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Post by Daniel on Sept 20, 2016 20:06:09 GMT -5
I just realised why I am so reluctant to slap her--I had three older sisters who taught me, from birth through age 12, that [nyah, nyah, nyah] 'You can't hit a girl!' (...no matter how richly she may deserve it.) This mantra was repeated so often, and with such conviction, that it became a fundamental truth of my early life, far more compelling than any of the other ten commandments. I happen to agree with that policy. I borrowed your term for its figurative sense, not because I think anyone should really slap the poor woman. I guess my words came across stronger than I intended. It just frustrates me to see someone get such a wonderful break and then ruin the experience by overthinking it. Another writer could have had the exact same thing happen and have been deliriously happy with getting a nice advance and actually selling 12,000 copies of her first novel. I guess it's all in how you choose to look at it. With all the angst that author manufactured, maybe she should try writing New Adult or something instead of Literary Fiction. |
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Post by carlos on Sept 20, 2016 22:40:18 GMT -5
Ha ha. You're right, Daniel--although Desiree Cayenne can testify that Adult Romance is not a guaranteed road to fame and/or fortune. You still have to sell the books--which is probably another drawback to the writing racket that nobody mentioned to her. Selling your own books is true for trad published as well.
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Post by Rinelle Grey on Sept 21, 2016 2:28:43 GMT -5
I didn't get the impression that she stopped writing because she didn't earn enough money/didn't sell enough copies, I got the impression that her first book did well, and she got performance anxiety. That happens a lot. It's actually easier to start out badly or moderately, and improve over time, than to start out well. Then what if your next book flops? Maybe this was a one off, and you won't ever be able to match it? That was the impression I got from the article, though that is reading between the lines.
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Post by lou on Sept 25, 2016 9:25:01 GMT -5
The comments on that article at passive voice made me finally go write my rant about my own MFA in fiction. (Didn't know I had one? Good. I usually keep it a secret, along with my sex, sexual preference, religion, and every thing else real.) Spoiler alert: when I did the agent thing and they asked if I had an MFA, I'd want to "yes" on their form and instead of the school, say "but don't hold it against me" which should really be an agent's attitude about them. But I just checked "no" because that was simpler than trying to educate agents, who I suspect are as a class unteachable. And to reiterate what I say in my blog post, I didn't learn a thing there. (Maybe one thing: "marry a lawyer; then you'll always have one handy."  ) They get zero credit for who I am as a writer. A more useless route to being a selling writer than the MFA does not exist, imo. So if you're interested, go to my blog, scroll down to the second post as I type this (September 2016, if someone reads this later), and watch me throw eggs at that system. |
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Post by ameliasmith on Sept 25, 2016 14:32:48 GMT -5
lou I remember thinking about getting an MFA. I decided to go to divinity school instead, so now I have an MDiv which is not a very practical degree for a person with no religious affiliation, but possibly more practical for storytelling skills than an MFA would have been. Then I thought about whether I might want to teach creative writing and looked at MFAs again, but ultimately decided that I don't really like teaching. I don't regret not getting an MFA for a minute, especially when I see most of the people who did get them.
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Post by Miss Terri Novelle on Sept 25, 2016 23:44:17 GMT -5
Hah. I got a bachelors (interdisciplinary degree in fine arts and writing) and I still maintain the B stands for bullshit. I guess I'm glad I did it. The Photoshop class and pottery classes were fun. I still get emails from my professors urging me to return for my MFA. I'll pass, thanks anyway.
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Post by scdaffron on Sept 26, 2016 8:50:19 GMT -5
My sister got an MFA in Creative Writing. Thanks largely to what Lou described in the post as far as literary snobbery and so forth, after graduating my sister completely stopped writing. It was THAT bad. She also learned nothing about story structure at all, which blows my mind. In many ways, she's actually a far better writer than I am, particularly as far as writing creative descriptions. However, it's unlikely she'll ever publish anything. Because my family is my family, she also has always been considered "the writer" and I have not. Now after I've written 24 books and am making money off publishing, they are starting to think maybe I might be able to write, after all. It's rather irritating  |
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Post by Daniel on Sept 26, 2016 8:54:03 GMT -5
My favorite part of Lou's post: "Life is short, people. You can’t waste two years at an MFA and five years detoxing from it."
