Jandy's book is available now, but I was lucky enough to snag an ARC at ALA Midwinter. The only reason I haven't finished it yet is that I had to leave it behind when I was honeymooning - I knew that I'd tear through it too quickly to make it worth the added weight in my suitcase. Now that I'm back, though, I'm burning through the pages in record time. Jandy's novel is a book about grief that brims with life, that takes a dark, despairing event and infuses it with color and feeling. I was blown away by the writing when I first heard Jandy read from her manuscript while we were still at school, and the novel does not disappoint. When waxing rhapsodic about it on Facebook one afternoon, I struck up a deal with another fellow alumn: I'd send the ARC to her when I was finished (it's coming, Em!), and it would become the VCFA version of the Traveling Pants.
Jandy's book has earned a lot of (well-deserved) buzz, and the enthusiasm she has found from her VCFA colleagues is as inspiring, to me, as her book itself is. I often find that as I writer, it's easy to spend one's time comparing your own "success" to that of other writers, feeling inadequate, or, at worst, worrying that writing is a zero-sum game; that one person's success is directly linked to another's. We are, after all, for the most part, an emotional internal bunch, we writers.
No? Just me, then? Okay.
Regardless, what I perhaps appreciate most about my decision to pursue my MFA degree is the nurturing--and inspiring--community that I've discovered at VCFA. I am, in fact, the type of writer who believes in the power of objects, locations, routines. I like to write in the same quiet corner of my apartment, and when I arrive somewhere new, the first thing I do (no lie) is scope it out for a proper writing space. I've cobbled together workspaces in the most unlikely of far-flung locations.
Vermont, though, is one enormous work space, one vast font of inspiration. It was for that reason that I decided to register for alumn Sarah Aronson and Cindy Faughnan's Seventh Annual Novel Writing Retreat this past weekend.
*Note: I am a solitary person, particularly when in writing mode. Though I can be outgoing at parties and work functions, most of these events are contained, known quantities that are (mostly) on my own terms. I am *not* someone who bonds instantly with others, who can spend hours swapping pages and chit-chatting away like a rediscovered sleepaway camper.
I am, in short, the least likely candidate for a low-residency MFA program, much less a weekend "writer's retreat."
Why did I go, then?
I went to VCFA because I wanted an MFA. Plain and simple. It was a personal goal thing, and it dovetailed nicely with the flexible schedule that fell into my lap when I decided to write full-time. I'll be honest: I wasn't much concerned with the externalities of the program - the residencies, I felt, were a necessary evil. Ten days of living, sleeping, eating, breathing, studying, and who knew what else with a cluster of strangers all bursting with camaraderie?
Well, I'd deal.
It's not that I am shy, per se, but more that I am the type who really needs to get the lay of the land before I can jump in. And so I did. I'm certain fellow classmates found me unfriendly and there's nothing to be done about that now. But magically, as my two years came to a close, I found that I had, somehow, formed bonds with fellow students and faculty alike. It had happened when I wasn't looking.
And I love it. I love it.
During my last semester it was suggested that I "quit coasting" (Ie: writing the same light-hearted, quirky, voice-y commercial fiction that I'd been doing for years), and try something new. I was then set up on one of the most fulfilling blind dates of my life:
I was paired with Louise Hawes.
Louise knew that my creative thesis had all but been formally approved, and she asked what I wanted to work on with her. I tossed out a few ideas, she cringed. I said, "all right, then. This semester is an experiment. I put myself in your hands. What do you think I should do?"
What she thought I should do, was to "write a letter to [my] twelve-year-old self."
*Note: the only thing I am less inclined to do than to join in on a sleepaway camp retreat-y experience? Would be to write a letter to my twelve-year-old self. My twelve-year-old self has finally coped with the whole braces-and-boobs thing and neither of us are very interested in going back there, despite what my choice of career path might have you believe.
People, I wrote that letter. And then I wrote a short story. And then another. And then, when Louise was satisfied that we had spent enough time thinking about character, I started a new novel. It began as a series of short, free-verse style vignettes. And it evolved into a manuscript that is currently called "family," that is about a seventeen year old runaway who falls in with a dangerous cult, and it is going to be published in spring of 2011.
Fast-forward to March 2010, when I knew I would be coming home from my honeymoon and awaiting the revision notes on "family." For the first time in nearly ten years, I have some space in my schedule to breathe. And that's when I got the email from Sarah about her retreat.
I am *still,* to this day, most emphatically not a "retreat" person. I still freak out in "hothouse" environments. it still takes me time to warm to new people.
But I also have learned that new experiences are what make our writing grow. And I know that "family" was the happiest experiment I've had in my writing life to date.
I have one more novel on my current contract, something that will be different and unrelated to "family." And I have some vague ideas, but nothing more. So I signed up for the retreat's writing track, and I packed my favorite throw blanket, and I went to Vermont.
In the same way that easing into my writing chair immediately takes me to a new, freer, creative headspace, setting foot on the Vermont campus turns some kind of switch inside. Sarah and I weren't contemporaries at VCFA; Cyn and I barely spoke during our overlapping residencies (see above re: my antisocial tendencies). But none of that mattered once we'd arrived. Just the fact that we had all gathered to work, to be creative, to take ourselves and our craft seriously, was enough.
I practiced what Louise had taught me: I listened to the lectures, the readings, and the talks. And then I went back to my room, sat down at my desk, and thought about my story. I didn't concern myself with word count, or outlining. I wasn't pitching, or pinning myself down, at all. In the moment, it was all about connecting to character.
It's rare, as a working writer, to be in a place where one has time to splash around with thoughts and concepts, where the ticking of the clock and the looming deadline have quieted. And I'm not someone who does well with too much free time, but for once, I know how best to use that time to the advantage of my stories. And to respect the experimental stage as a critical part of the process.
At the retreat this weekend, I met writers at all stages of their careers, and reconnected with favorite faculty from school days. I tolerated the dorm life, even though I am a light sleeper, and the dorm food, even though I am a picky eater. I realized that though it may have taken me three years to realize it, I just may be a "retreat" person, after all.
Now that the new session of my own YA writing class has begun, I do have one new piece of advice to offer my students, plucked directly from my own experience:
Be open. To feedback, to suggestions. To new approaches, to different experiences. Consider it all an experiment. Be willing to grow.
Right now I have a friend spending a month at one of the granddaddies of artists' residencies. Her dispatches make me drool.
Who knows? Maybe next year.
I'm keeping my mind - and my options - open...
Comments
VCFA is pretty rad - maybe you'll come as a writer in residence one of these years! And I'm looking forward to our self-imposed retreating some time this summer.
Have a blast at Yaddo!
And the summer retreat is going to be SO MUCH FUN. I mean productive. Very, very productive.
Meanwhile, that no-internet thing is GENIUS! Fortunately, satellite connection up in Bethel is quite spotty, which makes it easy to unplug. So liberating!