This summer I began a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program. In keeping with the advice that I give to my students in my Building Your Author Platform class (advice from Austin Kleon’s book Show Your Work), I’m here to let you in on the process of being a student in an MFA low-residency program, teaching four classes at my university in the Professional Writing program, continuing to freelance, and attempting to have a life.
I chose a low-residency MFA program as that works best for my schedule. I do two weeks onsite for three summers with two years in between of online teaching, reading, writing, and discussing with a cohort of other writers in creative nonfiction, completing in summer 2017. I chose Ashland University’s program in Ohio because of its reputation and faculty–some of whom I knew from my Master’s program at Ball State. My first two-week stint was this past July.
Note from my journal: “Now I know what my students feel when I hand them a syllabus. Today I went into syllabus shock when I was given the outline for my fall semester. But I know enough to breathe deeply. I can do this. Take the elephant one bite at a time.”
Thought: “Where does the Master in Master of Fine Arts come from? How does anyone truly master the craft of writing? I think the point is that I will spend two intense years studying this craft and creating something from that study. That’s what will allow me to take the title of master. I hope I can live up to it.”
The focus of my program is to create a thesis–a creative work, a book–by the end of my two years. I am in creative nonfiction, so we talked a lot about essays and memoirs and writing that is true, real, and genuine. We talked about the works of wonderful nonfiction writers like Annie Dillard and Mary Karr and Philip Lopate and Lee Martin (some of these folks also write fiction). We talked about spirituality in writing–how to talk about that inner spiritual life. We studied how memoirists have to write from various viewpoints–who they are now, who they were then, who they are reflecting on who they were, and who they have become based on how those two persons relate.
I’ve been told in this first semester to experiment with my voice, to see where my writing takes me. Part of my problem, however, is that I’ve spent so many years editing and working in other people’s voices that I’m still trying to find my own.
Note from my journal: “It helps me to have a focus, a direction, for my writing. Ah, the age-old question: What should I write about?”
I’m experimenting right now with a series of essays talking about the whole process (and brilliance) of editing when it’s done well. I am thinking about tying in my research into the great editors (some of which I’ve begun doing on this blog) and extracting lessons from them. And maybe I’ll think about what lessons I learn in the editing process that pertain to life. (Such as, “What if God took this rough draft of my life, marked it up with a red pen, and gave me a do-over? What would I do differently? And would I want to do that? The changes I make to my past will affect the future that I do not yet know.”)
I know. Deep.
So that’s a glimpse into my MFA musings. Right now I need to write a review of Jean-Dominique Bauby’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. (If you haven’t read it, drop everything and do it now. It’s a short book that will leave you stunned and amazed. You don’t even need to know that he wrote the book by “transcribing” to a writer by way of eye blinks since he was completely immobile. Read #2 in this list for more about that.)
So I have a paper to write about the structure and voice of this book, the narrator’s persona and his reflections on his life. Then I need to write more about editing to see if that is going to work for a thesis project.
But first, I’m going to eat some dinner.
Linda Taylor: Teacher, Editor, Publishing Professional 