Back on the Blog
I've been meaning to return to this blog for a while now, but over the last two years, I've focused most of my writing energy towards short stories and longer works. I wanted to make the most of my two years in the Hopkins MFA program, and I had a quantitative goal of a thousand pages of new material over that time. It may seem ridiculous to quantify my work, but the entire process of writing, rewriting, revising and sending work out often feels like a two steps forward, one step back endeavor. Now that I'm finished with the program, and trying to make the most of my last ten days in Hampden's summer backwater, I find myself looking back on the last two years in a harsher light than I expected, or even think is warranted.
But as my stepmother astutely pointed out, "You didn't come here for the scenery."
I spent the better part of July going places for the scenery-- a week in Glacier National Park, another in Olympic National Park, before returning to Portland for the first time in two years. And in returning to Portland I also found something I lacked for the past two years: a supportive community, a commonality of interests. I came to Baltimore a little too naive and idealistic about what to expect from the program and from my classmates.
Ultimately, though, I remind myself of what I did find: two years of teaching experience, a place to work on my writing, a few good friends, moments of superlative advice in workshop. Most importantly, I see the improvement in my work over the last two years. Subtle things happened between the first and the thousandth page, things I can't quantify or qualify... and yet I feel I still have a long way to go.
For all its positives, the program encourages, without meaning to, an extreme degree of solipsism. Maybe this is just the nature of living in the ivory tower. Perhaps when a writer plays god, he finds himself giving into his fantasies and shortcomings, or falls in love with phrases or characters because of how pretty they look. And of course, it seems that our little agendas have to be veiled with the requisite ironies and inside jokes, dressed down so they don't appear too naive or sentimental. Our narrators must be 'in the know,' and their wisdom makes them a little world-weary, full of restraint.
World-weary, restrained, ironic... it's a formula we all have to learn to some extent, but I do find myself wondering if there's some way to break free of the rules that many literary magazines live by. I think my reasons for moving away from this formula are mainly personal. The life I live outside writing and reading isn't as meaningful when I adapt these stylistic strategies. I honestly believe that one must live John Gardner's "continuous dream" in order to write it; I'd like both my writing and my life to be authentic. I want my work to follow an invisible moral code, one that is not dogmatic but spiritual, one that chooses fresh eyes over irony. These are the fresh eyes I hope to find in Nepal.
But as my stepmother astutely pointed out, "You didn't come here for the scenery."
I spent the better part of July going places for the scenery-- a week in Glacier National Park, another in Olympic National Park, before returning to Portland for the first time in two years. And in returning to Portland I also found something I lacked for the past two years: a supportive community, a commonality of interests. I came to Baltimore a little too naive and idealistic about what to expect from the program and from my classmates.
Ultimately, though, I remind myself of what I did find: two years of teaching experience, a place to work on my writing, a few good friends, moments of superlative advice in workshop. Most importantly, I see the improvement in my work over the last two years. Subtle things happened between the first and the thousandth page, things I can't quantify or qualify... and yet I feel I still have a long way to go.
For all its positives, the program encourages, without meaning to, an extreme degree of solipsism. Maybe this is just the nature of living in the ivory tower. Perhaps when a writer plays god, he finds himself giving into his fantasies and shortcomings, or falls in love with phrases or characters because of how pretty they look. And of course, it seems that our little agendas have to be veiled with the requisite ironies and inside jokes, dressed down so they don't appear too naive or sentimental. Our narrators must be 'in the know,' and their wisdom makes them a little world-weary, full of restraint.
World-weary, restrained, ironic... it's a formula we all have to learn to some extent, but I do find myself wondering if there's some way to break free of the rules that many literary magazines live by. I think my reasons for moving away from this formula are mainly personal. The life I live outside writing and reading isn't as meaningful when I adapt these stylistic strategies. I honestly believe that one must live John Gardner's "continuous dream" in order to write it; I'd like both my writing and my life to be authentic. I want my work to follow an invisible moral code, one that is not dogmatic but spiritual, one that chooses fresh eyes over irony. These are the fresh eyes I hope to find in Nepal.
posted by Franz K at 11:26 AM
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