I just took a part-time job at a gas station and I work 24 hours a week and I get to read and write pretty much the entire shift and it's the best job ever. I'm actually able to make progress with my books because I was struggling for time when I was watching the kids at home. I keep telling my wife it's the best shot I've ever had and she doesn't get it.

@WriteConscious

4 ай бұрын

You already have a successful first book. You can 10x that success with the next one. Stay focused!

@noahfranks984

3 ай бұрын

This is what im looking for right now. A job that at very least doesnt leave me too psychically exhausted to write or read anything

I've never gone to college, but I do have a literary agent. You're 100% correct on this subject. I can't tell you how many people that have degrees in writing that are subpar or struggle to get agented. It'd be better for them to join a biker gang and keep a journal. Honestly, the best advice I have is for people to find a writing group or a critique group.

I just applied to seven MFA programs and I've spent over 10 years in non-writing courses at my community college and I'm about to be laid off from my job at the L.A. Times. But I'm stuck between the desire to publish traditionally or self-publish. The words here are a godsend.

Most writers are not going to do transcendent work whether they were in an MFA program or not. To say MFA programs prevent you from learning to be a more effective writer makes no sense. Everyone has their own path and many have learned a lot about themselves and their own potential from the MFA experience.

Same for all the arts. Schools can teach technical skills and for some arts, some level of technical skill is required and if you think a school is the best way to get that skill rather than teaching yourself, I guess it could be a reasonable route. But schools do not teach creativity, perceptive insight, connection with life and the world, etc. - everything that actually makes a good artist regardless of the medium. I found the exact same thing as you - isolation, getting out in nature, taking care of your health, pursuing some kind of spiritual path - these are the things that will actually help you develop as an artist. Love your perspective.

@WriteConscious

3 ай бұрын

Thanks brotha!

University students don't have enough wisdom to write something with substance and depth yet, but it is a good opportunity to learn and work on mastering the craft of writing. With time, the wisdom will come.

I can usually smell MFA writing from just reading a page or two of a book. It always has a certain feel to it. I don’t think the public particularly responds to that sort of writing either. The point of MFA programs is to subsidize the professors writing and lifestyle. That’s why they need students to pay large amounts of money. But there’s nothing that can be related to a young student in two years that is going to turn them into a great author. And most of these writers are just trying to avoid pain. They want to walk out of school comfortable and receiving all sorts of accolades like donna tartt or something. Some drink the coolaid and believe they must write something “important” instead of developing their own voice.

If you are a writer of fiction and you attempt to enter a MFA program in creative writing you essentially are repeating efforts you have already made -- to advance even more. Yes, a little hard work can push away needless suffering, but you are already who you are without the established order's approval. That is what I learned. I covered more ground by sticking to my interests first than having to admit I somehow failed. I was able to do so by applying what I already knew? To rise to the heights of academia makes you that but to pursue a craft without forgetting anything is how greatness is allowed to make itself a home.

Great Video. Cormac McCarthy talked in his video interview with David Krakow about (one of the great architects) Frank Lloyd Wright, and one thing that seriously differentiated him from other architects is that he’s designed/built thousands of buildings. Meanwhile the average architect today designs like 10. It’s both comforting and daunting to understand that there is no track to getting good at something other than putting in deliberate practice/study/effort + time/discipline. However an interesting thing David Foster Wallace acknowledged (On Charlie Rose 1997) is that while he was in his graduate program he was under the delusion that the Professors who said his writing was bad just didn’t understand his style of writing - when his writing was indeed bad. Another interesting note is that DFW began writing Infinite Jest the same year he started teaching at Emerson College. I think your point still stands that you can’t simply autopilot through these academic tracks in life expecting to output these greats pieces of work. You just have to put in the work.

I appreciate that you're bursting with passion for writing. 😎👍

A MFA did a lot for Nic Pizzolatto, the writer of True Detective Season One, arguably the greatest series put on television yet. It is helping and improving my writing. It mainly consists out of learning, so I am taking a lot of classes, which are interesting and very helpful - especially with my screenwriting. A course on constructing sentences has taken my writing to another level and I have improved my vocabulary range greatly. In addition, it exposes you to some great writers you might never encounter on your own. I've read some amazing short stories that have impressed me no end. Even just that is edifying. Just being exposed to great literature improves, infuses, and informs your own work.

@wallygropius4451

4 ай бұрын

Pizzolatto just stole from Alan Moore

@donvonfilms2937

4 ай бұрын

@@wallygropius4451 Didn't he just pay homage to him? A lot of writers take stories and tweak them or add something different. The Odyssey has been told many times over in different settings and with different characters, for example. Shakespeare took some older stories and jazzed them up. I don't know who Alan Moore is, but I will check him out, because if his story is anything like Pizzolatto's, I want to read him. Thank you.