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Post by carlos on Sept 26, 2016 14:52:33 GMT -5
From 'The Naomi Version'--Professor Jack Chambers' (slightly abbreviated) advice on how to write an MFA thesis novel:
As office manager for the English Department, Daisy had the only key... There was an old couch where she had sometimes napped between classes... Shelves at the edge of the room housed the department’s copies of the never-to-be-read MFA thesis novels... She pulled one down, blew the dust off it, opened it at random, read a few paragraphs and replaced it on the shelf.
“God, Jack,” she said, “Is this what it’s all about? Oblivion? An unused room, in an obscure corner of a minor university, at the far end of the world?”
“Yes. Probably. But remember, these are not the novels you’ll be writing for fame and fortune—they’re just exercises, and when they’re finished you’ll have MFA degrees, which is more than Dostoyevsky got for his first novel. So, be happy. We’ll get through it in one hundred twenty days, or less, I promise... we’ll each write a sixty-thousand word novel using ourselves and the people we know as characters, but not in any realistic way... and nobody can whine because they'll never be read, except maybe by some members of the MFA committee. (I wouldn’t count on that.) But to avoid libel, or putting anyone’s panties in a twist, we’ll run the final versions through the search and replace function to change the names and descriptions. What comes out will be ‘The Naomi Version.’ Agreed?”
Daisy and Lydia agreed—Daisy more cheerfully than Lydia. Daisy already had thirty thousand words written... Lydia was starting over.
“Don’t worry,” Daisy whispered to her friend, “Since you’re writing my 'Autobiography', I can slip you as much stuff as you need to make shit up. It will be fun.”
Jack pretended not to hear. “We have about three months, and we’ll each need about seventy two thousand words. You can do that in eight weeks, easy. I’m not talking about publishable words, just a... big pile of horse manure, in which you will grow a crop of mushrooms—all you need for an MFA. All the better, of course, if that mountain of compost produces flowers, but don’t expect that... Write as fast as you can, and don’t look back. The last thing you want is to see a tsunami of crap bearing down on you. It might tempt you to edit in transit, the surest way on earth never to finish a book. Believe me I’m an expert...
"... Start today. Eight weeks to write seventy two thousand words, then a week off, then three weeks to rearrange and rewrite, a week off, then three weeks to make it perfect—and by ‘perfect’, I mean good enough to do the job-—then a week to get it printed and distributed to the committee, and presto, you’re Masters of Fine Art, insofar as it lies within the power of the University to confer mastery upon you. And remember, I’ve been fired, so I have nothing of greater consequence to accomplish here. Come to me any time.”
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Post by ameliasmith on Sept 28, 2016 10:12:48 GMT -5
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Post by Daniel on Sept 28, 2016 10:44:38 GMT -5
Ha! Barbara and Donald both said essentially the same thing I did, and I'm not even famous. The bottom line? Writers write. |
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Post by carlos on Sept 28, 2016 12:47:54 GMT -5
One of the compensations of being old, in Portland, Oregon, is that you are allowed to take college courses at Portland State University (the locus of Desiree Cayenne's masterwork, 'The Naomi Version') for free. I took a series of writing 'workshops' there, back in the trad published days. (I hope the Dean never reads Desiree's book because he might think I didn't value the experience--whereas I thought it was very useful, indeed.)
I noticed that these writing seminars were mostly populated by young women-partly reflecting the fact that there are more women than men in college these days--but also, I thought, indicative of romantic hopefulness--a charming Rumpelstiltskin belief that gold can be spun from straw.
And sometimes it can be--for among the participants in one workshop was a young woman who had written, and sold for a $100,000 advance, a pre-historic historical novel. I hesitate to call it a Jean Auel knockoff--although it featured hunky guys with prehistoric ambitions vis-a-vis a beautiful preternaturally advanced egalitarian feminist MC.
It wasn't bad--but it wasn't as good as Jean Auel (who's stuff was actually pretty silly.) And now, both Jean Auel and the young woman she inspired (whoever she was) have disappeared--Jean with her bags of swag, and the young woman, who had already spent her advance, with no money and no second book. There is a risk involved in not earning out your advance.
Happily, in the age of the e-book, she need not fear Publisher Rejection. She can, like the rest of us from the workshop, publish on Amazon and give away her second and third books, or as many as it takes to become a real writer at last. I do think there is value in writing workshops, perhaps even in MFA programs, especially if there is as much encouragement as criticism--but I'm grateful I didn't borrow any tuition money to attend.
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Post by Alan Petersen on Oct 10, 2016 17:29:34 GMT -5
Yes, I'll be generalizing here and I have no clue how old she is, but if I was betting man, I would say she's part of the millennial generation.
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) They get zero credit for who I am as a writer. 
