Ms. Cleo & the Pursuit of Mfappyness

I don’t see a lot of reason to go to school other than to hang out with writers I admire. I did enjoy meeting Colum McCann at Hunter and was impressed at the thought of hanging out, drinking in a pub in the Village with this GREAT WRITER. However, hanging out with great writers does not ensure one will become a great writer, that’s more private, often terrible, labor.

To whit: I have harbored Toni Morrison dreams, but I’m not at all convinced I have that much talent. I have to hack this craft with what’s on hand – nearly debilitating insecurity, strong survival instincts, a penchant for hard work and a very thick thesaurus. I dig away at the obstacles until they crumble. Or I do.

I’ve not been convinced a Masters of Fine Arts means more money for work in the Arts and no one at the Open Houses I attended had good answers to my main questions.

1. How does a writer build a career? Most careers now follow the school-training-feet on the ground and experience trajectory, is writing the same thing?
2. Is there career counseling at MFA programs or job placement?

Question #2 is probably more wishful thinking on my part than anything, but I’m a girl who loves a good plan.

Among the professions listed in post #1, there aren’t too many that require an advanced degree. In fact, most of them are undergraduate degrees at best and it’s not uncommon to find someone with a high school diploma and a little chutzpah working as a blogger, editorial assistant, copywriter, or reporter. I asked a good friend who heads an advertising firm about the necessity of an advanced degree for creative work as a copywriter.

"No MFA. Writers come from eclectic backgrounds. They are amazingly creative in their ability to make the complex simple, understand how people think, what motivates and usually vey strategic thinkers. They will do a year at Creative Circus or the Portfolio Center- schools where they can build a book of writing and ads to show they have promise."

An aside, quite a few bestselling writers came out of the ranks of advertising, one of the most popular of the moment is James Patterson (who does have a master’s degree, though I’m not sure in what). Advertising has its own hierarchy and a recent development is similar to the push to drive applications to MFA programs – Advertising professional schools such as Creative Circus charge considerable fees to help students develop a portfolio for employment.

The Difference: Ms. Cleo and the MFA

Does anyone else remember the Ms. Cleo Psychic Hotline commercials? They were hilarious and on every 20 minutes. Ms. Cleo had a crazy Jamaican accent, gave out fabulous advice that was entirely predictable using tarot cards and eye rolls.



Ms. Cleo, it was revealed, was just an actress with a shitty accent, but she did quite well for herself, I thought. And it is in her honor that I’m naming my Masters of Fine Arts the Ms. Cleo – or Fake MFA.

The Challenge

To take the $10,000 - $40,000 per year I would spend for graduate school and commit it to my development as a writer.

That’s already enough to make me a little crazy, I don’t make that much extra scrilla, but if I take time from work to write, at least one day per week, then I’m taking a pay cut and I start making some numbers.

I had to inch my way up to this project, it’s been on my mind for years, but I couldn’t see myself giving up health insurance (which I need because I have chronic health issues) or a steady paycheck (which I also need because I have chronic health issues).

My first significant step came in Spring 2010 when I had an innocuous exchange with my great-Godfather Abner. He tossed a copy of The Teaching Company’s catalogue at me, asking if I’d ever seen it. An octogenarian, he was appalled by the prices for the audio and DVD courses.

“$60 for a class?” he said, snapping and yanking his red suspenders as we sat at the kitchen table, big band jazz playing in the background of the breakfast conversation.

I was astounded. “Do you know how much this course would cost at The University of Iowa, where the instructor is an…instructor?” I thumbed the pages, scanning the course description and brimming with incredulity at the bargain – 12 hours of instruction for $60 on my iPod, accessible whenever I wanted it, what a deal!

Abner stared at me a bit, then said, “School must be expensive now.” He lives in Menlo Park, people, home to Stanford University and bungalows priced in the high six figures.


Learning to Read Like a Writer

I purchased two courses from the catalogue that day, $130 bucks very well spent as far as I was concerned, and downloaded my first course in audio form. The first two “lectures” were difficult, it’s been at least a decade since I dealt with academia. I muddled through and by the sixth lecture (I did one a day) I was feeling something akin to epiphany.

I was learning. I was learning about reading fiction and I felt as though my brain had turned on for the very first time. It was awesome!

