MFA program vs. learning to write on your own

I didn't pay a dime for my MFA and met a group of good readers and writers there. The MFA taught me bad habits that took longer to unlearn than they did to learn. I've written two novels since but have not found an agent or publisher, even though many of my classmates have.

I didn't spend much time on campus. One class a day, teach a couple classes a week, and the rest of the time I spent writing in coffee shops or at home masturbating to lesbian BDSM.

Gonna need a sauce on that image hoss

tiddies

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

If you want to learn how to write a novel the way they want you to I’d recommend it. If you want to write something less formulaic I’d recommend striking out solo.

You don’t need permission to write your novel.

Your image, OP, makes me realize that I, a 35-year old married middle-manager with a mortgage - will never be young again. And I am filled with despair.

Go for the MFA program so you can at least surround yourself with youth.

Do you guys feel grateful to be able to pursue writing, an imaginative craft you love, as a career in the modern, first-world?

Personally I feel so grateful to be alive, and to have been born where I am, and though I'm not pursuing writing professionally, it just feels good to be in a world where creative writing exists and we actually get to commit our time to it. How amazing is that? Sorry, I'm drunk and not making much sense. But do you get what I mean? Art is such a child-like discipline within an adult world, and anyone who gets to pursue it at any level should feel grateful to be able to. Does anyone else feel this way? Feeling grateful to exist and to be able to live inside your imagination in your real life?

If you get an MFA you'll write like a New Yorker reporter or YA author.

I think you're grossly overvaluing youth and not appreciating all the things you've accomplished enough

You're still quite young, silly. And don't worry over such frivolous things, you have plenty more time in life do amazing things

What were the bad habits you had to unlearn?

I'm a great writer, so I can confirm this with unshakeable authority.

Masturbating to lesbian BDSM

>dat Ultimate Surrender phase

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>lesbian BDSM
An user after my own heart

:3 u have already surrendered to me. You have been thinking of it all day. Your personality has already drastically changed because of how much you want it

Autodidactism is a myth. Everything you know, you picked up from someone, or required the existence of another to provide an opportunity for reflection; in either case you didn't learn anything on your own at all.

I agree with King from On Writing that the rarefied nature of writing classes is truly fun and interesting but not really conducive to the actual experience of writing, and learning there is nowhere close to what you learn just from trial-and-error and reading a lot. Faulkner got his start working for a post office, and King cleaning sheets.

Yeah, I get you, I think it's amazing that it can be a career because oftentimes artists really are manchildren that never grew up. So many writers are just lazy-asses one step away from NEETdom until they get published, and then they're basically just hobbyists living at home all day.

Just minor in creative writing. An MFA in English is like 90% jerk off courses after your sophmore year.

lmao fucking cavemen figured out how tell stories and you need to get a degree to learn how to do the same thing?

"He who can does; he who cannot, teaches"

College for anything that's not highly technical is a massive waste of time and money.

My wife’s bull said something similar

This. Professors are retards who have spent their whole lives in academia.

Name ONE professor who has ever done anything of note. You can't

Doesn't any sense and has no bearing on reality. Pseudo!

cope

dope

yeah I am dope, also rad

I’m gay also, and tranny foot fetishist

Yes user. But speaking as a 36 y.o. with 4 kids, there's still time for art. Mural on my daughter's room -boom, art. How to plant the blueberry bushes - boom, art. Making my son a prince crown out of cardboard- boom, art. Making a snow fort - boom, art. How about a gigantic fucking wooden ruler to measure their heights as they grow - boom, art.

Also I love you all you all are fucking great

Tolkien was a professor

thanks for sharing

"If you cannot do, you cannot truly teach."
>t. A teacher and definitely not a fucking pseud so go fuck your mum

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Bruh, it's just shit-posting, no need to get so worked up. Try to be more cool, like me. That's my teaching for you.

If you were so cool, you'd have known that I was merely shitposting as well. And so the teacher becomes the student becomes the master. Checkmate, and game. Gg kiddo

don't you have papers to grade, Dr. Boomer?

Former gets you jobs

I'll give you a hint, it starts with Memer- and ends with -son.

