the writer and the reader

I just finished my third semester of my MFA in creative writing… crazy. When I originally applied to these programs, I had no idea what I was doing after college. An old therapist of mine suggested I check out MFAs, given my lifelong love for writing and the way it has always helped me deal with and manage my emotions. I had never heard of an MFA, and much less had no idea that you could go to school for it. I started researching and found a ton of programs throughout the country. Unfortunately, many of them were in rural ass places that I could never imagine living in. I was also under the spell that I needed to be in New York. All my friends from college were moving here, and it felt like the only next step. (I also loved NY all the times I had visited, don’t get me wrong)

I waited months to hear back from the three programs I had applied to, getting rejected from the first two and waitlisted by Columbia. Everyone had a plan for after graduation, and I was still clueless as to where I would be and what I would be doing. But then, one day in class, I got an email from the Columbia writing program. I was sitting in my jazz history class my last semester of undergrad, and I actually screamed in class when I opened the email. I immediately ran outside to call my parents, in tears dripping with excitement.

I had taken one creative writing course my last semester of college, where I learned what a workshop is. Each week, x amount of students submit x amount of pages of unprompted work. The whole class reads the piece and provides written feedback. The next week, that student’s work is workshopped. They provide a brief introduction to the piece, posing any questions they want answered or specific areas where they are looking for feedback. The student reads a paragraph or two from their work, and then the fun begins. The class spends around 45 minutes critiquing the work, with little to no input from the writer. It starts with parts of the work the class really enjoyed, its strengths, what is working well, which slowly transitions into what could be done better.

My first semester at Columbia, I volunteered myself first for workshop. Even though most of the people (I always want to say kids but I am by far the youngest, and I am pretty sure I’m not a kid anymore) in my class had either studied some form of literature or writing, or taken workshops outside of a school setting, I was excited to have my work read. I did not feel nervous or scared, only excited.

You’re required to take a workshop every semester of the MFA, it’s worth more credits than the other courses. Without a doubt, this is my favorite part of the program. You learn so much by what people have to say about your work, but you also learn a lot from critiquing other people’s work as well. It is so fun to see a work in progress, rather than something that has been poured over by editors until it has reached “publishable perfection.” It sounds daunting, to have your written work verbally critiqued by other people, especially at the beginning when they don’t know you. But someone else can see so much potential in your writing, so many themes, narratives, or other structures and formats that would better serve your writing, than you’re able to see yourself.

My original thesis idea was a collection of essays. Each essay would take a different format, with a different centering theme, but all of them would connect through a series of themes that resurface throughout each piece. I write in essay form, because it’s easier to isolate one event, one person, one idea, than try to write the story of your whole life in a cohesive narrative. There are so many different themes that you have to weave together in order for the story to make sense and be somewhat impactful.

But, throughout my most recent workshop, it was brought to my attention that most of my essays have strong, overarching themes that are not fully explored in their current essay format. Soooooo, I have decided to take on the challenge of writing a book, rather than a collection of essays. I’m not necessarily starting over, I’ll be taking pieces of all the essays I have written and weaving them throughout this new work. But, I’m basically starting from scratch.

One thing that has been a huge struggle for me throughout this program is my lack of reading skills. I went to a large intercity public high school rampant with cheating, a charge which I tended to lead. In college, I was reading research papers and extracting facts and information, not critically reading for themes and narrators and character development and all that goes into literature. I joke that I don’t know how to read, which I do believe has some truth to it. I joke about it because it scares me, not because I actually think it’s funny or something to be proud of.

It’s definitely a mix of some undiagnosed ADD/ADHD, but it’s also years worth of missing practice. I’ve been trying to get back into reading for pleasure, something I really enjoyed as a kid, but I often find myself overwhelmed with schoolwork or my mind wandering off to a completely different universe.

When this gets brought up, people always ask me how I can be a writer without being a reader. It’s like being a sports commentator who never played the game. I don’t quite know how it works either, it has gotten me this far, but how much farther will I be able to go? It’s hard for me to figure out what’s missing in a piece, because I don’t have a library of good examples to build off of.

During this month I have off of school, I am going to work on rebuilding those reading skills. If not just because I enjoy it, then simply for the necessity of becoming a better writer.

Once my thesis is turned in on March 1 (EEEEEEK), I will still have a few workshop submissions due for the program. I spoke to my advisor, and she told me this was a great time to experiment, to get weird with my writing. I have a space where I can try out anything I want, without worry of passing or failing.

Hopefully my reading skills get better by the time I have to read my own book lmao.