This is what Flannery O’Connor answered when she was asked, late in her life, why she wrote. Some people might think it was glib of her, but I think it’s the simplest, most direct answer I’ve ever heard about writing. Because you’re good at it. Isn’t that why Albert Einstein became a scientist, or Picasso a painter, or Churchill a politician? We are encouraged from a young age to find something we’re good at, that we enjoy doing, and do it.
This is by way of making the hard admission that the final letter came last night, and that I will not be starting an MFA program in the fall. But I will be writing, because I am good at it. In the interest of honesty, I know that I have never had the discipline to do it regularly and with determination, but I will be teaching myself that. I will create my own twelve-step program to cure myself of lethargy and inertia, by just writing already. I don’t know how it will be received, but that will also come at its own time. All I know is that I enjoy doing it, and that I’m good at it.
I want to thank you all, because I blogged about something that was (and still is) difficult for me to discuss, to reveal. Rejection is difficult, and I won’t be caving to the temptation to play sour grapes with the goal I was reaching for. I still want a master’s degree, and I will still be working towards getting one in the next few years. I will simply have to work harder at my own work, something I haven’t done enough of. It’s going to be a lot of change, and I hope you’ll be here for me to share the successes and difficulties as they come along.
A friend told me, in the course of all this, that he thought my blog was possibly hampering my writing. That, perhaps, by writing the blog I was releasing a desire to write without directing it to a more worthy goal – my fiction. He suggested that perhaps if I were to stop blogging, my drive to write could more fully be realized in the realm of fiction. Because I take his opinion seriously, I thought about it, but I’ve come to disagree with him. I blog because it’s communication, and I am a sucker for communication. I blog here for two reasons. The first is simple – I appreciate you, I like your feedback, and I like meshing my life with your lives. The second is reminiscent of something Faulkner said about never knowing what he thought of something until he’d seen what he’d written on the subject. I blog because it helps me solidify my reactions and opinions, it reminds me to be watchful and attentive to the world around me because of how I might later craft those thoughts into words. It’s communication.
Writing fiction, on the other hand, is creation. I don’t have one valve for the two desires – if I shut off blogging, fiction won’t leap forth unbound from my mind. They’re different processes, which is why I ultimately (but respectfully) disagree that blogging gets in the way of writing. I make time to blog, yes, as I will now be making time to write. Which, really, is what I need to do before revving up any other element of my complex Plan B. I need to face the blank page and conquer it, on a schedule and with determination. Last night, Stuart made the incredibly apt analogy that what I am facing is the building of a fire – right now, all I have is kindling and building the fire seems daunting and difficult, but once I actually start building it, start feeding the flame, it will get easier. I’ll have a fire, and I’ll start to learn how to nourish and maintain it. I don’t have a fire now. But I’m going to build it.
So I’ll still be blogging, and I appreciate that you’ll still be there while I try to do what will undoubtedly be the hardest thing I’ve ever done – train myself to start thinking, and acting, like the writer I want to be. Thank you for everything you’ve said, encouraging me and telling me your own stories of the graduate process, which made me feel like I was very much NOT alone in this struggle. You are all, in a word, inspiring. So I’ll be keeping you posted.
And because I suspect the only way to salve the wound is to focus on what I can do about it, building the fire starts now. Tomorrow morning I’m going to do what I keep telling myself to do – I’m going to get up, make a cup of strong coffee, and sit down to write.

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