Desperately want an MFA. Master of Fine Arts. An advanced diploma in creative writing.
Shared this idea with a buddy some twenty-five years ago. He gives me a quizzical, then disappointed, look and says quietly,
“Oh, great, then you’ll have two worthless degrees.”
“If you’re gonna write, for God in heaven’s sake, try to get naked. Try to write the truth. Try to get underneath all the sham, all the excuses, all the lies that you’ve been told. . . . If you’re gonna write fiction, you have to get right on down to it.” – Harry Crews
Should have done this forty years ago, instead of law school.
Might even have my student loans paid off.
Or not.
Looked into low-residency programs.
Liked the hell out of Goddard’s operation.
Their West Coast “campus” is in Port Townsend – one or my most favorite towns – on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Practically home to me.
This from the sales pitch: Port Townsend’s campus is located at Fort Worden, a former Victorian-era Army base with beaches, trails, and a seaside town full of funky shops and gourmet restaurants within walking distance.
But the prices? Smoke out my ass.
Suppose you are actually a writer without a second job. And old without extra money to squander – good writerly word – seems perhaps unnecessarily extravagantwhich reminds me of vagrant which is not how I want to live out mysundowning years.
About the only reason to go would be to hang out with some other writers.
There’s gotta be cheaper ways.
Re-organized my book case. Two cases now.
Got rid of poker books, moved running books, made room for more literary pursuits.
In How To Write A Damn Good Novel, James N. Frey discusses the difference between natural man (homo sapiens) and fictional man (homo fictus).
Homo fictus is simpler.
Homo fictus has hotter passions and colder anger, travels more, fights more, loves more, changes more, has more sex. Lots more sex. Homo fictus has more of everything. Even if he’s plain, dull and boring, he’s more extraordinary in his plainess, dullness and boringness than his real-life counterpart.
Human beings sometimes do foolish things. They misspeak, they forget, they buy when they should sell, they miss opportunities, they’re blind to the obvious. In effect, they are not at all times and in all situations operating at their maximum capacity. Not so with homo fictus.
The principle of maximum capacity does not require that a character always be at an absolute maximum, but is at the maximum within that character’s capability.
Homo fictus always operates at his maximum capacity and it is never within a dramatic character’s maximum capacity, when faced with a problem or a challenge, to do nothing.
What the hell, I’ll just take a nap instead.
http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/12/15/after-my-struggle-an-interview-with-karl-ove-knausgaard/
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