGHT: Scary movies or happy endings? Happy endings.

NINE: Any special talents? I’m not good at anything other than creative writing. I truly am The Worst at all else. I understand it’s objective and people might disagree that I’m good at writing at all – but I mean, relative to everything else I do, it’s really all I’ve got.

TEN: Where were you born? Saaaaf London.

ELEVEN: What are your hobbies? Writing, reading, going for walks. I love movies and reading about the movies I've watched or watching video essays about them. I also really love going shopping tbh, but I don’t do it much for financial and moral reasons.

TWELVE: Do you have any pets? Alas, I am petless.

THIRTEEN: How tall are you? 5ft 7 with disproportionately long arms, to paint a picture.

FOURTEEN: Favourite subject in school? Drama and art. I’m lousy at art and got a D for A-level, but was given a special award from my school for the sheer amount of effort I put in. Hahaha god.

FIFTEEN: Dream job? Poet in the poetry world doing poetry things, I guess working at a university and winning the TS Eliot for my debut collection, sigh. I didn't have enough coin to stay in academia doing something so damn arty, but once upon a moonlit dream I had notions of going to the States to do an MFA. Anyway. Still sort of trying with the odds against me. Two publications last month and one upcoming though, yay! 

I'm a bit late to this so if you've been tagged already please ignore or no pressure if you don't want to do this at all!!!: @heartstringsduet @cold-blooded-jelly-doughnut @irispurpurea @actuallysara @goodways @danieljradcliffe @lutavero @howlingsaturn @ladytessa74 (I meant to add you but just saw I didn't?!!!)

[bettsfic]

Hi, teaching writing question! I'm a longtime fic writer who has an MFA in Playwriting and is currently teaching first year composition for the second year in a row. I never taught comp before this job (though I had taught theater history and playwriting), so I've been scrambling/learning as I go, and just got tentatively floated a potential intro to creative writing class for the spring. So my question is two-fold: 1, do you have a book/any resources you recommend for teaching first year composition? I've been flying by the seat of my pants a little and would love to get some actual pedagogical knowledge. And 2) Anything similar for creative writing? I've been in a million workshops and have written poetry/short stories on my own, and a million plays (obvs) but I haven't taken or taught a barebones 'intro to creative writing' class and I'd love to go in using more than my vibes and past experience to guide the course.

for your first question, the universities i've worked at have all had their own custom comp textbook. in fact they've also had strict requirements regarding the assignments to teach and how to teach them, so the fact you're flying by the seat of your pants is, in my experience, an anomaly. if you're adjuncting and/or teaching at a university that you didn't attend, i would reach out to the comp director to schedule a meeting and go over resources/expectations. it's easy to fall through the cracks when you're an adjunct or in the first few years of a professorship.

that said "writing about writing" is the first comp text i read and i really loved it, so that's somewhere to start. if you meet with your comp director and still don't have resources, feel free to message me on discord (bettsfic) and i can send you some files/links.

for your second question, intro to cw is a different beast. i've never taught with a textbook even though that would've made my life a thousand times easier. every semester, i go to the copy center with a stack of books and ask for pdfs of pieces i want to teach.

i think it's worth a shot to reach out to the director of cw even though, in my experience, intro cw is less strict than comp. that said, depending on how the class is listed, if it's a gen ed requirement, there may be specific things you need to measure for your university to keep accreditation. for example, at one university i worked at, they needed one objective, quantitatively measured assignment. that meant i couldn't do a grading contract. the assignment i chose to grade (rather than complete/incomplete) was workshop crit letters.

traditionally intro cw is broken up into units by genre: poetry, prose, cnf. in your case though, if your university isn't giving any guidance, i don't see why you can't put an emphasis on playwriting.

i organize my class by craft concepts across multiple genres and let students write in the genre they're most interested in for each prompt. my goal in intro cw is just to give students time and space to write, so about half the course is freewriting time.

i'm not sure any of that is very helpful, but 1) i have a bad cold, and 2) without knowing your university's expectations and resources, and your own goals as a teacher, i'm not quite sure which direction to guide you. please feel free to DM me!

