🚀 Do you want help finishing Infinite Jest? Or want a complete guide to follow while reading? Join my Infinite Jest Course and Book Club here: writeconscious.substack.com 📚 Explore over 400 of Wallace’s favorite books in my free guide to his favorite books Access here: writeconscious.ck.page/8956ce90fc 📖 Want to WRITE better? Join my free writing school: www.skool.com/writeconscious Insta: instagram.com/writeconscious 📕My Best Books of All-Time List: writeconscious.ck.page/355619345e 🔥Want to READ my wife’s fire poetry? Go here: marigoldeclipse.substack.com 🤔David Foster Wallace’s Favorite Book on Writing amzn.to/4eVmjAI
I just took a part-time job at a gas station and I work 24 hours a week and I get to read and write pretty much the entire shift and it's the best job ever. I'm actually able to make progress with my books because I was struggling for time when I was watching the kids at home. I keep telling my wife it's the best shot I've ever had and she doesn't get it.
I've never gone to college, but I do have a literary agent. You're 100% correct on this subject. I can't tell you how many people that have degrees in writing that are subpar or struggle to get agented. It'd be better for them to join a biker gang and keep a journal. Honestly, the best advice I have is for people to find a writing group or a critique group.
Same for all the arts. Schools can teach technical skills and for some arts, some level of technical skill is required and if you think a school is the best way to get that skill rather than teaching yourself, I guess it could be a reasonable route. But schools do not teach creativity, perceptive insight, connection with life and the world, etc. - everything that actually makes a good artist regardless of the medium. I found the exact same thing as you - isolation, getting out in nature, taking care of your health, pursuing some kind of spiritual path - these are the things that will actually help you develop as an artist. Love your perspective.
University students don't have enough wisdom to write something with substance and depth yet, but it is a good opportunity to learn and work on mastering the craft of writing. With time, the wisdom will come.
I just applied to seven MFA programs and I've spent over 10 years in non-writing courses at my community college and I'm about to be laid off from my job at the L.A. Times. But I'm stuck between the desire to publish traditionally or self-publish. The words here are a godsend.
If you are a writer of fiction and you attempt to enter a MFA program in creative writing you essentially are repeating efforts you have already made -- to advance even more. Yes, a little hard work can push away needless suffering, but you are already who you are without the established order's approval. That is what I learned. I covered more ground by sticking to my interests first than having to admit I somehow failed. I was able to do so by applying what I already knew? To rise to the heights of academia makes you that but to pursue a craft without forgetting anything is how greatness is allowed to make itself a home.
I can usually smell MFA writing from just reading a page or two of a book. It always has a certain feel to it. I don’t think the public particularly responds to that sort of writing either. The point of MFA programs is to subsidize the professors writing and lifestyle. That’s why they need students to pay large amounts of money. But there’s nothing that can be related to a young student in two years that is going to turn them into a great author. And most of these writers are just trying to avoid pain. They want to walk out of school comfortable and receiving all sorts of accolades like donna tartt or something. Some drink the coolaid and believe they must write something “important” instead of developing their own voice.
Most writers are not going to do transcendent work whether they were in an MFA program or not. To say MFA programs prevent you from learning to be a more effective writer makes no sense. Everyone has their own path and many have learned a lot about themselves and their own potential from the MFA experience.
