So I’ve realized that my on-again, off-again Twitter account has encouraged a burgeoning possibly bad habit: piling up books in my TBR (To Be Read) pile while also consuming far too much of my free time.

And because it’s Thursday, and I need to start making this blog a habit, I thought I’d mention how crazy it is that collectively, so many of us (myself included, despite my attempts to fight it) have traded our long-form reading habits for hours of internet scrolling and “microblogging” on Facebook and Twitter.

I think there’s something to be said for recovering whole-book reading. There’s a sense of context you get from a whole book that’s missing from short articles, blog posts, and social media. Maybe that lack of context is helping fuel our increasingly-divisive, increasingly-polarized society. Maybe. I don’t know, but I think it definitely isn’t helpful that we get so much of our information in context-free bits and pieces from people who frequently are unqualified to comment on something or just don’t know the whole story.

So, books. I just finally caved and bought Beth Moore’s memoir and I think I’ll work on that this weekend. Never mind that I have five other books —three on the Kindle (at least) and two —wait, three— books on my nightstand to finish. Whether or not I actually have ADD/ADHD, I might actually have attention-deficit-reading disorder. And so, I think I’ll abandon all those other excellent books, …and get started on something new, of course.

Signing off before one more of my literary Twitter friends mentions yet another book I can’t live without reading (thank God for my library’s Libby app, or I’d really be in trouble), and maybe —just maybe— I’ll throw in a short review of Beth Moore’s book here once I finish, just to be sure that I actually *do* finish it in less than a couple weeks. Stay tuned.

November first, and the high is supposed to hit near 70 degrees. The photo was from a little less than a month ago, one of the first mornings of frost on the ground. Leaves haven’t been very colorful in town. Seeing as the trees around here survived the 100 mph winds of a derecho in May and more severe weather than we’ve had for quite a while, I suppose it’s understandable that they’d be tired out after a long, difficult summer —perhaps it’s too much to expend the energy on dressing before death this year. The front yard trees are bare already, the side yard trees are hanging on to about half their leaves, dangling from the branches and dried out, a dull brown to pale yellow-green.

Next week, the clocks will be back to standard time —no more waiting in the dark for the bus or driving home at 5:30 pm with the glaring Western sun in people’s eyes. Now, I suppose, we wait for snow and winter to come. It’s been a strange summer, not only because of the weather patterns, but also because of getting used to a new home, a new town. I should walk more. Maybe with the unseasonable warmth this week, I’ll manage to make that happen.

And it’s the first day of NaNoWriMo —National Novel Writing Month. I’m not writing a novel, but I’m finally getting started in earnest on my next writing project. Apparently they allow us non-novelists to join in now (don’t let me catch you calling a nonfiction book a novel), so I’m taking advantage of the accountability. We’ll see how close to 50,000 words of ”sh*tty first drafts” (as Anne Lamott would say) I can get down in a month. I’m taking a hiatus from Twitter, starting yesterday, so that should help as well to get me writing more in long form and less in short bursts.

At any rate, happy November, and happy day one of NaNoWriMo to those who celebrate, as they say. Here’s to a month of writing and walking and settling in for whatever winter will bring.

Time to go get some coffee and start this day for real.

Pro #2: Dedicated Time to Write

(Second in a series of posts designed for people considering the pros and cons of earning a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, specifically a low-residency MFA. I’m one year out from completing mine, and thought I’d share my experience. The first post in the series can be found here.)

Ask any MFA graduate what they liked best about their program, and they’re likely to mention the dedicated time (and, perhaps, permission) to write. An MFA program should get you in the habit of doing the two things that can make nearly anyone a better writer: focused, habitual reading and regular, disciplined writing. 

Many of us who write find that we can procrastinate these two essentials right out of our lives far too easily. Reading falls by the wayside, replaced with social media, work obligations, aimless internet browsing, and social media. Writing falls victim to short blasts on Twitter, useless arguments on Facebook, emails, and everything else that comes our way. The quickest way to get a clean house around here is usually to get me started on a writing project. Procrasticleaning, procrastibaking, procrastinapping, call it what you will, but all are very real enemies of getting sh…tuff done on the page. Homework and deadlines and feedback from your mentor and cohort help fight against these tendencies.

A good MFA program will also push you to your limits in terms of writing regularly and writing a lot. You will learn quickly that “The Muse” is a myth. If there is a muse, it’s activated by applying your behind to a chair and writing whatever comes to mind on a regular basis. Those who write when the spirit strikes are usually those who find themselves wondering why they never complete anything. As John Darnielle so aptly put it during a workshop years ago at the Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing (I may be paraphrasing), “writer’s block is a bourgeois luxury.” 

If you’re a working writer, you learn that working people keep regular hours. Some days are more productive than others, but no work will ever be done if you don’t clock in and show up. A good MFA program will give you something to show up to. It will keep you accountable. It will teach you how to become a working writer and how to stare down the intimidation of a blank page. In the case of a low-residency program like the one I graduated from, it will also force you to find a balance between your day job and your writing life. 

Pro# 3: Dedicated Time to Read

I can’t speak for every MFA program, but reading was a huge part of mine. I fell into writing mainly as a side-effect of two things: I’ve been an avid reader since childhood, and I journal to keep myself sane. The readings I was assigned in my MFA program gave me a sense of what’s out there in the world. I read things I’d never have picked up on my own (hello, Eat the Apple). I was exposed to a plethora of different writing styles, genres, and more book recommendations than I could possibly keep up with. During my first year’s summer residency, I started carrying around a small notebook just to keep track of all the book recommendations our mentors brought up in workshops and classes. 

I developed a deeper knowledge of contemporary and classic literature, which books were being talked about, which authors were in vogue (or not, often because of their behavior beyond the page). I learned the importance of reading outside my own experience, of amplifying voices outside my own world by reading and recommending, and now, assigning books by authors whose voices must shout over that of the majority to be heard. That exposure to a variety of other writers broadened my own writing and gave me many models to follow, or at least to experiment with. Even more valuable than the depth and breadth and volume of reading we accomplished, we learned to read as writers. We learned to go from saying, “I love this book” to being able to articulate why we loved it. We were encouraged to look into the writing craft of a book. 

Could a person do this without the structure and expense of an MFA program? Absolutely. For many, this might be the better route to take. Writers have compiled books that essentially form a sort of do-it-yourself MFA. What the books don’t come with, however, is accountability. Without the external motivation of completing something like an academic program, developing those habits will be more difficult —but not impossible. The accountability (and, hopefully, if you picked a good program) encouragement that comes within the community of an MFA program is something that would be difficult to replicate on one’s own. You could possibly start or join a local writers’ group, join an online writers’ forum, find a friend to read your work and keep you motivated, but then, the community is another reason many are attracted to an MFA program. More on that in a day or two.