[anghraine]

A friend getting his MFA in creative writing offered to read my novel—it's 396 pgs after being substantially cut down, so this is quite the undertaking and a very generous offer. The only person (apart from me) who has actually gotten through the whole thing so far is @elwing and I was curious to see a) if he'll actually manage it and b) how the different responses lined up.

Thus far, I don't really know what he feels about the story or characters, just his analysis of how the pieces are functioning/could be improved. There's a place for that, too, I guess?

It's definitely impressive that he can be as critical as he's being without being particularly disheartening. The last time I got unrelenting criticism without any sense of what's working, I stopped writing for a year. Maybe I've matured, but I think mostly he's a far better critic than those ones were.

(In fairness, one of the critics from the "guess I'll stop writing and never look at any of my original fiction again!" session suggested converting my lesbian romance to a het one, so the bar is not high. But he's really good!)

[nihilnovisubsole]

Hi, I hope this isn't a bother, but I'm attempting to be a writer and feeling a bit lost in my life, trying to gain some footing, and I was wondering how did you start out with writing or what has your writing journey looked like? Did you go to school for writing specifically or was it something that came after?

sure, i can always talk about that. i've told a lot of these stories before, but they're worth re-telling. your perspective changes over the years. when you say "lost" and "trying to gain footing," i'm not sure whether you mean professionally or emotionally, so i'll talk about both.

i always wanted to be a writer. a lot of writers share that experience: a deep, primordial urge that they felt from an early age. they'll say, "i can't not write," or they'll describe these nagging ideas that they simply have to exorcise. it's not everyone, though. some people start writing to process a hard time in their life, or they journal, but don't think about making a career of it until later. some authors say a specific book awakened something in them. you get the idea. in short, there's no bad place to start.

but i always knew. i also knew i wanted to be a lit major, and i grew up in a household that pushed very hard toward that. i didn't care that it wasn't a slingshot to a high-paying job. i wanted to study books and be a writer, and that was that. [there were a few reasons i chose lit over creative writing! we can get into that later. i'm already going to keep you a while.]

this is a philosophically-tricky part of the story to tell. i don't know where you are. in america, college is, well, a lot. it's hideously expensive. most undergrads go into debt. many would question the wisdom of throwing that money toward an english degree. it's an ugly debate, and it squeezes the beating heart of what you think the point of higher education is. i don't get into it, because between good grades and sudden, extreme poverty, the financial aid system took pity on me. i got my lit training debt-free. i was lucky. most people don't. i'm very glad i did it! should you? you'll have to decide for yourself.

the thing was, in my late teens, i didn't appreciate it. i was too busy fretting that i wasn't any good. [if you've read my old stuff, you might laugh to yourself and say, "oh, don't worry, you weren't!" but, you know, don't rub it in.] i was down a well that most creative people find themselves in at some point: both terrified to fail and utterly convinced that i would. i thought i'd never manage to write a novel-length story. my plots had huge flaws that i had no idea how to fix. so i just... did nothing! i avoided serious writing projects for years, because it was easy, and i didn't want to confront all that.

it took two things to break me out of that: fallout new vegas, and life dumping a bucket of cold water over my head. many games have great plots, but fallout new vegas hit storytelling notes that i'd never seen in an RPG before. i felt connections to steinbeck and the old movies i'd been raised with. i wanted to dig into the world and explore new corners of it. at the same time, i noticed that some people were skeptical of my writing, and even the legitimacy of my desire to pursue it. it made me mad as hell! more than that, it made me realize that if you want to do something, you have to actually do it. i'm not telling you to write a thousand words a day. i'm saying your love of it has to triumph over your fear of being bad. don't underestimate spite as fuel. i threw myself into a new vegas fanfic, and once i finished it, i never looked back. i've written steadily ever since.

even so, i had a problem. you can't pay bills with fanfic. i graduated, and the world of adult finance became real. first, i kicked the can down the road and applied to writing MFAs, thinking i'd get scouted for a publishing deal there. i got rejected from all of them, and i later found out that MFAs don't work like that anyway, so, eh. i cried, i moved on. i still had to make some money, so i took a job transcribing reality TV bites for some fifty bucks a week. it was only a couple of years later that i noticed a friend of mine had found a contract job writing for a mobile romance game. i inquired about it, and - hallelujah! they were taking new writers! it didn't work out the first time! they asked me back a few months later! as gullible and desperate i was, and as sour as things became, i still never would have gotten started if it weren't for them.

if you're looking for work, i'd tell you to keep your eyes open. writing opportunities won't always come where you think they do. as henry rollins says, "say yes to stuff." i could give you a more detailed history of my job-hunting if you'd get some use out of it. if your conflict is more emotional, i'd ask, what are you drawn to? what parts of human experience interest you? failing that, what do you find hot? you're smart. you'll figure it out.