Not expecting you to read this but I'm injecting my own experience with a Creative Writing BA and why I didn't go on to pursue an MA or MFA in case a fellow artist needs some perspective. I'll start by saying I enjoyed the workshops in my BA. I signed on because I hoped to learn ways of improving my work and I was in a time in my life when I had no purpose or direction other than to write, and moving in the direction of writing in a social setting seemed like an interesting experiment. I also wanted to be around people, because for the majority of my life I had very few friends and acquaintances. In short--I wanted to have fun and do something normal. And I did have fun. My professors were attentive and interested. My peers looked on my work with delight, but I learned little about improving my process and craft within fiction (though I learned a TON about playwriting and one of my plays did receive some minor and unexpected acclaim). On the fiction front, it was different. The first short story I submitted involves a cab driver in New York who accidentally picks up his ex-wife and drives her to a date, although, by the end of the ride, she changes her mind and decides to stay with him. The setup was so catchy and so impossibly American. I deliberately wrote it in the most conventional (think how James Wood talks about dead conventions in his book on writing) and non-provoking way (as per my professor's implied directions and instructions). It was the most doctored story I'd ever written and I don't think a word on the page was true, but people loved it, including my professor. I wrote garbage and it was considered top-tier. That's when I realized I might be overestimating how university could help me in my work. Later in the program, I submitted another story involving a folkloric Hag preying on her deformed son. If I had to summarize it, I'd say it was about the experience of the unloved child crushed under a devouring mother and the paradox of his unconditional love and fear of her. The students loved it a lot more (in part because it was edgier, I'm sure, but also honest), and I got a sense of validation out of having a story from my heart be received positively, because I had some unresolved idea that whatever I had to say was worthless. However, the professor for that particular workshop didn't respond the same, and yet had no words to articulate why she was given pause. She gave me nebulous feedback regarding story structure and characterization, and I sloughed through five drafts, and visited her often during her office hours to check in and see if I was closer to the story's truth. She bristled and stuttered every time she had to explain herself. Then it hit me--she was unequipped to evaluate the work on the craft-front, and also, every time I visited her, I was implicitly asking her to set aside her own motherhood to apprehend the story with an open mind (I reached this conclusion when she told me verbatim that "a mother would never behave x way"). When I graduated, most of my classmates were moving on to an MA (a mixture of creative writing and academic courses--really good program), but I didn't have it in me to follow, because in my three years in university I didn't receive the kind of mind-blast I hoped, and I didn't have the money. I'd received pleasure from helping others find the truth of their stories and the truth of their own processes, but I didn't receive the same. I didn't feel elevated into new understandings (in part my fault for having higher hopes) and I didn't feel supported. I cried a bit, because I thought maybe something was wrong with me for having my attention directed onto parts of life that were just not en vogue (I tried to write universal stories while most of my classmates were interested in feminist stories and minority stories. I say this just for specificity, not because I think those stories are bad). A classmate went on to pursue a fully-funded MFA at Iowa while I agonized over what I would do next and how my family would afford to keep our house. I cried partly in mourning, because some of the professors were good people, and I'd miss them. I also cried out of fear. I knew in my bones it was the time to strike out on my own and take all that I had learned (and unlearned) and burrow into the kind of work I wanted to be doing. And I knew no one could follow me there. I suspect it's a necessary chrysalis for every artist. I don't watch TV or movies anymore. I deliberately read less to limit what exterior ideas sneak into my mind, and I don't socialize. It's just me and the page and I'm trying to write something true. I've gone hermit-mode. I'm 80 pages into my novel. Every day feels like a new crisis of faith, but I'm learning a lot more now than I did in university. I learned that there really is no time like the present. I learned that the creative act is in itself an act of faith, because you have no idea what's going to come out and you're supposed to trust that whatever comes out will either be part of the story, or filtered in later drafts. You have to trust that what you have to say has some value (to yourself, or to someone else). And I learned to divorce myself from the outcome. In reality, I think most of the anxieties regarding artistic performance vanish with the understanding that these anxieties are neither here nor now. I also write less. Roughly five hundred to seven-fifty words a day. I could write more, but instead I ride the wave until I almost peak--then stop. The idea behind that is that I'm trying to resist the urge of going off so the next day I've the impulse to write ready to go. It also lets me write slower. The point I'm trying to make is university can be useful for the social component and the clash of personalities. It feels existentially validating to be around people who kind of get where you mean to go in life. They get to witness you and you get to witness them. But ultimately, I think writing is done alone. There will come a time when you have to suspend everything you've been taught about how to do x and how not to do y, and simply go for it. You can bring in your lessons of craft in the second draft, but until then you need to do it entirely alone. Why? Because once you succeed, you will have undeniable proof that you were able to do what you did. YOU. And the lessons learned along the way will have been earned first-hand. And then, you will do it again. And hopefully never stop. Eventually, maybe, you'll be published and all that. But that's neither here nor now.
