It's been quite some time since my last blog post, and even that one was a cop-out (merely pasting a link in a window and adding one or two sentences of explanation). I do think I have a pretty good excuse, though. My first Masters of Fine Arts application was due yesterday at midnight, and nearly all my free time in the past few months has been dedicated to working on my writing portfolio. When you spend all day writing in the office for work and all evening writing at home for school, there isn't a lot of mental energy left over to write for "fun." (Not that working on my portfolio hasn't been fun in its own way. It has been. But also stressful.)
Today is the first day in a long time I haven't felt an urgency to write and edit. My next application is due in two weeks, but most of the grunt work is done at this point and the hardest part is hopefully behind me. And yet, of course, here I am, writing. I guess I don't know what else to do with myself.
Applying for graduate schools---particularly MFA programs, where most schools boast an acceptance rate between one and ten percent---is an extremely exposing process. Rarely in my life have I felt more vulnerable than I do now. Writing is such a personal act, even when writing fiction, and to be judged solely on that standard, to be told either you are or you aren't good enough based on one collection of painfully birthed stories, feels kind of like someone is deciding whether or not to execute your kid. A slight exaggeration, maybe, but it's something close.
It's also scary for another reason. By deciding to apply to programs, I have drawn a line in the sand for myself and for all those who hear about it (aka you). "Here I have decided that writing is the passion to which I want to devote the rest of my life (or at least the next few years), and here is the way I plan to do that." Whenever you verbalize what you want and take steps to attain it, you make yourself vulnerable to disappointment. This is not a bad thing, obviously, but it does mean that the consequences of failure feel higher. The more you want something, the harder it is when you don't get it.
All of this means that I have to hold my plans and my goals loosely. I need to be ok with the idea of not getting into schools this time around and waiting another year or two if necessary. This could be, and I'm not just saying this to convince myself, a very good thing. But I also need to not let fear of failure keep me from trying my absolute best on the remaining eight applications. I need to remember, as has been my constant lesson this past year and half, that life happens and things usually work out ok in the end for those who are patient.
So I'm trying to be patient.