>The MFA taught me bad habits that took longer to unlearn than they did to learn. I've written two novels since but have not found an agent or publisher, even though many of my classmates have
Y'know, maybe you shouldn't have unlearned those habits

That's trivially true and doesn't address the question of whether what people actually mean by learning by themselves (reading books written by others) is effective.

Cavemen generally didn't try to earn a living just by telling stories though, which I think is what OP's talking about.

I assume, anyway. Maybe some silver-tongued smart cavemen did.

Thank you anons. I was in a kind of dark place last night. Your posts (and going back to Cicero's De Senectute) make me feel a little better. I still wish that that 'starting out my life' thing could have gone on for a little longer. Life is a continuous reduction in possible experiences. But I need to recognize that we can't really swim upstream too.

DFW

Nabokov

I mean, sure, she's "unconventionally" attractive.

What percentage of authors have degrees or education related to writing? 15%? 10%? Honestly, just write. Anything else is a waste of money.

Riling up middle class troglodytes isn't doing something of note.

servitude vs. starvation

MFA: Mummy won't bully you for being unemployed, potentially cute guys/girls

Auden has written more great poems than you have written bad ones

What's the benefit of putting all that time and money towards it? Personally I hate formal education so much, I hate everything about it. Even if I loved a subject greatly, I wouldn't want to be in that environment again. And I also have difficulty interacting with others...

I was under the impression that decent graduate programs actually gave you a stipend.

In an MFA program right now. The greatest thing it has done for me is force me to read and examine literature--in the sense that if I did a shallow, lazy, or otherwise pisspoor reading, I'd be embarrassed in front of my classmates. This has done a lot of subconscious scaffolding for my own writing, which feels incredibly more alive than a mere year ago. "Learning to write on your own"--don't get me wrong, it's doable, but I don't think it's as admirable as people make it out to be. It consists in making many mistakes that could've been identified by a good teacher or astute classmate. That's the other great part of an MFA--you're surrounded by capable readers.

Do not pay for your MFA. All the best ones (except, notably, NYU and Columbia) fully cover tuition.
>what's the benefit of putting all that time...
see >i have difficulty interacting with others
mild autism must be overcome

whats the best fully funded mfa program?
ive never looked into this but im pretty confident i could be admitted. my life is going nowhere and i want somebody to pay for all of my minimal expenses.

>best
it depends on your writing style and program needs. off the top of my head:
Iowa
Michigan
Michener center at UT Austin
UVA
Hollins
Arizona

Also, some of these schools require you to teach to receive full funding.

>full funding
Intredasting. How does this work? I'd imagine these courses are incredibly competitive to get into. Also where does the funding comes from? I would have thought there's an ample supply of wannabe authors from rich families, so it seems strange that a lot of funded places exist in this field.

funding comes from benefactors, rich people who went to the university. you'd be right that it's competitive. the acceptance rate is around 3-5%

From my experience as an MFA fiction grad from a top-10 program:

PROS:

- if you get accepted into a prestigious program, your chance to get published increases (several of my classmates sold their MS to major houses)
- if you're not a total sperg, you'll make friends with those who can help you establish a literary career (when you do get published, you can call on these ppl to interview you & review your work)
- your prose will likely improve
- you'll develop a good understanding of "baseline" norms for contemporary literary fiction, which will give you a better sense of what interests editors
- again, if you're not a sperg, you'll get pussy
- the parties can be fun

CONS:

- regardless of what anyone tells you, or how kind it seems at the time, workshops function like Maoist struggle sessions: they can help writers avoid shitty writing, but they also erode interesting idiosyncrasies; bc of this, your voice will likely suffer
- if you hold non-liberal views, and don't find a way to secret them, you're going to have a bad time (I've seen ppl dog piled in workshop on issues related to identity politics)
- even if you're getting a stipend and free tuition, an MFA alone will rarely gets you much after the program is over. Plan to be broke
- a significant portion of your classmates won't be serious about writing, but enter the program as a kind of "lifestyle" statement
- another portion will be spergs. they'll cling to the artificial social group that forms wi the program and cause annoyance. a number of these will end up as YA authors
- fakes and spergs are typically bad readers, and can fuck good writing up through shitty critiques. it can be tough figuring out what advice to take, and which to ignore

TIPS IF YOU GET IN TO A GOOD PROGRAM:

- be selective about whose critiques you accept. when you read other ppls submissions, determine their strengths and weaknesses. only accept critiques based on their strengths
- BE DECENT TO EVERYONE. you might be shocked to learn who ultimately succeeds. some of the worst writers you meet will get jobs as editors and agents. if you're serious about a career, you might need them later. i've seen good writers fucked bc they offended bad writers who eventually held positions of (relative) power
- understand that it'll take about 2 - 3 years to forget the social conditioning of workshop and regain your voice. don't get too depressed during this period.
- don't get caught up in MFA social politics and hen-pecking. be friendly, but keep a slight distance
- if you do fuck a lot of the women, as some guys will, fuck them hard and be respectful. women will talk long after the MFA is over, and women are usually the ones who get jobs in the publishing industry. happy ex-lovers are excellent friends to have

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John Conway
Harold Bloom
Almost every notable natural scientist

It is good, for sure, but it could be much better.
One of the positive parts of capitalism's legacy

Good post. Thank you user.

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>Life is a continuous reduction in possible experiences

Nay, life is a delving into richer experiences at the cost of others, and the self-awareness of this fact. Certainly the possibilities narrow; but we can choose where to place our attentions, and can have the deeper experiences only possible from long exposure to complicated ideas

how does one get published without a MA in lit?

I have a doctorate in a science so I'm not really interested in going back to school. Im also not a retard and can write science papers, and break down literature and shit to see how its done.

But i'm trying to figure out if there is a possibilty of getting published without being jewish, haivng the schooling to help, or friends in the business.

Good post user, appreciate it

Chosmky

The point is you need a teacher. If you think you'll get a good one from an MFA program, go for it. If not, you need to find a good one. That needs to be your focus.

One interesting thing I didn't mention in this post:

I was dumbstruck by how awful Ivy League grads were at telling a story. Their prose was beautiful, but they couldn't plot for shit.

If you can't tell a story, don't expect an MFA program to help you. I'm convinced that storytelling is largely an innate ability. Prose can be polished, but the ability to move characters through conflicts to a satisfying conclusion seems to be a gift that some seem born with.

i need a name

Don't expect teachers to be a great help. In most cases, they won't be. MFA programs are a form of patronage. Academic jobs offer published authors access to benefits, including healthcare and pensions. Don't kid yourself: this is why most choose to teach.

After befriending them, most professors will admit to this. It's not that they don't care about their students, but their passion is rarely pedagogical.

Those who enter MFAs to "learn under great writers" often leave unfulfilled. It's a bad way to view the system.

Ishmael

it's a matter of finding the great teachers. if you ever see a dinosaur who refuses to retire, you know he's in it for the love

Okay, man. I'm talking from experience. But you think what you want to think.

Reading this thread after finding out I’ve been rejected by Michigan is making me all kinda of sad.

What's your problem? I'm not disagreeing with you.
any other rejects or accepts?

When I say teacher, I don't mean it in the traditional sense, someone employed at an educational facility. Anyone can be a teacher. If you want to be an artist, you should want to make other artists you admire your teachers. The point is that you NEED to cling on to someone (preferably a few at least) and become someone's apprentice when you're just starting out. You're not going to get far if you don't do that.

Here's what I'm saying: that isn't the way MFA programs work.

In my experience, you will rarely find a "master" under whom you can "apprentice." It's not an apprenticeship model. Your professors will help to an extent, but they're writers FIRST and teachers SECOND.

In the best programs, their positions are essentially sinecures. Very few go into the academy out of a love for teaching. They do it for a stable income and benefits.

You sound very idealistic. That's not bad, but you're pushing an idea that's divorced from reality. I'm telling you what I know: it's very uncommon to find a writer who will take you — as one of maybe 15 peers each year — under his or her wing. They're too busy. Sometimes they're too lazy. It just doesn't happen.

i think this guy is taking about mfa programs and youre talking about artists in general. i agree with him though, youre not gonna find many writers willing to take apprentices. that shit sounds nice but its outmoded. most writers apprentice through reading not in personal relationships. i mean like borges constantly talks about his masters, but they were dead writers whose books he read in his dads library as a kid

I don't disagree. I was never recommending MFA programs. I was just pointing out that if you pursue alternative education, you still need to be focused on finding a "teacher" figure. That's top priority regardless of what you do. That's exactly why I agree and don't recommend MFA programs, because they're not very good at helping you find quality teachers.