Great Video. Cormac McCarthy talked in his video interview with David Krakow about (one of the great architects) Frank Lloyd Wright, and one thing that seriously differentiated him from other architects is that he’s designed/built thousands of buildings. Meanwhile the average architect today designs like 10. It’s both comforting and daunting to understand that there is no track to getting good at something other than putting in deliberate practice/study/effort + time/discipline. However an interesting thing David Foster Wallace acknowledged (On Charlie Rose 1997) is that while he was in his graduate program he was under the delusion that the Professors who said his writing was bad just didn’t understand his style of writing - when his writing was indeed bad. Another interesting note is that DFW began writing Infinite Jest the same year he started teaching at Emerson College. I think your point still stands that you can’t simply autopilot through these academic tracks in life expecting to output these greats pieces of work. You just have to put in the work.
A MFA did a lot for Nic Pizzolatto, the writer of True Detective Season One, arguably the greatest series put on television yet. It is helping and improving my writing. It mainly consists out of learning, so I am taking a lot of classes, which are interesting and very helpful - especially with my screenwriting. A course on constructing sentences has taken my writing to another level and I have improved my vocabulary range greatly. In addition, it exposes you to some great writers you might never encounter on your own. I've read some amazing short stories that have impressed me no end. Even just that is edifying. Just being exposed to great literature improves, infuses, and informs your own work.
@@wallygropius4451 Didn't he just pay homage to him? A lot of writers take stories and tweak them or add something different. The Odyssey has been told many times over in different settings and with different characters, for example. Shakespeare took some older stories and jazzed them up. I don't know who Alan Moore is, but I will check him out, because if his story is anything like Pizzolatto's, I want to read him. Thank you.
@@wallygropius4451 Ah, I know his work. From what do you think Pizzolatto stole? From Hell? I know he took some killer lines from Thomas Ligotti, and he got the idea of the Yellow King from Robert Chambers, but there is a long tradition of giving a nod to the creations of those who came before. Robert E. Howard referred to some of Lovecraft's creations etc. Nic Pizzolatto sure put it all together in a unique and wonderful way. There is also a lot of original work in True Detective. But that is just my view.
"...shield to your own problems with time management, with self-esteem, with self-learning, with actually making friends without having to pay for them." aaaaaamen
Great video! Colleges have become factories taking in government money and tuition from student loans and spit out brainwashed BS in most departments across country. What makes it even worse is the comfortable little world the professors, faculty and some select students get to build for themselves with walls of ivory. We had maybe the greatest opportunity in human history to build a society of scientists, explorers, doctors and scholars...instead we built a massive labyrinth of bureaucrats and administrators of public and private, self absorbed inteligencia whose only real skill is rooting out and destroying anyone with a hint of talent, creativity or freedom of thought.
Great video, very good stuff. I am one of those people at a debt-free MFA and a teaching gig and all of what you have said in this video is really relatable, especially the need to part to work alone. It’s surprising just how difficult the program was to get into and how sub-par many in my cohort are. Many of my fellow writers are just kind of here, taking up space.
Saying, “yeah, well you haven’t written one of the best works ever” is just a tad exaggerated. Though I agree with your premise, you made some hyperbolic statements.
I spent €900 a year on my art degree back home in Ireland - where college prices aren’t batshit insane scams as they are here in the US - but it still was barely even worth it 😂
I feel like I made the right "decision" to enter a PhD English program rather than an MFA program, and a better decision still to leave with an MA rather than going through with the Doctorate. I got to be all alone with my "What the Hell is THIS?" obsessions through a series of mostly crappy but colorful jobs, punctuated by desperation, poverty, and homelessness. It's been fun! Now I, too, get to be a public school teacher, currently substitute, which will do more for my writing than being a college-bound academic ever would have.
