at the end of the MFA tunnel

During my thesis defense yesterday, one of my professors asked me what I thought a story was—the point of the question being that some of my stories could potentially feel unfinished. Why did I end them where I did?

I said that, even though I usually feel like I have to relearn how a story works every time I write one, I sort of loosely follow a formula given to me way back in an undergraduate creative writing class: find a character, figure out what she wants, follow her around in pursuit of that thing, and then give her something that ISN'T what she wants.











My committee gave me what I wanted: a passing defense (hooray!). And then I left the room, knowing that I'm at the end of my time here.

I've always struggled with endings—not just endings of stories, but endings of years in school, of vacations, of jobs, of relationships, of different seasons of my life. Knowing that about myself, I try to make endings weighted with more significance than they might deserve.

So, after my defense, we went to dinner at the Brick Oven. I haven't gone there in a long time and I don't even particularly love eating there, but as the archetypal Provo restaurant, it felt significant, fitting for this particular ending.









I walked past the Brick Oven every day during my first year of college, when I was just as naive as the freshmen I now teach. Sitting in the booth, waiting for my pizza and talking to people I love, I realized that this ending didn't bring me what I wanted at all. At least not what I once THOUGHT I wanted. During my freshman year, I planned a life out for myself. And that plan doesn't really resemble the life I'm living now.

Thank the heavens.

That may be why the most satisfying stories end in a way the character doesn't hope for. I never cooked all this up on my own: a husband who surprises me every day with how much he loves me and inspires me to be better, a pregnancy that I ached for but that didn't come until its timing was more perfect than I could have planned, friends I never expected to meet who will remain friends for my entire life, students who taught me more than I thought they could, and a degree I actually wanted, but didn't know I wanted for a long time.

Maybe endings have frightened me because I've been afraid things won't turn out the way I want them to. Maybe I should stop worrying and take the lovely surprises that come.

PS. Sometimes, we DO get what we want. My husband tracked down a 1934 Webster's Dictionary, just like the one I've been coveting for over a year. He gave it to me to celebrate. What a guy.

good things are happening around here

Thesis stories: revised, compiled, printed out.
Thesis defense: scheduled for November.
Rejection slips of late: hand-written.

I want to write and write forever.

note to self:

Be more specific when requiring students to come to conferences in your office prepared with a question about their papers' most recent draft. Doing so will help you steer clear of this question:

So, is my paper good?

Do everything you can to avoid this question and its inevitably awkward aftermath—especially when the paper in question is unquestionably not good. Oops.

saying smart things about myself

I've been away from the blog for a while. I spent all my extra minutes these last few weeks into figuring out how to critically introduce my thesis of short stories for 20 pages. I wrote the 1st draft in March, but the 2nd draft had since refused revision. Anything I added made it worse. Anything I took out make it fall apart.

And I hated it: pretentious, wordy, full of some serious BS. I said I was interested in writing stories about truth and fiction. I wanted to sound smart. I quoted smart people. I piled up books in my office and my house.

I took several months to decide, but I finally deleted the 1st draft. Or most of it, anyway.

After paving over with a fresh draft, I've come to this conclusion: it's often better to be honest than smart.

My advisor says that writers tell 1 or 2 stories over and over, even if every story uses different characters and settings. Turns out, the story I keep telling has nothing to do with truth and fiction. Every story I write about truth and fiction comes out awkward and poorly written.

All the decent stories I write somehow sneak sickness or physical disability into the plot. My brain goes to the body again and again, which is weird because I live in my own head so much that I lose track of my own body sometimes and run into doors. But I decided to be honest about my tendency and wrote the introduction from there. I printed it out. I felt happy. And now, even if I don't sound smart, at least I don't feel full of crap.

number nine, number nine, number nine

I commemorated the ninth day of the ninth month of the ninth year of this millennium by writing what one of my professors this semester calls an "experiment in non-fiction." I wrote a 99-word essay about my connections to the number 9 during the nearly 9 minutes that it takes to listen to The Beatles' song, Revolution 9. Mine starts out like this:

Today is nines. Nine, nine, nine (or, rather, oh-nine)...

I'm not sure if oh-nine counts as one word, or as two. And I'm not sure we can consider my 99-word essay any good. But I feel like it was a useful exercise, one that could be repeated with a million variations: just give yourself some arbitrary rules and then write within their bounds.

Yesterday's boundaries reminded me that I first moved to Provo 9 years ago, that I've taken 9 creative writing workshop classes (both grad and undergrad) since then, that my husband proposed to me 9 months after our first date. And, of course, that counting down from 9 keeps me soooo occupied these days (only 5.5 more months, baby).

Go write 99 words.

if you had to draw a map of your life, what would it look like?

Just finished reading this book by Peter Turchi and I kind of love it. A lot. If you're a writer, you should read it. If you're not a writer, you should probably read it anyway. You'll look a little differently at the world.

i'm in love with beginnings

The first week of school thrills me as much as writing the fabulous first line of a new story. I'm good at both: they feel full of promise and endless possibility. Nothing's gone wrong yet.

On Monday, I lived an ideal first school day: I woke up as late as I wanted, wore pretty shoes, ate an apple, bought myself a first-day treat (a Toblerone—which reminds me of my childhood), and curled up on a cushy chair in an alcove to scribble in my notebook before going to class. First day of school. First page of a story. Both turned out lovely.

I'm not so good at endings. They feel so final. So end-y.

Which makes this first week odd. It's the first week of my last semester. I both love and hate it. The universe probably knew I wouldn't handle this final semester with enough grace, so it graciously sent me another beginning. When I have a baby in February, I'll start an adventure that offers a new beginning after every end in sight. The end of crawling gives way to first steps.

I should start thinking that way about stories: every ending is just the opportunity for another beginning. If I think that way, I might actually finish this thesis and get the ending I work towards every day but secretly dread.