Do More - Do Less
It’s been two months. I'm moving to New York. I'm packing it all up and fucking leaving. That's what an article or two says I should do - the ones I read as I was finishing up my program. New York is where it's at. I can see myself now - lunch with agents, drinks with editors, sucking down oysters with the darlings of the scene (fact: I've never had an oyster, and that's the first time I've ever referred to people as "darlings.”)
I've already borrowed and used the none-too-soon-to-be-paid-back money on the MFA and put on the gown. I have an assorted collection of rejections, and spent money on contests like a lottery fiend that believes the next scratch off will be the one to keep them in menthol cigarettes, convenience store food, and beer sold by the volume to be consumed in the tree lined, back of a bank parking lot for one more Tuesday morning. I've spent more time in one week looking at frames for my diploma and obsessing over the word "moulding" than I did writing and editing. (In the end I decided to forgo the austere reverence of walnut and nailed the damn thing to the inside wall of my closet.) I’ve been researching agents, small presses, and authors whose books are similar-ish to mine. Man, let me tell you – if this is life after the MFA, New York has got to be better. At least I’d be in New York scraping away at the edges of literary obscurity, instead of sitting here scraping away at a small, dried glob of peanut butter that fell off my toast and onto my pants, while reading the hundredth article on what makes a good query.
I've already borrowed and used the none-too-soon-to-be-paid-back money on the MFA and put on the gown. I have an assorted collection of rejections, and spent money on contests like a lottery fiend that believes the next scratch off will be the one to keep them in menthol cigarettes, convenience store food, and beer sold by the volume to be consumed in the tree lined, back of a bank parking lot for one more Tuesday morning. I've spent more time in one week looking at frames for my diploma and obsessing over the word "moulding" than I did writing and editing. (In the end I decided to forgo the austere reverence of walnut and nailed the damn thing to the inside wall of my closet.) I’ve been researching agents, small presses, and authors whose books are similar-ish to mine. Man, let me tell you – if this is life after the MFA, New York has got to be better. At least I’d be in New York scraping away at the edges of literary obscurity, instead of sitting here scraping away at a small, dried glob of peanut butter that fell off my toast and onto my pants, while reading the hundredth article on what makes a good query.
Back to reality and focus as I stare down 77,000 words that I think are done, that an agent is going to change – that an editor is definitely going to change. The words are close and I want to move along to the next phase. My old professor (as in tense, not age), Joshua Isard, author of Conquistador of the Useless, Cinco Punto, 2013, told me upon graduation in reference to my novel, “These things don’t expire.” Those words, two months later, are starting to make a whole hell of a lot of damn sense. Despite the urge to keep this fire in my gut burning at full blast, I know that in order to put my best foot forward, I need to slow down so that the work will be as good as it can be. One of the most important lessons I learned during the MFA is when to exercise patience (a lesson I am still letting sink in). It’s easy for authors who have a book published to tell an unpublished writer to wait – which is just about every author I’ve ever spoken to – that gives the reading public more time to buy their books. It’s also good advice from authors who have been through the hoops.
This is life after the MFA. I’m sitting on a few publishing credits and a novel I believe in. Waiting. Tweaking. Meeting people and making connections. Working on new stuff. Submitting. Taking pride in the quality of the new first drafts. Burying the coursework and pre-MFA words in a password protected folder on the Deep Web. Understanding that this all takes time and patience. That I have to do more in certain areas, less in others. Take the time. Chill the fuck out. The work won’t expire – and whether it came from the labors of a low-residency program or small studio apartment, it’d better be good.
This is life after the MFA. I’m sitting on a few publishing credits and a novel I believe in. Waiting. Tweaking. Meeting people and making connections. Working on new stuff. Submitting. Taking pride in the quality of the new first drafts. Burying the coursework and pre-MFA words in a password protected folder on the Deep Web. Understanding that this all takes time and patience. That I have to do more in certain areas, less in others. Take the time. Chill the fuck out. The work won’t expire – and whether it came from the labors of a low-residency program or small studio apartment, it’d better be good.
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