Problem solved: bigger problem averted

So there are a few times in my life where even my ye-of-little-faith mind can't dismiss the seemingly present hand of a God whose fingers are even in the pie of my life.

One of these times recently happened.

I have been debating for 2 years now about how to best go about doing the thing I most love: write. Considering attending Grad School to get my Masters in Fine Arts in Creative Writing has been a prominent avenue I've considered. So, after 2 years of twiddling with the idea, I decided a month ago to move forward. I enrolled in writing classes, ordered my GRE study books, and decided which Grad Programs I would apply to: University of Utah, BYU, University of Arizona, Arizona State University, and UC Irvine (all of which have MFA Creative Writing programs placed in the top 50 or 100 in the nation, with the exception of BYU who just barely created a program for the MFA). I started getting all eager about the idea when this little thought crept in: what if Grad School kicks the crap out of the kind of writing I most enjoy in the name of academic excellence? What f I spend 2 years in a program that taints every aspect of what is best about my writing style?

Why this thought? I'll tell you why. Because I took one writing class at UCLA a year ago which made it clear that there is a specific style of writing that is categorized as "literature," and the rest is dismissed immediately, or at least as quickly as you can say "Expelliarmus!" (That was a hint into another masterful fiction writer they would have beat the snot out of). In that class I found myself torn between 2 desires: to write what they deemed as "good", which I occasionally did to the delight of my classmates and Professors, or to write what I loved, at which they often smiled pleasantly to cover their clenched teeth before saying something benign, like "Good for you for having fingers to type and for being able to write complete sentences." At least that's how it felt.

Another thing that spurned this suspicion -- every year a book is published releasing the top "Best" short stories of Creative Writing Grad Students across the nation. I've read those books, and there seems to be a definite vein of writing that you must master, rather than a whole spectrum of writing styles, the is only represented in the "Bests" publication.

So, I've had a lot of questions as of late and until a week ago, no sense of how to answer them. Questions like, "Does the academe really only foster a limited class of writing style, or am I imagining that? Is the kind of writing I do good and acceptable in other spheres, or is it less appreciated in the academe because it just plain sucks? How on earth do I get into the walls of these Grad Program classrooms before actually attending them to spy on what they are teaching? And would such classes foster my growth or misguide my goals in writing?

Well, I wasn't even sure I was onto something. After all, these concerns seemed based on one class at UCLA, and my perception of the "Best" publication -- easily a faulty bases of forming facts -- not a reflection of years of diverse experience and training. But then it happened: that guiding hand that answered a prayer I didn't even know I was praying.

The writing class I enrolled in recently has a Professor, we'll call her Marge, and Marge not only has an MFA, but a PH-FREAKIN-D, in Creative Writing. And for no good reason at all, she started talking one day in class about how the main reason she got a PhD was to be able, in academic terms, to defend the kind of writing SHE loves to do: supernatural Young Adult novels (a definite no no among the writing elite). She said if her skin weren't so thick she probably wouldn't have finished her grad program, because everywhere she looked the students and Professors were saying, "This here is the target, this is the bulls-eye that you should be aiming to cultivate in your writing," and she was like (and I had this very thought verbatim when I took that class at UCLA), "I can do that. I can hit that bulls-eye. BUT I have my own bulls-eye, which is just as legit as yours, but you are so focused on your bulls-eye that you don't know how to recognize any other writer's target."

So, after class I went to consult with Marge. It was deja vu for me, because the last time I had an un-prayed prayer answered I was randomly placed in the presence of someone who knew how to direct me to the information I needed, information I couldn't get just by searching the internet or asking around. The kind of information that 1 in 500 people will have and I just happen to have been placed at the feet of that very one, and they said something for no good reason that made me think, "Hey, I should ask them more about that." And wholla! problem solved.

So Marge brought an article to me the following week that helped me define and confirm my thoughts. Here's what I learned...

There are two general categories of writing in fiction: literary fiction, and genre fiction. Literary fiction could be compared to classical music--it is considered the sophisticated man's artistic preference, or in this case, the academe's sense of real writing. Genre fiction can be compared to all music that can be defined into genre music--jazz, hip-hop, pop, r&b, folk, country -- all very much appealing to a wider audience than just the scholars and all easily being placed into a genre or two. In writing that consists of all the commercial writing--meaning the books that actually sell--thriller, mystery, romance, fantasy, sci-fi, etc. MFA programs DO NOT nurture genre writing, with the exception of 1 -- a University in Pennsylvania.

Wow. Problem averted. I might have attended a Grad School and two years and $30K later, realized not only did I not learn what I had hoped to learn, but my natural drive to write genre fiction would have been beaten to a pulp and thrown into the garbage disposal, then burned for good measure.

I am so grateful and excited for this information miraculously coming my way, and for a sense of how to move forward with my passion.