Home Again

I've been home for a while actually. I got back to Texas last Sunday night. It's taken me a few days to get back into my routine at home and sort of absorb the whole writing conference experience. Vermont was very intense. There seemed to be readings, lectures, classes, workshops, or some writing-related thing every hour. For someone who is used to spending the majority of her day in a room by herself, it was overwhelming. I met a lot of great people, and heard a lot of incredible writers. And I had the great fortune of being in the workshop led by this woman, one of my heroes. She said some very complimentary things about my novel and writing and those words are going to carry me through the end of the draft.

I think this writers' conference, like MFA programs in general and almost any writing endeavor, is not for everyone. I got a lot out of the conference, personally. I was in a workshop led by a writer I admire, I got introduced to a lot of great writing I might not have heard otherwise, and I was in craft classes taught by writers who have many more years of experience than I do and have given a lot of thought to the topics they chose. However, there is still a hierarchy present. I've heard it's much better than past years and that the current administration has tried to downplay it. The hierarchy wasn't overwhelming but it was there. And I'm not sure that it could ever disappear. After all, you have people there who have published many books to critical and financial acclaim. And other people who have published ... nothing. Writing is celebrated there, writing for writing's sake, but in the end, what do you have to go on but someone's track record? That's what creates most of the hierarchy, in my opinion, and how can that be gotten rid of? So that aspect of the conference didn't bother me too much.

The constant socializing sort of did. I'm just not used to talking to so many people all the time. Every aspect of the day had a social element. I had a (wonderful) roommate, a communal bath, and every meal was shared with many other individuals. It was exhausting to make so much small talk all the time and conversations with strangers are more taxing than those with old friends. However, I did have some great conversations with many writers at different stages in their careers. Some were in MFA programs, some were considering them, others were writing on their own. In the end, the work is what mattered.

One very valuable thing I learned at the conference: There's a lot of good, competent work. There isn't a lot of very good or great work. Of course, we all like to think that the writing we are making is of the very good or great variety, but most people tend to think more highly of their work than is warranted (I include myself in this group). So often, when editors are faced with a lot of competent work, they pick the manuscripts that speak to them in some way. So much of this business--from the writing to the representing to the publishing to the selling (and then from the reader's end) to the buying--is based on personal taste. Nothing more. That was an interesting lesson to learn.

So now I'm back in Texas, looking for a job, trying to finish my book. One other thing that's good about the conferences is that I met editors and agents, and each person I met with was interested in my work and said the same thing: Send it to me when you're done. Don't rush it, make sure you're done. So I have some contacts and some nice words from a writer I admire and now it's time to keep making piles of pages.