[authoralexharvey]

INTERVIEW WITH A WRITEBLR — @vmccombs

Who You Are:

V McCombs || She/her

I've been a military wife for more than thirty years. As a result, I've lived in England, Germany, Japan, and all over the United States. I have my MFA in Creative Writing, and after more than fifteen years teaching college writing classes, I've decided to try my hand at being a self-published author.

What You Write:

What genres do you write in? What age ranges do you write for?

Fanfic, fantasy, and sci-fi. New Adult and Adult.

What genre would you write in for the rest of your life, if you could? What about that genre appeals to you?

science fiction, I like how it forces you to speculate about what might be.

What genre/s will you not write unless you HAVE to? What about that genre turns you off?

Romance. I find it very limiting. I tried writing romances for a company before, and they made me adhere to a boring outline.

Who is your target audience? Do you think anyone outside of that would get anything out of your works?

People who like sci-fi and speculative fiction. I think anyone who likes a good adventure story would enjoy it as well.

What kind of themes do you tend to focus on? What kinds of tropes? What about them appeals to you?

I tend to write characters who need to figure out what they really want in life. I like it when my protagonist is full-on focusing on something, only to realize what they want is really something else.

What themes or tropes can you not stand? What about them turn you off?

I don't think I honestly have anything that turns me off in general. I find anything can be appealing, if it's written well.

What are you currently working on? How long have you been working on it?

A novella called Your Artificial Afterlife Awaits. I got the original idea almost two years ago, and now I'm working on what I hope will be the final draft.

Why do you write? What keeps you writing?

Because I get these ideas, and I feel like they have to come out. I enjoy working with stories, and even though the writing itself sometimes makes me crazy, not being able to write makes me more unhappy than anything.

How long have you been writing? What do you think first drew you to it?

I've been writing on and off since I was a kid. I've always been a voracious reader, and even back then, I would have ideas about where the stories I read should go.

Where do you get your inspiration from? Is that how you got your inspiration for your current project? If not, where did the inspiration come from?

I get my inspiration from a lot of places. I read a lot of articles about science, and that gives me my inspiration when I'm writing science fiction. This story though came out of another story I was trying to write when I realized I'd created this side character that I really wanted to be my protagonist

What work of yours are you most proud of? Why?

My one short story that's been published by an online mag. Obviously, it's partly because I can point to it and say it's published. But also because I was given a very short format to work with, and I feel like I managed to pack in a lot of story and emotion in those two pages.

Have you published anything? Do you want to?

I've had one short story, "The Enclosed Check Should Cover The Damages," published online. I've also tried to get a few books published here and there, but after years of rejection, I've decided to try self-publishing.

What part of the publishing process most appeals to you? What part least appeals to you?

The amount of time traditional publishing takes is looking less and less appealing to me. I want to speed things up by self-publishing, even though it means doing my own marketing. But I've worked on literary journals and for newspapers before, so I think I can handle it. Also, I'm excited about doing my own formatting. It's something I've really enjoyed in the past.

What part of the writing process most appeals to you? What part is least appealing?

I love rewriting. I can rewrite all day. Drafting, on the other hand, is both fun and challenging. It's fun when you get into the flow, but challenging when you're staring at a cursor that's mocking you.

Do you have a writing process? Do you have an ideal setup? Do you write in pure chaos? Talk about your process a bit.

I like quiet when I write. I'm easily distracted, so noisy environments put me off. My favorite place to write is anywhere in my house I can take my laptop and hide away for a few hours. So long as I've got that and a glass of water, I'm in good shape.