That pretty much opened the flood gates. I’d hacked every other area of my life and failed profoundly at my attempt to go to school for writing. So, I thought, “what if I hack this writing career thing? I’m in good company riiiiight?”

Right.

The Difference: Study Writing or Be a Writer

This blog was inspired by this post:

"WARNING: I'm a little bit buzzed right now, read at your own peril.

I got rejected from Hunter College this morning. In retaliation, I had a rum punch for breakfast, whined via text message, forgot why I was upset, ran errands, and signed up for a writing workshop. I think I may take rejection exceptionally well. Or it could be my short attention span at full mast."

That was me 5 months ago. Hunter was one of the last schools to reject me. I went on to hire an editor and to discover I was a terrible writer.

Humbling doesn't begin to cover it, but hey, it was $400 worth of Elance editing very well spent. I've thought a lot about school since then, my rash decision to apply, the editor (not from Elance) who soaked up $375 for services I have yet to understand, and I've talked to a number of MFA students who have profoundly mixed feelings about their programs.

I'm still undecided about trying a low-residency program, but leaning toward not bothering with a MFA altogether for a few distinct reasons:

1. Money. As in, I like to keep mine.

2. I majored in English undergrad and ended up a copy editor at a top newspaper, much to the surprise and chagrin of most of the journalism students. This was largely because I discussed fashion for 2 hours with an editor while sneaking a few brown bag lunches to take home since the fridge was empty. All that to say, I have pretty good people skills and I deploy them at will. I can network outside of a school program and probably get farther, faster.

3. I don't really see the point of going to a program, quitting my job, selling my assets just to go into big-time, serious, life-altering debt.

4. I can take 2 days from work to work on my craft, excluding weekends. I own a company, I hire people with brains who think just fine without my daily input.

5. Night school is more to my taste, I hate mornings and Emory University just created a Creative Writing Certificate program. I've taken my first class in the program and I love it. I'm focusing on Creative Nonfiction because I have nonfiction stories that keep interrupting or taking over my fiction. I'll get the Essays out of the way, then move on to the fiction. This actually limits MFA options as most programs do not have Creative Nonfiction concentrations, despite the popularity of the form.

6. This post from Tim Ferris, explaining how he created his Real World MBA. It worked very well for him.

This blog will be an exploration of writing for those of us not in full-time programs - whether we have not gone, we have graduated, we have dropped out, or we didn't know they existed. In the past 15 months, I was definitely in the last category.

Making a writer out of oneself isn't a new idea, quite the opposite. Iowa has the oldest program in the U.S., and it's reported to be a tough program to get in and even tougher to come out of. Writing programs are big money makers for schools - but less advantageous for participants. Last year I applied to Columbia University and during Open House the Financial Aid Director addressed tuition head on: "One year is $40,000."

I raised my hand at that point and asked for clarification, mostly because I was amused by the gasp the announcement elicited and wanted to hear it again. Columbia is a three-year program. Columbia is a lovely campus and the students who took time to speak at open house were interesting and fairly diverse, however $120,000 - 40K x 3 years - is a stiff bill. I was rejected, which meant I was only out the $120 application fee.

The major flaw in this design is that unlike other high-priced degree programs - your professional degrees in business, law, medicine - writing is almost guaranteed to result in marginal employment opportunities. A creative, determined person can and will make a good living, but it's rare to do it as a writer of one genre only. A doctor may invest 20 years and $200,000+ for a degree, but that doctor also has the opportunity to make that money back fairly quickly after medical school and residency, or work off the debt with the military or the health service.

Other programs are less expensive, but inundated with applicants. It's a recession, school is always a popular idea when jobs are scarce. Most programs are not transparent to applicants, so it's difficult to know what opportunities exist post-graduation. If you are a person who has found a niche in a creative field, moving into a writing program could be financial and professional suicide. Unlike MBA programs and other professional degrees, writing programs seldom specify where their graduates end up because it's not a well-defined industry.

It is my goal to see if a person can build a writing career outside of a MFA program. There is nothing in me that wants to be an impoverished student. I like my lifestyle, but want to increase my personal satisfaction and intellectual engagement in the world around me. I'm putting my money and my time where my heart is: into the writing. A little structure never hurt anyone, so I'm going to build my own learning lab for the writing career I would like to have. I invite others to go on this journey with me, we can be the class of 2013.

Writing into the night...

CamilleAvre