I End A Chapter With An M.F.A.

 

Hello Internet World,

This will be my first post of 2012, and it is both exciting and bittersweet. I’m not going to sit here and explain the exciting because I think those were explained in my last post. Also, I can’t think of anything exciting right now. However, the bittersweet part is very much clear and lingering on my mind. I’m back in NYC after a wonderful week in Maine, and I brought with me so many memories and a new degree under my belt.

This past Saturday, the 14^th, was my graduation from Stonecoast.

Yup, I finally received my M.F.A. in creative writing. I still can’t believe how two years of hard work, making friends and having fun with such a small community of writers came to an end. It felt like only yesterday that I began my next step in my academic career by trying to get my masters degree, and now it’s all over. Every residency brought me joy and knowledge into what I was capable of in my writing, and with each workshop and mentor, I progressed through difficult times and achieved a necessary tool or skill that helped me to become the writer that I am now. This doesn’t mean that I’ll stop learning, of course not. It just means that I won’t have that support community so accessible anymore.

Well, that may not be entirely true because some of us can still email or meet to continue to share work. More importantly, it’s a way that maybe we can get together and still have fun.

So, how did my final residency go?

I think it went very well despite the fact that both my reading and my presentation were toward the end of the week. I was bummed a bit by that schedule, but in the end, I’m actually glad that it went that way. It’s not that I had a poor reading or presentation, not at all. As it turned out, I was actually more nervous about my reading as opposed to my presentation. I know this must sound silly, but that’s how I felt. The entire time I kept telling myself that I wished my presentation was scheduled earlier in the week, so that way I could finish up with a great reading. Here’s the funny part. I spent the entire week adjusting and editing the PowerPoint for my presentation. I started adding more information and making it longer, or in some cases shorter.

Originally, I thought the PowerPoint I had put together was sufficient to get my ideas across. However, the more I looked through it, the more I became paranoid and unsatisfied I got with it. So, I kept fidgeting with it until I had something that I felt was more thorough than what I started with. On top of that, a couple of nights before the presentation, I even put together a nice video to go along with the PowerPoint.

Can you believe I did all that! And I didn’t even look over my reading until the day before it was scheduled to take place. I knew what I wanted to read, but the extra work into the presentation kept me so immersed that pushed it to the side. Ha Ha!

When I did actually get to look over my reading, I had trouble adjusting my voice to it. This sounds strange I’m sure, but I could not find that pace and tone that I wanted to use. In addition, the very words that made up my story sounded weird. I think for most readers, when they read their own work out loud, it sounds awkward. Still, I tried my best to adjust my voice and find an appropriate pace to read my story. In the end, my reading turned out very well. I read my short story “The Guardian’s Paw” and it brought a few laughs and everyone enjoyed my take on anime/manga fiction. I felt such relief after. One down, one to go. I never realized how much anxiety I had built up around my reading, so after I read I was so much calmer.

My presentation on Manga was such a thrill for me. I actually felt very comfortable and excited about it. I mean, I spent all that time beforehand fixing and creating that I was amped! Everything went so well. Actually, not entirely. During the last ten minutes, I showed the video that I put together and half way through the power went out! Can you believe that? Ha Ha! The projector went out and so the lights, but my laptop kept playing. Soon after, everything came back on, and I finished showing the video and ending my presentation. Now, that’s a good way to go out on a high note. Or, is it a power outage note?

I even acted in two staged plays and that was fun. Several people came to me afterward and complemented me on how I did. They were all amazed by how well I acted out the parts I was given. Let me tell you that while I was humbled by their comments and appraisal, I didn’t think I did anything special. I’m not an actor, but I just played the parts the way I thought they needed to be. Above all, I just wanted to have fun with it. Everyone involved enjoyed the plays, being a part of it, and we made everyone laugh which I call a successful night in my opinion. If there was one downfall this residency, it turned out to be the fact that I got sick for about three days. I never got sick during a residency, so this was quite unexpected, but I made the most of it. I ate fruits and drink lots of orange juice as I recuperated.

Graduation came and went, and I said goodbye to so many people. I had such a good time talking to people, but in the end I also felt sad that it was over. It’s going to be so weird not having packets due by the end of the month anymore. Still, I will keep myself busy and continue to write new stories as I send other stories for publishing. It’s the beginning of a new journey and I want to mark my place somewhere on the path that I take. 

Even as I write this, all I can think about was how, a day ago, I was there with all of my Stonecoast buddies, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE! Now, I'm far away. Oh man, I'm not going to think about it. I'm in denial that it's over. I'll probably be like that for a bit, ha!

For now, I'll walk holding my head high knowing that I accomplished another noteworthy academic goal. I graduated from the Stonecoast MFA Program with my Master’s Degree in Creative Writing, and I’ll do my popular fiction brothers and sisters proud.