Your Thoughts on Writeblr:

How long have you been a writeblr? What inspired you to join the community?

I've been a writeblr since 2014, although I deleted the old one and started fresh just last year. I like having a place to discuss what it's like to be a writer, and even more importantly, what it's like to be a writer who's trying to publish their own work.

Shout out some of your favorite writeblrs. How did you find them and what made you want to follow them?

I like @thebibliosphere because she's so great about sharing information about self-publishing. @theplottery because she posts stuff that makes me think about my writing. And for just pure fun and tag games, I've done a lot of interacting with @Nanashi23, @ezestreet, and @toribookworm22.

What is your favorite part about writeblr?

Seeing posts that make me think

What do you think writeblr could improve on? How do you think we can go about doing so?

I'm not sure if this is a writeblr thing, or a Tumblr thing, but I often see people who just post blindly trying to find more like-minded writeblrs to follow. This tells me we need better ways for finding each other.

How do you contribute to the writeblr community? Do you think you could be doing more?

I'm mostly just reblogging anything I think more people should see and playing tag games. I'm also trying to curate my own tag list, so if anyone wanted to find a particular writing tip, or piece of self-publishing info, I've collected, they can. I'd like to make my blog a hub of useful information. But like I said, it's fairly new right now, so that might take some time before I get it exactly the way I want it to be.

What kinds of posts do you most like to interact with?

I like tag games, but I'm really drawn to discussions of culture, history, and language. I think that's because I've been so many places, and when I see someone who's uncertain about something, I like to jump in and help.

What kind of posts do you most like to make?

I like both posting about my writing and telling stories about my past.

Finally, anywhere else online we may be able to find you?

Nothing current, although I've started blogs other places over the last twenty-five years or so. I need to create a proper web site, but right now, I'm just focusing on getting this last draft done.

Questions For Fun:

Where has been your favorite place to live in and why? Have you ever based any place in your works off of it?

I would say my favorite place to live has been Germany. The people are very nice, the country is beautiful, and it’s a great jumping off place for seeing the rest of Europe. Especially if you go by train. I have not used it in any of my work as of yet. I will probably do so in the future.

What is your favorite sci-fi trope? If you can't pick, how about a favorite scientific development?

I’m sort of fascinated with advances in medical technology. I have some minor issues I was born with, so the idea of being able to use tech to modify yourself has always been I interesting to me.

What is the most valuable lesson you learned in the process of getting your MFA? Why?

I think the most important lesson I learned is to not be so defensive about my writing. We did a lot of workshopping, and some people were better about it than others. I quickly realized I didn’t want to be one of the jerks. I also learned how to pick and choose which critiques I should listen to and which ones I should ignore.

[laventadorn]

what did you study in college & did that help you with what you’re doing as a career now? Any advice for a gal struggling through undergrad trying to go to grad school?

behind the cut - this reads more like a collection of thoughts, i feel very unqualified to give advice!

about me and my degrees:

i studied english and creative writing in college, which according to articles i've read, almost nobody does anymore. the liberal arts are a field that's cleared out at dusk after all the players have gone home -- or to STEM fields, in this case.

the job i'm in now is entirely based on my degree -- can't have this job without it. but i've been part time for ten years, because getting a full-time job is a crapshoot, and part time pay is shit. but the time i tried to switch jobs, i got so profoundly depressed (in the clinical sense) i had to go back to this job. i'm just trying to embed myself until they hire me full time.

english grad school is, moreover, unlike many graduate school programs because (functionally) nobody goes unless they’re getting it for free, which means needing a fellowship or grad assistant program that pays for everything and awards you a small (unlivable) stipend. the second option is what i did. (essentially they’re training you to be a college professor, and you’re studying for free and getting food money.) fellowships usually pay more but are more competitive — but the process of getting into grad school for english or creative writing is equally a crapshoot. the first year i tried, i didn’t get in; the second year, i applied to more schools and a couple of them took the bait. i picked the school that gave me the best package.

bottom line is, it would really depend on your program. i have zero knowledge of other fields, sadly, because almost everyone i know who did grad school was in english like me. of the english MA/PhD people i know, they've worked in publishing, teaching, writing, and coypediting. so the fields have all been english adjacent, because typically you don't get a grad degree in a field unless you're committed to it.