Getting a teacher doesn't necessarily mean having direct contact with them. If there is someone you really admire, and there's resources like biographies and documentaries, eat up everything you can about that person. Study everything they did throughout their lives as much as you can. Really own the connection you have with them and absorb as much of them as possible. Above all, try to understand how they think and what in their lives influenced their thinking. After some studying, go out into the world and start practicing on the live firing ranges of your field.

You don't need an MA or MFA, but it does help. So do all the other things you listed.

The best you can do is work hard. It's like anything else in life. Put in the hours, day after day, and you'll likely see results. Build up a nest of publications. Write a novel. Learn as much as you can about the industry. Query agents. Pray for good luck.

Okay, yes, I agree w/ most of this. Thanks for clarifying.

Yup, np. Just one other thing, it's also important you choose people you have some kind of personal connection with already as your teacher. That could be a lot of things but I don't want to specify because what's personal to us differs from person to person. That's part of what makes something like an MFA program appealing to younger people, I guess. Ideally, it's supposed to help you find people who you will be able to relate to more easily, people who grew up within your community or who have a good understanding of the way of life you're familiar with. That's not the case though. It's not easy finding a good teacher.

This is especially stupid to say in an MFA thread because being a professor is one of the only ways that a great but not-bestselling author can make a living: see Nabokov, Gass, DFW, etc.

If you do an MFA that is free then you have nothing to lose except the opportunity cost of a full-time job for a couple of years. Most of the best programs are free, except for Columbia in NYC, which is the best one, but you'll end up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt after going there. Also people who have the best success in MFA programs come in with a work already started and then use the time in the program to refine/get feedback on it

ME JEZZUBELL POSTER

ME BIG DUM DUM

ME RUIN LIT-LITRACHURE

>happy ex-lovers
This is reassuring as I’m in a decent program (funded and stipend with some tuition left to pay, and have bedded a few of the poetesses. Definitely keeping on good terms with everybody is difficult and probably worth it.

But I’ve found it quite easy, after the first year, to identify whose feedback is worth listening to. The fiction professor is one of the most incisive readers I’ve ever had, and has not hurt my “voice” whatever that means, one bit.

My program is all around more concerned with craft and form than politics and theory. I’ve often been horrified with other students I’ve met at AWP or other readings who have to preface their piece with a disclaimer about its eco-masculinity-gendered spaces nonsense, rather than letting the piece speak for itself.

For what it’s worth, it’s been delightful seeing poems written about me by ex lovers, lacking any spite or bitterness. Chances of that might be diminished outside of MFAs.

How do you apply? How are you eligible do you just look it up?

>The fiction professor is one of the most incisive readers I’ve ever had, and has not hurt my “voice” whatever that means, one bit.

Everyone's different. Just keep in mind that influence often goes unnoticed. You might not realize these changes until later. It's common for people to reach the end of an MFA program feeling lost. I did. It took awhile to get my voice back.

Everyone look at this poster and laugh

If you think MFAs cost money you don't know what you're talking about.

But yeah, lots of lesbians. Especially in poetry.

You clearly don't know what an MFA is if you think it's equivalent in any way to an undergraduate degree.

Lost. Definitely. But Ive made a conscious effort resisting influence for the last two years. I’ve recently decided that if I’m not risking disapproval from a reader in a big way, then it’s not worth submitting.

With voice, I guess I’ve let that sink to the bottom of my priorities. I’ve seen people spend three years here trying to make their poor grammar and frenetic syntax as unique as possible, or else refine their personal brand of snark in to a science. Usually they come out with a bunch of short stories that pass the fork test but all sound the same. Meanwhile I struggle to keep from boring the reader (and myself) with mixed results. I might sound like I’m at the tail end, but I still find it thrilling to write and still love to talk about process.

Also, for everyone else here, I have no debt, which makes me richer than most. I always take comfort in this, especially when my brother in law, a surgeon, is living on credit thanks to some bad investment.

Who is this pretty lady?

who is this trouser arouser?

This dick chick?

