Letter to Jill McCorkle at the Start of My MFA (Sept. 5, 2007)
Dear Jill,
I wish I knew something more specific about my current strengths and weaknesses, but I haven’t written anything for almost a year. I guess I’ll find out soon in workshop (and probably wish I hadn’t). I can only put vague labels on what I want to accomplish. I want to be useful. I want to contribute something. I don’t consider myself a “literary” writer by any stretch of the imagination, and am surprised to find myself here. I’m just here to learn whatever I can about myself, about writing, about others, and to improve my ability to help others. It’s a pretty open-ended proposition. More than anything, moving to North Carolina to get an MFA was part of a larger and very necessary lifestyle shift for me. Even if I do poorly at this, it will still be a success if I become a better person in any way.
After four years of being an undergrad hypocrite, one of my goals is to be more honest. It’s hard in this world to have complete integrity, but I would be happy to at least become less of a hypocrite and state some of my actual goals instead of a bunch of pretended goals that “sound good.”
My writing background: I started when I was 14, and it was encouraged because I’m from a family of musicians and English teachers. I had the opportunity to write a comic book with a talented artist when I was 16. I flubbed it. I’d still like to write a comic book one day. I wrote a little collection of short stories at 17 and tried to start a novel. I lived in NYC between the ages of 18-22 and didn’t write at all. After losing that time, I went back to Indiana and wrote a libretto at the urging of my best friend, a composer. Our show was workshopped and performed by a local theater group. It was kind of bad, but showed promise. Then I did my undergrad work at IUPUI, where I got a few short stories written and a few published, and they gave me a couple of awards, God help them.
I’ve just spent four years writing things I don’t care about. For example, the last story I wrote that won one of the IUPUI fiction awards, I designed to win an award. Frankenstein-like, I pieced together elements I knew the judges would be looking for. And it won. And I absolutely hate how cynical that is. I don’t like the story. To be frank, I also don’t like the stories that got me into the program here. It’s just that they were all I had. They weren’t what I wanted to write. What I would like to do for this workshop (and for my two years in the program) is to write work that I at least half-care about. I’m not sure that full-caring is possible for me. But half-caring would be a big improvement, and improvement is, I think, what we’re looking for.
Other miscellaneous things about my writing: I guess the way I sometimes describe my writing is that it’s barely holding on to reality. My story concepts are rarely subtle, usually bold and dramatic. I think one day I might make a good writer of adolescent lit. I’m drawn toward the fantasy/sci-fi genre, but I can’t seem to find my place in it. I’m not at all prolific. I like my stories clean and simple, with clean and simple language. Devices and fancy tricks don’t interest me. I don’t like clever phrases or insightful observations. To take it a step further, I don’t like words and language. And I want to keep it that way. I used to love words back when I was in high school. But something happened in NY. I became angry with words, and I believe it’s better that way. I think tension is more productive than complacency, and less insulting to all concerned.
I only like the most direct way I can find to tell a story. I like very straightforward forms, mainstream forms, classical forms. I’m not an innovator or an inventor or even an experimenter. But I’m smart enough to know I at least have to pay attention to what other people are doing and learn from it. My current tentative agenda is to write at least two very different ghost stories for this workshop (and one other story about who knows what). I’ve never written a ghost story, and it’s a challenge that interests me for some reason. Of course, I’m willing to do something different if I get tired of it, or if it doesn’t work out.
I have very little background in lit. Given a choice, I’d read classics (like the 25-book required reading list for the MFA program) and comic books/graphic novels with some sci-fi and fantasy thrown in. Beyond that, I’m not much of a reader. I can’t seem to get into it. However, I do like engaging with the work of someone I know to see if I can encourage them with it in any way.
One thing I learned in undergrad is that I’m not very good at criticism, but I’m good at enthusiasm and encouragement. And if it had to be an either/or proposition, I’m not unhappy with how things turned out. At IUPUI it seemed to me I met twenty people good at criticism for every one person good at enthusiasm and encouragement. I know that the most rewarding thing I’ve done in recent months was to show my excitement over the work of a massively talented 20-year-old back in Indiana (has made three movies, has just completed his first novel, has an ongoing comic book series). What I’m occasionally good at tends to occur one-on-one, or in writing. And ironically, I think I’ll do okay as a TA, because I tend to do fine as a mediator or if specifically put in a position of responsibility where I’m “given the floor.”
But I’m afraid I suck in workshop. Part of it is painful shyness and part of it is just that I’m terrible in a group dynamic. I’m not at all an articulate person or a flashy person or a confident person. I will probably (if past experience proves anything) get better as the semester goes along. Whatever strengths I have are essentially just in endurance, in never giving up. Definitely in the long run, never in beginnings. But for all I know, my strengths may only show up two years from now, when I’m finished. All I can say is that I’m doing the best I can with the challenges I’m faced with. As my father used to say, “Any landing you walk away from is a good one.”
I’m a bit terrified and overwhelmed by my course load this semester. My goals are to get grades good enough that I don’t lose my TAship, and to complete enough credit hours that next year I can be at my apartment often enough to have a dog again. If I can get a dog, I’ll be grounded again, and will have the benefit of being reminded daily of the very simple things that provide me with most of my joy. Those are the factors motivating my writing right now – terror and love.
Sincerely,
Elisabeth