Thanks Ian. I've thought about getting into a program but I just couldn't bring myself to do it, for many of the reasons you've mentioned. I'm glad I never did it.
Hello Yves! We're still going to do that podcast episode we talked about months ago on Instagram. I'm finally starting to steer the ship more toward writing!
Isn't the writing sample the most important part of the application for full funding mfa programs? I feel that they have to be able to write a good sentence to get into a top 25 program. Perhaps many of them didn't have that aspiration to become the greatest writer. I know some just want to become professors through the program.
I'm not going to try and tackle infinite jest at my age but I've read about wallace's experience at that writers' workshop and the disgust he felt with people who were supposed to be helping him. He said they didn't even have "the convictions of their hate" for him and their attitude totally changed when he started to become successful. Still don't understand why he killed himself after finally succeeding people can learn to live with mental problems with the right support.⚛😀
I feel like you have a lot of wisdom but you also have some weird ideas like wtf about DEI was that? What weird right wing rabbit holes are you falling down?
🚀 Do you want help finishing Infinite Jest? Or want a complete guide to follow while reading?
Join my Infinite Jest Course and Book Club here: writeconscious.substack.com
📚 Explore over 400 of Wallace’s favorite books in my free guide to his favorite books
Access here: writeconscious.ck.page/8956ce90fc
📖 Want to WRITE better? Join my free writing school: www.skool.com/writeconscious
Insta: instagram.com/writeconscious
📕My Best Books of All-Time List: writeconscious.ck.page/355619345e
🔥Want to READ my wife’s fire poetry? Go here: marigoldeclipse.substack.com
🤔David Foster Wallace’s Favorite Book on Writing amzn.to/4eVmjAI
I just took a part-time job at a gas station and I work 24 hours a week and I get to read and write pretty much the entire shift and it's the best job ever. I'm actually able to make progress with my books because I was struggling for time when I was watching the kids at home. I keep telling my wife it's the best shot I've ever had and she doesn't get it.
You already have a successful first book. You can 10x that success with the next one. Stay focused!
This is what im looking for right now. A job that at very least doesnt leave me too psychically exhausted to write or read anything
I've never gone to college, but I do have a literary agent. You're 100% correct on this subject. I can't tell you how many people that have degrees in writing that are subpar or struggle to get agented. It'd be better for them to join a biker gang and keep a journal. Honestly, the best advice I have is for people to find a writing group or a critique group.
Same for all the arts. Schools can teach technical skills and for some arts, some level of technical skill is required and if you think a school is the best way to get that skill rather than teaching yourself, I guess it could be a reasonable route. But schools do not teach creativity, perceptive insight, connection with life and the world, etc. - everything that actually makes a good artist regardless of the medium. I found the exact same thing as you - isolation, getting out in nature, taking care of your health, pursuing some kind of spiritual path - these are the things that will actually help you develop as an artist. Love your perspective.
Thanks brotha!
University students don't have enough wisdom to write something with substance and depth yet, but it is a good opportunity to learn and work on mastering the craft of writing. With time, the wisdom will come.
I just applied to seven MFA programs and I've spent over 10 years in non-writing courses at my community college and I'm about to be laid off from my job at the L.A. Times. But I'm stuck between the desire to publish traditionally or self-publish. The words here are a godsend.
If you are a writer of fiction and you attempt to enter a MFA program in creative writing you essentially are repeating efforts you have already made -- to advance even more. Yes, a little hard work can push away needless suffering, but you are already who you are without the established order's approval. That is what I learned. I covered more ground by sticking to my interests first than having to admit I somehow failed. I was able to do so by applying what I already knew? To rise to the heights of academia makes you that but to pursue a craft without forgetting anything is how greatness is allowed to make itself a home.