(some people just daisy-chain MFA programs. they go from one to the other, living on fellowships. you can get multiple grad degrees. i once met a guy at a party who was even going for his postdoc at MIT. that's real commitment to the grad life.)

i don't regret my degrees or graduate school -- i had a great time in both. however, i also got out with no debt, since college was cheaper then and i got scholarships to schools that weren't exactly high brow. i also just really enjoyed being in school because it suits my habits and personality, and i was studying something i loved. a lot of people very much do not feel that way -- if you're struggling... :(

there was also nothing else i could've effectively studied. i am only competent in liberal arts. if i'd taken a STEM track, i'd have failed out or had a nervous breakdown from not understanding my classes. no joke.

advice, such as it is:

i was reading an article about the ratio of people who regret their degrees, and people tend to regret it the most due to two factors: debt obtaining it and hire-ability afterward. yeah, no surprises there.

for advice pertaining to your specific field, i'd ask your professors -- they had to go to grad school, obviously, so they'd be more knowledgeable about what it's like. if there are younger professors around, that might be more helpful, since their experiences would be more recent. unless the older ones have kept up with the times, a lot about the job market, and academia, has changed in the last 20 - 30 years. is there any teacher you'd feel comfortable talking about it with?

i'd also be clear to yourself on why you want to go to grad school. if you're already considering it, you probably have heard all this before/know it already, because grad school isn't a common thing -- i just have to say it anyway. i don't know why you, specifically, are struggling with undergrad or if you even want to disclose the reasons, but even though i'm primed for academia and was studying what i enjoyed, grad school was tough. in undergrad there's typically a lot more leeway, but in grad school they do not let anybody fuck around. everybody is an A student. they're dead serious, and you (general you) can get kicked out for poor performance, especially if you're getting money from the school to even be there. not to say you're the fuck-around-and-find-out-type -- i definitely wasn't -- just that it adds pressure. i didn't even go for the PhD but stopped at the MA track. so i would just advise caution in the deliberation. if debt is an issue, for example, and your chosen degree would only add to it, i would be very clear on the finances.

of course, take all this advice with the caveat that it's entirely based on my experiences and perspective, and i don't consider myself to be a very wise or practical person! i just muddle along.

[poetryinmotion-author]

The Big Update!

TL;DR--I'm going to start posting some poems that aren't fanfiction related! The next chapter of The Thunder-Bringer's Daughter is up on 9/2, the next chapter of The Next Year is up on 9/9, and I met Ryan Hurst this past Saturday at PopCon in Indianapolis! And it was *everything*!

Hi friends!

Now that things have kind of settled into a schedule for me, I finally have time to sit down and write out an update! If you didn't know, I'm currently earning my MFA in Creative Writing, and I'm in my final year, working on my thesis! I'm also a TA, and a reader for Booth, our MFA program's literary journal (which you should all read!). It's *a lot*, but I've decided that I need to make more time for the stories I love, in between writing the poems I need (and love) to put together a thesis--some of which I might go ahead and post here.

SO!

I've been making strides on both The Next Year and The Thunder-Bringer's Daughter, and I'm planning on a bi-weekly update schedule, with the two pieces switching each week. Next Saturday (9/2), I'll be posting TBD, and the week after that (9/9), I'll be posting for The Next Year!

Something else really exciting happened this past weekend: PopCon in Indianapolis! It was my first time going to a comic convention, and it was such a great time--especially meeting some fellow authors, like Valerie Willis, Megan Mackie, J.D. Froemling, and James Wylder. But the most exciting thing that happened was that I got the chance to meet *Ryan Hurst* (Thor in God of War: Ragnarok)! He was an absolute gem, and when I told him about The Thunder-Bringer's Daughter, he seemed genuinely interested in the project! (He's also very, very tall. Didn't realize that going in, but yes. Quite tall.)

Well, that's basically all the update I've got so far. I might do a more in-depth post about my PopCon experience later, but expect to see much more of me on your feed in the near future!

Love,

E

[be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie]

Would you mind describing the process of applying for an MFA program or what you did to qualify? Also, when you say you’re going to grad school after, is that a PhD or a Masters in English Literature or something similar?