@donvonfilms2937

4 ай бұрын

@@wallygropius4451 Ah, I know his work. From what do you think Pizzolatto stole? From Hell? I know he took some killer lines from Thomas Ligotti, and he got the idea of the Yellow King from Robert Chambers, but there is a long tradition of giving a nod to the creations of those who came before. Robert E. Howard referred to some of Lovecraft's creations etc. Nic Pizzolatto sure put it all together in a unique and wonderful way. There is also a lot of original work in True Detective. But that is just my view.

Great video! Colleges have become factories taking in government money and tuition from student loans and spit out brainwashed BS in most departments across country. What makes it even worse is the comfortable little world the professors, faculty and some select students get to build for themselves with walls of ivory. We had maybe the greatest opportunity in human history to build a society of scientists, explorers, doctors and scholars...instead we built a massive labyrinth of bureaucrats and administrators of public and private, self absorbed inteligencia whose only real skill is rooting out and destroying anyone with a hint of talent, creativity or freedom of thought.

@sweetviolents29

4 ай бұрын

Damn, I felt that in my bones.

Great video, very good stuff. I am one of those people at a debt-free MFA and a teaching gig and all of what you have said in this video is really relatable, especially the need to part to work alone. It’s surprising just how difficult the program was to get into and how sub-par many in my cohort are. Many of my fellow writers are just kind of here, taking up space.

"...shield to your own problems with time management, with self-esteem, with self-learning, with actually making friends without having to pay for them." aaaaaamen

I had to read Roberto Bolano all weekend to get the voices of my classmates out my head

This is great advice. Sorry, I didn't see a link to your book in the description.

This video is very healing for me

@WriteConscious

3 ай бұрын

Glad I could help brotha!

I spent €900 a year on my art degree back home in Ireland - where college prices aren’t batshit insane scams as they are here in the US - but it still was barely even worth it 😂

My MPhil at JCU , Townsville, almost destroyed my self confidence. I totally agree about creative courses they can destroy writers’ confidence.

Thanks Ian. I've thought about getting into a program but I just couldn't bring myself to do it, for many of the reasons you've mentioned. I'm glad I never did it.

Cant wait for the networking video!

Saying, “yeah, well you haven’t written one of the best works ever” is just a tad exaggerated. Though I agree with your premise, you made some hyperbolic statements.

Dude, this was a banger.

Best channel on youtube. Thank you.

@WriteConscious

4 ай бұрын

Thanks for the support brotha!

Love that you sought out work where you could have more opportunities to write and read. I want to do that.

@WriteConscious

4 ай бұрын

Hello Yves! We're still going to do that podcast episode we talked about months ago on Instagram. I'm finally starting to steer the ship more toward writing!

@YvesThePoet

4 ай бұрын

That is fantastic! I dig what you're doing!@@WriteConscious

An MFA program itself is not the problem, its your classmates sometimes that are the problem

I feel like I made the right "decision" to enter a PhD English program rather than an MFA program, and a better decision still to leave with an MA rather than going through with the Doctorate. I got to be all alone with my "What the Hell is THIS?" obsessions through a series of mostly crappy but colorful jobs, punctuated by desperation, poverty, and homelessness. It's been fun! Now I, too, get to be a public school teacher, currently substitute, which will do more for my writing than being a college-bound academic ever would have.

Isn't the writing sample the most important part of the application for full funding mfa programs? I feel that they have to be able to write a good sentence to get into a top 25 program. Perhaps many of them didn't have that aspiration to become the greatest writer. I know some just want to become professors through the program.

I'm not going to try and tackle infinite jest at my age but I've read about wallace's experience at that writers' workshop and the disgust he felt with people who were supposed to be helping him. He said they didn't even have "the convictions of their hate" for him and their attitude totally changed when he started to become successful. Still don't understand why he killed himself after finally succeeding people can learn to live with mental problems with the right support.⚛😀

@mattheww797

4 ай бұрын

He tried changing medications for depression. And when he went back to his old medication again it stopped working. I’ve never read anything from him.

Oh good…I’ll not get me MFA then

I am not sure it is a great idea to take advice from a guy that killed himself.

@Thurnishaley6969

4 ай бұрын

myopic comment. that ignorance isnt good for writing

@WriteConscious

4 ай бұрын

We shouldn't take MMA advice from Anderson Silva because he isn't the champion anymore!