So Confused Student writes in to Salon’s advice columnist, Cary Tennis, with an old-syle (Mr. Blue, advice for writers and the lovelorn) question. The upshot: grad school is no fun, being in love is wonderful. Do I suck? Are all my colleagues assholes? What am I doing in grad school? Can’t I just be in love?
Tennis, who first recollects his own aborted MFA experience, responds with this freakishly insipid nugget: “Our writing is the voice of a person who is innocent, powerless and in need of protection; our writing is the voice of a person who needs to be heard as he or she really is.” Voice — yes. Inner-child-as-writer — no.
I find Confused Student’s questions reassuring. Odds are each of us MFA students has stumbled, in some dark and shitty night, across the What Am I Doing Here question. If school makes us question our assumptions — perhaps one might restructure and un-restructure her novel — that’s OK. Chances are getting an MFA won’t make us worse writers, and it will give us time to work our writing muscles. Do we drop out? No. We keep writing. Or go ahead and drop out; just keep writing anyway.
that’s right. keep writing. you are doing a terrific job!