Sardonic Shock Syndrome: Unsolicited Advice for New Writers from Someone Unqualified to Give It, Volume 18

For as much as I rag on Workshops and "art by committee," I did indeed go to grad school myself (thus sitting through numerous workshops), and not just any grad school - I have an MFA. An MFA is what you get when you're still too drunk to get a day job, you haven't published anything, you're certainly not getting paid for what you're not publishing, and you're not disciplined enough for a PhD. It's not a money degree, and it's only kind of sort of a prestige degree insofar as people who know what it takes to get an MFA might be kind of impressed, but most people need a pretty thorough explanation as to why you'd pay more for an MFA than an MA, why it is actually worth less, and why the hell you'd even bother.

If you're so smart, how come you got one of these?

Grad school is where you go when you can't hack the real world. I know one or two of my friends still in grad school or having just graduated are getting all butthurt and saying "Nuh-uh, I'm on a career track to become a professor," and I will add a corollary to the first point and say "The academy is where you go when you can't hack the real world, and getting on a professorial career track is double plus mega not handling the real world."

In all fairness though,the real world sucks. I've been in it for six months and I'm already bored. You're telling me I have to do this for the next 40 years? F that right in the A. Six months ago I was living on student aid and my combined responsibilities took up probably 25 hours a week. Now I bust my ass 50-60 hours a week, the best aid I can hope for is a student loan deferment and a bridge card, and let's be honest - there are no pretty, young co-eds looking up to me as a wizened voice of sexy literary authority.

What's not happening to me right now

But lest I romanticize endlessly over my own experience at UNLV, I think I should actually offer some of the unsolicited advice that this blog claims to put forth. Here goes, new writers: what you can expect if you go to grad school, mostly in terms of getting away from preconceptions and comparing / contrasting it to undergrad.

First, it is not one big party. Undergrad? Maybe kind of one big party. Most of your classes you can just kind of phone in, and in that respect it was a lot like High School - thanks to a slippery slope of decreasing academic standards, your professors probably told you almost exactly what to do, just like your teachers did, and you did it and got an A.

Founded country, spoke 4 languages, invented archaeology - but really, congrats on just barely passing English 101.

For the most part you will take classes that you actually need, and even if you're just taking classes you want, those classes will for the most part involve a lot more work than you're used to. Yes, there are professors who just expect you to show up and listen, but even if you aren't overburdened with work from jump street, you will have some sort of massive paper or presentation due at the end of the term, and it's got to be good. Unless you're blowing the professor, which brings us to our second point:

It's not one big orgy. Undergrad? Kind of a big orgy. In undergrad everyone is rejoicing at this new-found independence and doing the happy no-pants dance. It's a great time to fuck random people and smoke random things , and drink random things that may or may not make you go blind. Everyone takes their first two years and does absolutely nothing, then kind of more-or-less straightens out and picks a major in year three.

So, how did you do on the GRE?

By the time you get to grad school, a goodly chunk of your fellow students are married. Those that aren't married are probably really focused on their work, or have boyfriends / girlfriends back home with whom they are "keeping it going" since grad school (non PhD) only takes a couple years. If you're lucky you'll find a couple cool people to party with, and you'll probably fool around at least a little bit, but by grad school age you've been independent for 4 years at least, you're in your twenties or thirties, and starting to take life a little more seriously, and so is just about everyone with whom you might want to have frivolous casual sex.

Finally, and this is mostly a good thing, you will have time to write. The big drunken orgy that is undergrad probably didn't leave you a lot of time to get things done. You may have still had a sort of high-school "let's do extracurricular activities" approach which means that in addition to your 14 credits and a part-time job, you're jerking off homeless people or feeding farm animals, or some combination thereof. You're either studying or drinking or screwing and everything goes by in such a blur that next thing you know you're stuck behind a desk 40 hours a week with screaming babies and a mortgage.

I've got a great story idea about a guy who gets drunk and throws up

Grad school is a little bit like a writer's retreat, but instead of going up to some quiet woodland lake in Vermont with a bunch of pretentious neurotic hacks with more money than sense, you'll get good informative reading assignments, structured writing exercises, teaching experience, and lots and lots of time.

If you're like me, you'll probably drink a fair portion of that time away, but let me offer you this advice, new writer - if you have half an ounce of discipline, a resistance to masturbatory academic self-indulgence (that is, the ability to walk barefoot on hot coals, to listen to academic BS and not get any on you), and some good ideas that just need some time to gestate, grad school might actually be the place for you. No, it's not as fun as undergrad. No, it doesn't pay as well as a real job. But yes, it does give you ample time to write, and it may very well be time well spent.