Let me just put both your anons here so I can get em both at once :) sorry for the confusion! I do not have an MFA, I am graduating from Boston University with my bachelors in creative writing. BU has a very old and prestigious MFA program that they don't shut the fuck up about and they writing pilled me so hard. Any writing workshop you take within the department is taught by someone currently getting an MFA or part of running the program. When I said MFA professor in that ask earlier, I was referring to my professor herself, who is an MFA grad and that's why she was there. She's not a teacher by trade, she teaches because she's there for the program. Does that make sense? I shouldn't have phrased it that way and I am so sorry for the confusion. There is such thing an an English PHD, I've only talked to three people who've ever gone higher than an MFA, and all were successful novelists while doing so. We cannot all be Leslie Epstein, and let us not aspire to be.

That being said, I hope I can still help, because I am applying to MFA programs in two years and started applying this year before eventually deciding to give it some time. Every workshop you take they literary pill you and they spend a whole class answering MFA questions and walking you through the process as well. I've never felt more knowledgable about a subject I have no authority on in my life, so let me try to answer your questions and I hope it helps! I apologize for how long as fuck it's going to be.

So qualifying for an MFA is easy; be good at writing. Like, really good. They really don't give a shit about anything else you have to turn in. If it's been a while since you've been in school, you'll be delighted to learn that no MFAs take GRE scores anymore, and every single one that asks for a 3.0gpa also includes a caveat where they're like "with exceptions." It's because if your writing is that good they legit do not care what else you bring to the table.

Bad news bears though, that means you gotta be really good. Not to be like, discouraging, but the general acceptance rate is about 3-5% for all programs across the board. I only know minute details about fully funded MFAs (my google spreadsheet could end lives) because I am of the mindset that paying extra education in this economy instead of being paid for extra education is insanity of the highest degree. That being said, if you expand to non fully funded program, I think your chances get a percentage higher? If you have the means and you want to, go for it, but I highly suggest the fully funded route. Every MFA grad I've every talked to has always said that they don't suggest getting one ever unless it's fully funded. That being said, I have a lovely mutual on here who got hers and it was not fully funded, and she loved her experience. I can definitely direct you to her as well.

More specifically on writing though, MFA's are incredibly literary writing places. If your style is more eclectic then an MFA program could be quite stifling. If you are more into genre fiction, romance, speculative fiction, sci-fi; most MFA programs are not for you. There are a few new highly competitive ones that specialize in genre fiction, but again, highly competitive.

Another super important point; writing in a workshop environment, especially an MFA, requires very thick skin. Creating a story for a workshop is like birthing a child, and then giving it to a classroom of 10-15 people to beat to death in front of you while they tell you how ugly it is and how you could've done better. But then you get to do it to them too it's literally my favorite thing in the world. I called someone's story gimicky last week, that's like a writing slur. But if that sounds like no fun at all, that's what the entirety of an MFA program will be. The crotchety 84 year old man who runs BU's MFA program (it's Leslie again), while a delight and a legend, referred to one of my pieces as having a "surprisingly homoerotic moment" and then the entire class informed him it was actually, very clear the entire time. I should include a list of meanest comments I've ever gotten after this, that's so fun.

Also also; each MFA program varies wildly, but most from what I can tell from my research require you to teach a class during your time there, and your final thesis is basically a completed manuscript of a novel.

I can tell you that I think there is absolutely nothing wrong at all with applying for an MFA program in your late twenties. In fact, they prefer it. I ending up holding off based on feedback I got from people I asked for rec letters and advise, all who told me applying right out of school is hard because they take you much less seriously. They like it when you've gone out, gotten real world experience, and proved you're committed. I know older people in the MFA program who were published authors and screenwriters, and people who got in right out of school and only published afterwards. Again, it's really all down to how good you are, everything else they don't care about as long as you are good enough to make anything else not important.