I can usually smell MFA writing from just reading a page or two of a book. It always has a certain feel to it. I don’t think the public particularly responds to that sort of writing either. The point of MFA programs is to subsidize the professors writing and lifestyle. That’s why they need students to pay large amounts of money. But there’s nothing that can be related to a young student in two years that is going to turn them into a great author. And most of these writers are just trying to avoid pain. They want to walk out of school comfortable and receiving all sorts of accolades like donna tartt or something. Some drink the coolaid and believe they must write something “important” instead of developing their own voice.
I appreciate that you're bursting with passion for writing. 😎👍
Most writers are not going to do transcendent work whether they were in an MFA program or not. To say MFA programs prevent you from learning to be a more effective writer makes no sense. Everyone has their own path and many have learned a lot about themselves and their own potential from the MFA experience.
Not expecting you to read this but I'm injecting my own experience with a Creative Writing BA and why I didn't go on to pursue an MA or MFA in case a fellow artist needs some perspective.
I'll start by saying I enjoyed the workshops in my BA. I signed on because I hoped to learn ways of improving my work and I was in a time in my life when I had no purpose or direction other than to write, and moving in the direction of writing in a social setting seemed like an interesting experiment. I also wanted to be around people, because for the majority of my life I had very few friends and acquaintances. In short--I wanted to have fun and do something normal. And I did have fun. My professors were attentive and interested. My peers looked on my work with delight, but I learned little about improving my process and craft within fiction (though I learned a TON about playwriting and one of my plays did receive some minor and unexpected acclaim). On the fiction front, it was different.
The first short story I submitted involves a cab driver in New York who accidentally picks up his ex-wife and drives her to a date, although, by the end of the ride, she changes her mind and decides to stay with him. The setup was so catchy and so impossibly American. I deliberately wrote it in the most conventional (think how James Wood talks about dead conventions in his book on writing) and non-provoking way (as per my professor's implied directions and instructions). It was the most doctored story I'd ever written and I don't think a word on the page was true, but people loved it, including my professor. I wrote garbage and it was considered top-tier. That's when I realized I might be overestimating how university could help me in my work.
Later in the program, I submitted another story involving a folkloric Hag preying on her deformed son. If I had to summarize it, I'd say it was about the experience of the unloved child crushed under a devouring mother and the paradox of his unconditional love and fear of her. The students loved it a lot more (in part because it was edgier, I'm sure, but also honest), and I got a sense of validation out of having a story from my heart be received positively, because I had some unresolved idea that whatever I had to say was worthless. However, the professor for that particular workshop didn't respond the same, and yet had no words to articulate why she was given pause. She gave me nebulous feedback regarding story structure and characterization, and I sloughed through five drafts, and visited her often during her office hours to check in and see if I was closer to the story's truth. She bristled and stuttered every time she had to explain herself. Then it hit me--she was unequipped to evaluate the work on the craft-front, and also, every time I visited her, I was implicitly asking her to set aside her own motherhood to apprehend the story with an open mind (I reached this conclusion when she told me verbatim that "a mother would never behave x way").
When I graduated, most of my classmates were moving on to an MA (a mixture of creative writing and academic courses--really good program), but I didn't have it in me to follow, because in my three years in university I didn't receive the kind of mind-blast I hoped, and I didn't have the money. I'd received pleasure from helping others find the truth of their stories and the truth of their own processes, but I didn't receive the same. I didn't feel elevated into new understandings (in part my fault for having higher hopes) and I didn't feel supported. I cried a bit, because I thought maybe something was wrong with me for having my attention directed onto parts of life that were just not en vogue (I tried to write universal stories while most of my classmates were interested in feminist stories and minority stories. I say this just for specificity, not because I think those stories are bad). A classmate went on to pursue a fully-funded MFA at Iowa while I agonized over what I would do next and how my family would afford to keep our house.
