†7 March, 2011

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The Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers Conference… It was surreal to be among the buzz of accomplished and aspiring writers and catch the sometimes lovely, sometimes too-silent discourse between the two worlds. Yet I found the experience to also be slightly disenchanting. One minute I was inspired by a reading and the next I was slipping like a buttered-up trashbin lid down a hill into depressing reality…the reality that my own writing career will be at a standstill post-graduation. I found out that I didn’t get accepted into any of the MFA programs and also that my Modernism professor thinks I need serious help with sentence structure and I should seek tutoring from people at the “Learning Centers” on campus. To be honest, I was expecting the e-mail in which he informed me of my incompetency to end with “jk. Great thesis.” Alas, it did not. If I can’t even piece together a twenty-word thesis statement, according to him, how the hell did I expect to get into a creative writing program? Did I expect to be one of three of three hundred? Not to say I’m completely discouraged by the idea of the (still yet to come) rejection letters or even of my modernism professor, but I’m certainly a little disheartened toward something I’m trying to turn into a profession. Writing isn’t a hobby. It’s something I want to turn into my career. I want to teach people to express themselves and I want to tell stories about humanity. I’m a walking cliche. Does the admission committee want to know I’m anti-social? I’ve spent the last four years placing my well-groomed ego on the table for my professors and classmates to stroke tenderly and not once did I think to question their praise. In fact, I got lazy. And busy. And I started to make excuses for my lack of writing. I stopped taking it to heart. I started to get caught up in the social politics of the label “writer.” I started to act like a writer without living up to it. I would scribble an inspiring scene into a notebook, on my arm while walking home from the newsroom or type it up into an rogue Word doc. Then I’d save it under some obscure name. Or wash it off. Or wrap my gum in it. Yet, I’d feel satisfied. I’d feel as if I was a writer. I was an actress going to the movies and then expecting an honorary star at the dollar theater for my grand graceful presence. And don’t even get me started on the books I left unstarted.

The Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers Conference…

It was surreal to be among the buzz of accomplished and aspiring writers and catch the sometimes lovely, sometimes too-silent discourse between the two worlds. Yet I found the experience to also be slightly disenchanting. One minute I was inspired by a reading and the next I was slipping like a buttered-up trashbin lid down a hill into depressing reality…the reality that my own writing career will be at a standstill post-graduation.

I found out that I didn’t get accepted into any of the MFA programs and also that my Modernism professor thinks I need serious help with sentence structure and I should seek tutoring from people at the “Learning Centers” on campus. To be honest, I was expecting the e-mail in which he informed me of my incompetency to end with “jk. Great thesis.” Alas, it did not. If I can’t even piece together a twenty-word thesis statement, according to him, how the hell did I expect to get into a creative writing program? Did I expect to be one of three of three hundred?

Not to say I’m completely discouraged by the idea of the (still yet to come) rejection letters or even of my modernism professor, but I’m certainly a little disheartened toward something I’m trying to turn into a profession. Writing isn’t a hobby. It’s something I want to turn into my career. I want to teach people to express themselves and I want to tell stories about humanity. I’m a walking cliche. Does the admission committee want to know I’m anti-social?

I’ve spent the last four years placing my well-groomed ego on the table for my professors and classmates to stroke tenderly and not once did I think to question their praise.

In fact, I got lazy. And busy. And I started to make excuses for my lack of writing. I stopped taking it to heart. I started to get caught up in the social politics of the label “writer.” I started to act like a writer without living up to it. I would scribble an inspiring scene into a notebook, on my arm while walking home from the newsroom or type it up into an rogue Word doc. Then I’d save it under some obscure name. Or wash it off. Or wrap my gum in it. Yet, I’d feel satisfied. I’d feel as if I was a writer. I was an actress going to the movies and then expecting an honorary star at the dollar theater for my grand graceful presence.

And don’t even get me started on the books I left unstarted.