This phallus alice

Who is this poon coon?

you have to admit she is reallly, really good lookiing

This sperm churn

>MFA program

You get to fund a writer (the lecturer) in their creative endeavors which aren't in themselves profitable.
It's like philanthropism......... where you get in debt.

great thread; bumping to keep it alive

>phase
Butterfly, please.

I was kind of enjoying when it was new. Still have some of them saved. Haven’t been in the mood for that kind of thing since.

i love you too

Why do they cover tuition? What benefit is gained on their end? Sorry if silly question. Do you just mean that you can pay them back after you later have the money to do so?

Anything else you've stumbled across that's worth checking out?

At almost every MFA program (excepting two of the very top ones and certain specific fellowship situations) your funding comes from teaching undergrad writing. Sometimes you can replace that with work assistant editing at the school's lit mag or something similar.

It really seems like I'm alone in my hatred for formal education; and of being very handicapped in interacting with others too. I wouldn't normally think that a writer could also teach classes, and would be of a more introverted disposition and with less eloquence in verbal communication. But I'm not saying that because I myself am such a writer, just that I find it weird to imagine would-be writers in such a role. Anyways I personally can't stand education and want to be done with it as soon as I'm done with it, reading and writing are only fun for me when performed in private. But I wish all of you MFAanons the best of luck, and hope that your MFA is a launchpad to what you desire your later career to be. :)

(I've always just hated school, I guess. And it's never been fond of me either. I just don't have the attention nor intellect for it, in my estimation)

For what it's worth, most MFAs are terrible writing teachers and we're actively encouraged by our mentors to spend as little time on teaching as possible in favor of writing. But you asked where funding comes from, and the answer is teaching.

Write about looks and feels, not noises and smells. Cooze stuff doesn't sell unless you take all the funkiness out of the crevice.

At the school I went to, rich donors were solicited for funds. The program positioned itself as a kind of "crown jewel" wi the university, drawing famous authors as professors and guest lecturers. Students awarded fellowships were asked to write thank you letters to their benefactors.

You don't need an MFA. Most people who get an MFA never amount to anything.

The key is hard work. If you're passionate, dedicated, and keep sending pieces out, your chances of getting published will increase. Be a voracious reader. Immerse yourself in unusual situations. But most of all, slave away at your writing. The more you do, the better you'll get, MFA or not.

>tfw I think I actually know this girl
It might just be a lookalike but she's the spitting image of my gf's friend.

"Oeulht!", said he.

Pros:
If you get into a top tier one, and get to do the program for free, You get to spend a few years of your life writing without any worries about getting a job or anything. It’s difficult but possible to make time to write while having a job, but entering an MFA program allows you to simply write without any other obligations getting in yor way, monetary or otherwise

Cons:
If you have to pay for it, you’re fucked. The classes and teachers are most likely not that helpful. You will have to resist getting influenced by mediocre writers

If you wanted to DIY MFA, what would be a good general game plan?

So where did the first ideas come from? Has the set of existing ideas always been the same?

Spend your 20s reading good books. When you reach 30, choose a few authors you like best. Steal from them shamelessly. Write every day. Carpet bomb submissions. Don't worry about sucking at first. Keep writing and submitting.

are you up? :3

lol

>So where did the first ideas come from?
Reflection on the Other, obviously.

If you did have the talent (a quite specific logos insanity) , it will shorten the development time of your authorial "voice" 2-5 years. If you dont have talent, it will shorten the time you need to realize this by 8 years.

I took a creative writing class in high school and it was either total spergs writing YA fantasy and sci-fi or feminist women writing exactly what you'd expect a feminist to write about, so that kind of discourages me from going for MFA cause I'm expecting it to be more of the same, so I'm planning on going for an English degree and becoming a professor. But if I don't go for MFA and make connections like the user said earlier, how am I supposed to get published? Am I just going to have to reach out to different publishers out of the blue and hope for the best?

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If you have three carrots stuck in your butt then you remove them one at a time.

No.

How many times will idiots who don’t know what they are talking about comebinto these threads slinging their opinions around like a foot long ballsack?

Query literary agents

There are MFA programs where you don't have to teach, right?

Yes

Yes, but they're either unfunded (obviously) or the most competitive in the country. Otherwise you could hope for a handful of specific fellowships at a place where most admits do have to teach.

My cock in her hand is worth two in her bush