I cried partly in mourning, because some of the professors were good people, and I'd miss them. I also cried out of fear. I knew in my bones it was the time to strike out on my own and take all that I had learned (and unlearned) and burrow into the kind of work I wanted to be doing. And I knew no one could follow me there. I suspect it's a necessary chrysalis for every artist. I don't watch TV or movies anymore. I deliberately read less to limit what exterior ideas sneak into my mind, and I don't socialize. It's just me and the page and I'm trying to write something true. I've gone hermit-mode.
I'm 80 pages into my novel. Every day feels like a new crisis of faith, but I'm learning a lot more now than I did in university. I learned that there really is no time like the present. I learned that the creative act is in itself an act of faith, because you have no idea what's going to come out and you're supposed to trust that whatever comes out will either be part of the story, or filtered in later drafts. You have to trust that what you have to say has some value (to yourself, or to someone else). And I learned to divorce myself from the outcome. In reality, I think most of the anxieties regarding artistic performance vanish with the understanding that these anxieties are neither here nor now. I also write less. Roughly five hundred to seven-fifty words a day. I could write more, but instead I ride the wave until I almost peak--then stop. The idea behind that is that I'm trying to resist the urge of going off so the next day I've the impulse to write ready to go. It also lets me write slower.
The point I'm trying to make is university can be useful for the social component and the clash of personalities. It feels existentially validating to be around people who kind of get where you mean to go in life. They get to witness you and you get to witness them. But ultimately, I think writing is done alone. There will come a time when you have to suspend everything you've been taught about how to do x and how not to do y, and simply go for it. You can bring in your lessons of craft in the second draft, but until then you need to do it entirely alone. Why? Because once you succeed, you will have undeniable proof that you were able to do what you did. YOU. And the lessons learned along the way will have been earned first-hand. And then, you will do it again. And hopefully never stop. Eventually, maybe, you'll be published and all that. But that's neither here nor now.
Thanks for sharing and good luck striking it out on your own brotha. You got this and I believe in you!
Great Video. Cormac McCarthy talked in his video interview with David Krakow about (one of the great architects) Frank Lloyd Wright, and one thing that seriously differentiated him from other architects is that he’s designed/built thousands of buildings. Meanwhile the average architect today designs like 10. It’s both comforting and daunting to understand that there is no track to getting good at something other than putting in deliberate practice/study/effort + time/discipline.
However an interesting thing David Foster Wallace acknowledged (On Charlie Rose 1997) is that while he was in his graduate program he was under the delusion that the Professors who said his writing was bad just didn’t understand his style of writing - when his writing was indeed bad.
Another interesting note is that DFW began writing Infinite Jest the same year he started teaching at Emerson College.
I think your point still stands that you can’t simply autopilot through these academic tracks in life expecting to output these greats pieces of work. You just have to put in the work.
A MFA did a lot for Nic Pizzolatto, the writer of True Detective Season One, arguably the greatest series put on television yet. It is helping and improving my writing. It mainly consists out of learning, so I am taking a lot of classes, which are interesting and very helpful - especially with my screenwriting. A course on constructing sentences has taken my writing to another level and I have improved my vocabulary range greatly. In addition, it exposes you to some great writers you might never encounter on your own. I've read some amazing short stories that have impressed me no end. Even just that is edifying. Just being exposed to great literature improves, infuses, and informs your own work.
Pizzolatto just stole from Alan Moore
@@wallygropius4451 Didn't he just pay homage to him? A lot of writers take stories and tweak them or add something different. The Odyssey has been told many times over in different settings and with different characters, for example. Shakespeare took some older stories and jazzed them up. I don't know who Alan Moore is, but I will check him out, because if his story is anything like Pizzolatto's, I want to read him. Thank you.
