What My MFA Taught Me about Holding Myself Accountable
How I made writing on a schedule a habit
I’ve never been a “daily writer”. I’d love to be that person, honestly, and I’m working on it, but in school, I was always the type to write and edit a month’s worth of work at a time in a manic frenzy and then disappear from the writing desk for a while until I got another burst of energy. I’ll admit, I got a lot of really fantastic work done that way, only writing when “the muse” struck me over the head, but it wasn’t sustainable when it was time to start assembling my thesis or building a portfolio.
Around the middle of my thesis year, in the midst of a mental health crisis, I had pushed off thesis meetings and submissions with my advisor several times in a row. He sat me down, kindly, and offered some advice that I rebelled against at the time, but I’ve since taken to heart.
First, was something I can’t stand; “write every day”. As I said before, I’m not an every day writer and I can’t suggest this to anyone else. Some people work great on this kind of schedule, sitting down for a few hours of scheduled “writing time” in front of a blank page. For me, the dreaded “terror of the blank page” is a very real thing, and if I don’t have anything to say, I don’t say it.
As I was resistant to that advice, he tried something else. “Think of those daily writings as sketches”, he offered. This was interesting to me, as someone who had switched into writing from a studio art background. Sketches don’t have to be perfect. They’re warmups, meant to practice skills and stretch your metaphorical wings. As writers, I think we often get caught up in perfection and completely forget that our idea of good is likely very different from that of our readers. I can mull over a piece of writing forever that’s likely completely fine because to me it isn’t “perfect”. I liked sketches.
He took this a bit further. “Send me the sketches”. What? No. How dare you. This was offensive to me on a molecular level. Sketches are like the small undressed versions of my writing, not yet ready to be out in the world, and certainly not ready for scrutiny. But he continued to say that he wouldn’t read them if that’s what I wanted. I could send him the “sketches”, as long as I was sending something every week, and he would check to see that it was new work but not actually read it or comment on it if I didn’t specifically request it.
This was totally new to me. This gave me something to work towards and a goal to meet (at least two new “sketches” per week) but took away a lot of the pressure that I had put on myself before to have perfect, polished, publishable work from the get-go. Sketches gave me the freedom to try new things, and sending them gave me the option to open them up to a stranger when I was ready, even if I wasn’t ready at the time that I sent them. I found myself writing more and more content (in my case, poems) and in styles that I never would have attempted before because I had been given both accountability and a safety net.
Now, we’re not all in college programs and we don’t all have very supportive advisors or professors to test this out on, but most of us have at least one trusted friend or family member, or mentor, who would likely allow us our “sketches”. Recently, some friends set up the same process in a writing group where each member submits a “sketch” (or draft, or finished piece if they are so ready) in a shared Google Docs folder, and notes whether or not they want eyes or comments on it.
Sometimes the hardest thing to do as a creative writer is the actual writing. When we’re not given strict deadlines for our creative projects, it can be hard to find the motivation to make them happen — especially if we’re “batch writers” (like myself). Learning to let go of perfection and send out your sketches, regardless of readiness, to trusted eyes will help you test new writing, create more content that you like, and develop a working writing schedule without the pressure of publication.