As for old writing connections; don't worry about that. MFAs require 2-3 rec letters. My professor advised that if it's been a while, you email to ask and you send along what classes you took with the professor, what year it was, and a current writing sample. It makes it as easy as possible on your rec. She argued about it a bit with another MFA grad who she brought to class; he said if they don't remember you they won't be a good rec. I don't really have a huge stance, thought I'd give both viewpoints they gave. It's hard to decide, I have a rec that would swing a lot of weight in the literary world but also I had a little beef with the professor so I'm on the fence about if his would be good or not. It's such a dumb problem but now I'm just venting every MFA related thought at you.

Finally; I will tell you what my current plans are for the two years before I apply to, idk, Rocky training montage myself for MFA applications. Basically my goals are to finish one of my books (generous goal that one is FLEXIBLE), get a few short stories published, and hopefully make a website. Every serious writer has a website and they all hate it. But, it's good to have things to actually put in your blurbs when you submit for publishing.

I am happy to give advice on the publishing process as well if that would help you, anon, or anyone else. I currently am a reader for a lit journal and I have worked for a WIDE variety of publishing companies, from lil baby indie ones to bigger editing companies. There is a market for everything if you know how to market yourself and where to look, and you do not need an MFA to do that. Stephanie Meyer would sooner have turned into a vampire herself than have been accepted into an MFA, but her ass is widely successful. Get ur bag.

[gearcrow]

Normally wouldn't talk about stuff like this, but I've got covid fever brain right now. I want to start learning to play an instrument (again), and I also want to start learning how to draw (again), but like, I also want to keep pushing for my creative writing MFA and eventual doctorate... and idk, it feels like it isn't actually possible to do all three? Or like, there isn't enough time to do all three? Maybe if I was someone who was much more disciplined, and I'd be willing to make bigger sacrifices in my life when it comes to media "consumption" and spending time with friends and family. Idk. I feel a deep sense of longing for the things I could have done if I never gave up music and art as a kid, things that only happened because my abusive father poisoned both of those practices for me. But now there's an almost two decade stretch of... not wasted time, I guess, but almost that.

[romilly-jay]

The Word is Murder

***again, writing to remind future-me how much I loved this series and what I enjoyed about them ***

I've been taking time out from the real world for the past two years to study for my MFA in Creative Writing. Okay, that's philosophically flawed in various ways - what makes me think there's a world that's real and other worlds that aren't real or that it's possible to move between them or that I am able to identify correctly which is which?

Starting again - I'm a midlife MFA student (just finishing) and it's been lovely and disorienting in roughly equal measure to get to spend two years among people who take seriously the idea that writing books and publishing them is A Thing It's Possible To Do.

Not equally possible for everyone. Do I need to say that? I mean, yes.

And even once a book is published, there's so much we don't really know about why one suddenly breaks through and succeeds, but we do know that without oxygen, without marketing exposure, it won't.

A roundabout way of saying that I hadn't heard of the Detective Hawthorne series until Anthony Horowitz was talking about them on a Radio Four breakfast show - aka not an opportunity afforded to every author - and I don't know how many other listeners also thought "Oh my, this sounds like exactly something I'd love " and rushed out to get hold of a copy. *I* did (library copy but yay libraries and I'm *strongly* considering actually buying the latest one...)

And this is why I knew I was likely to like it (quite apart from the fact that I'm a big fan of Foyles War so felt advance-comfortable about the likely tone)... it's a book that, as a central device, breaks the fourth wall. A book where the author presents as a character. YES.

Here's a not-spoilery bit that catches the early establishment of the dynamic between fictional detective and character-version of AH:

Hawthorne smiled at me for the first time...

'Early days, mate. It's only a first chapter. You can tear it up and start again. The thing is, we've got to find a way of working together, a...' he searched for the right phrase.

'A modus operandi,' I suggested.

He pointed a finger. 'You don't want to use posh words like that. You'll just get people's backs up. No. You've just got to write what happens.'

[This is in ch3, when they're arguing over the exact text I've just read as the start of ch1, with DH giving AH factual corrections and pushback - I'm amused by the nit-picking. I'm amused that clearly AH wants us to be aware that "his" version of ch1 is the one that got used. And there's also plenty of fun speculation and misdirection.]

Pacey with a light touch, and enough real London places to hook me into a version of the feeling when I've walked across a film crew out on location and I wasn't expecting to see them there. <3 <3.