@@wallygropius4451 Ah, I know his work. From what do you think Pizzolatto stole? From Hell? I know he took some killer lines from Thomas Ligotti, and he got the idea of the Yellow King from Robert Chambers, but there is a long tradition of giving a nod to the creations of those who came before. Robert E. Howard referred to some of Lovecraft's creations etc. Nic Pizzolatto sure put it all together in a unique and wonderful way. There is also a lot of original work in True Detective. But that is just my view.
"...shield to your own problems with time management, with self-esteem, with self-learning, with actually making friends without having to pay for them." aaaaaamen
Great video! Colleges have become factories taking in government money and tuition from student loans and spit out brainwashed BS in most departments across country.
What makes it even worse is the comfortable little world the professors, faculty and some select students get to build for themselves with walls of ivory.
We had maybe the greatest opportunity in human history to build a society of scientists, explorers, doctors and scholars...instead we built a massive labyrinth of bureaucrats and administrators of public and private, self absorbed inteligencia whose only real skill is rooting out and destroying anyone with a hint of talent, creativity or freedom of thought.
Damn, I felt that in my bones.
This video is very healing for me
Glad I could help brotha!
I had to read Roberto Bolano all weekend to get the voices of my classmates out my head
Great video, very good stuff. I am one of those people at a debt-free MFA and a teaching gig and all of what you have said in this video is really relatable, especially the need to part to work alone. It’s surprising just how difficult the program was to get into and how sub-par many in my cohort are. Many of my fellow writers are just kind of here, taking up space.
This is great advice. Sorry, I didn't see a link to your book in the description.
Saying, “yeah, well you haven’t written one of the best works ever” is just a tad exaggerated. Though I agree with your premise, you made some hyperbolic statements.
I spent €900 a year on my art degree back home in Ireland - where college prices aren’t batshit insane scams as they are here in the US - but it still was barely even worth it 😂
I feel like I made the right "decision" to enter a PhD English program rather than an MFA program, and a better decision still to leave with an MA rather than going through with the Doctorate. I got to be all alone with my "What the Hell is THIS?" obsessions through a series of mostly crappy but colorful jobs, punctuated by desperation, poverty, and homelessness. It's been fun! Now I, too, get to be a public school teacher, currently substitute, which will do more for my writing than being a college-bound academic ever would have.
My MPhil at JCU , Townsville, almost destroyed my self confidence. I totally agree about creative courses they can destroy writers’ confidence.
Thanks Ian. I've thought about getting into a program but I just couldn't bring myself to do it, for many of the reasons you've mentioned. I'm glad I never did it.
Love that you sought out work where you could have more opportunities to write and read. I want to do that.
Hello Yves! We're still going to do that podcast episode we talked about months ago on Instagram. I'm finally starting to steer the ship more toward writing!
That is fantastic! I dig what you're doing!@@WriteConscious
Cant wait for the networking video!
An MFA program itself is not the problem, its your classmates sometimes that are the problem
Best channel on youtube. Thank you.
Thanks for the support brotha!
Isn't the writing sample the most important part of the application for full funding mfa programs? I feel that they have to be able to write a good sentence to get into a top 25 program. Perhaps many of them didn't have that aspiration to become the greatest writer. I know some just want to become professors through the program.
Dude, this was a banger.
I'm not going to try and tackle infinite jest at my age but I've read about wallace's experience at that writers' workshop and the disgust he felt with people who were supposed to be helping him. He said they didn't even have "the convictions of their hate" for him and their attitude totally changed when he started to become successful. Still don't understand why he killed himself after finally succeeding people can learn to live with mental problems with the right support.⚛😀
He tried changing medications for depression. And when he went back to his old medication again it stopped working. I’ve never read anything from him.
Oh good…I’ll not get me MFA then
I feel like you have a lot of wisdom but you also have some weird ideas like wtf about DEI was that? What weird right wing rabbit holes are you falling down?
I am not sure it is a great idea to take advice from a guy that killed himself.
myopic comment. that ignorance isnt good for writing
We shouldn't take MMA advice from Anderson Silva because he isn't the champion anymore!