Rejection hurts, man. I had a pretty good day overall -- a birthday brunch for a friend of mine involving pancakes followed by "Dear John," a Nicholas Sparks adaptation that was just bad. But in a good way. But here's the thing. My heart is broken. Not in the traditional way, but via email, letters that were lost in the mail, and -- most cruelly -- by some 18-year-old who said, rather bluntly, "Oh, but you didn't get in." Over the phone. After butchering my address and kind of laughing about it. Rad.
What am I supposed to say? Unbreak my heart, NYU. I don't want to walk on broken glass, Michigan. You didn't stand by me, Iowa. No not at all. You oughta know, Madison. Irvine was not strong enough to be my man. I know this is my Paris blog, but I'm going to break out of Paris mode for just a moment, and while it may perhaps seem foolhardy to list every grad school that has rejected me for an MFA in fiction next fall, it's also cathartic. I'm still waiting on BU and Columbia, but my breath is no longer bated. It's time to figure out what the next step will be if all the snooty MFA programs I applied to don't deem my fiction worthy of perfecting.
Which, I just have to say, is kind of stupid. If it was truly terrible, a couple MFA rejections wouldn't stop me from writing it. But MFA rejections feel personal in a way that few other rejections are (well, aside from those of the actual interpersonal variety). But dude. That's ME in my work. More than it is in anything else I produce. Even when it's clearly not me. And no, I didn't base that character on you. What are you talking about?
But I digress. I'm going to make a cup of tea and ponder a couple other things for the moment. Freelance writing and photography. Law school. Writing the fucking Great American Novel sans MFA. Ha, that'll show 'em. An MFA in poetry. I know that it comes more naturally to me anyway. I know that there are more options and that I will figure this out in time. But for now it feels like getting dumped. I guess it's time to blast the Clash and reassess.
At least Paris will still be there in the morning.
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It does suck how personal the process feels... For the person trying to get in it's putting their hopes and dreams on the line, for the program it's just a bunch of names and papers. But I'm a strong believer in the idea that sometimes getting rejected is the best thing that can happen. The big anecdote I throw around is that when I applied to colleges in High School I got turned down from UVA, and stayed in-state on the cheap. 2 years later when I was ready to transfer, I got into UVA but now I knew a big University wasn't right for me, so I turned them down and went to Smith instead.
ReplyDeletePS-- though right now, the song I listen to when I want to feel sorry for myself about this subject is Broken Bells' 'October'.