There comes a time when you need to go back to school. A long time ago (2004) on a planet far, far away (Miami), I had abandoned the idea of going into an MFA program in Creative Writing. Professor Lester Goran had convinced me with one story after another about the strange people who inhabited the University of Miami's MFA program, a student who shaved only half his body hair, students who wanted none of his feedback but rather only an introduction to his agent.
Besides, I could teach myself, with less money and more discipline, how to craft wonderful short stories simply by being conscientious and reading fiction "like a writer." Yet, somehow, about two decades later, I have abandoned the habit of reading this way. I am like a priest who has become unfamiliar with the Bible, working from rote.
No more. Back to school. I will learn how to write short fiction by reading short fiction. I will read slowly, like a writer, pulling each story slowly apart, sentence by sentence.
I start by sharpening my own pencils. I don't even bother with a pencil sharpener. I use a knife. I sit in a park with a knife and a box of pencils. I sharpen away, scaring away the drug dealers. Someone who has survived into their 40s holding onto their dreams of making money by putting words together – no respectable drug dealer would be caught in the same park with me. The stack of old second-hand paperback books lets everyone know that I am serious about my entirely ludicrous interpretation of my alternative path to being an MFA – let's face it, really a BMFA: Bad-M***-F***ing Artist.
An eyes-wide child gazing through kaleidoscopic windows, I glimpse infinite worlds between pages—self-contained universes crystallized in words, the depths of human experience kindled then extinguished in a single spark of imagination.
I spray paint these words on the wall of the park bathroom. Let that be my entrance application to this new hard knocks version of creative writing school (BMFA degree to be tattooed on my ass!)
YOU ARE READING
Pure Writerly Moments 2 (Short Stories, Essays, Book Reviews, and More)
General FictionWhat is the connection between artistic expression and the joy of living? How can one best live a literary life? This book is a collection of small word-projects. Each examines a book, a moment, a story that helps to deepen the author's literary adv...
