For those of you who don't know about the rabbit hole called #PitchWars, let me give you a real quick rundown. Brenda Drake (you can check her site out here) created an online competition to give writers faster access to agents. All summer, people got ready for the grand Pitch that happened on August 19th. Over 1200 applicants applied, putting in their query letters and first chapters to four "mentors." The 75 mentors then each picked one mentee and one alternate to work with to get ready for the Agent Round in November, when more pitching and wishing will happen.

Funny story. I didn't know about this contest until I was aimlessly wandering around my twitter feed and found it about a week before my query would be due. So not wanting to miss an opportunity, I worked my butt off for a week, getting everything ready, and submitted.

I didn't really know how big of a deal this was, or how I would actually be asked for more pages. But two days later, I was asked for twenty-five more pages. Then fifty. Then a full. The absolute fear of handing over your entire manuscript to a possible mentor is something I've never experienced before. I may be a published author with editing credentials and a fourth of an MFA and teaching Creative Writing under my belt, but this was a whole new ballpark that for some reason, I hadn't run into before.

So I submitted. I stayed up in a Nyquil-sick stupor in a pile of Kleenexes while Alex played "Under Pressure" by Queen over the speakers as the mentee/alternate list was thrown out into the world.

HostGator won all the prizes in its site crash.

But five minutes later, I saw my story listed as an alternate for Sarah Guillory.

It's a weird thing, getting validation as a writer. We're taught not to want it, and we sign on to not expect it. But such a small thing like being chosen for PitchWars --- a small thing like more than one mentor cheering you on in cryptic tweets --- it adds that little drop of magic into your story, doesn't it? "I can't stop reading your beautiful words," another mentor wrote on her twitter at the same moment she sent me a request for a full. And someone saying I had beautiful words made my year.

My little manuscript, which I see so brightly in my own head, was beautiful to someone else.

Sometimes we lose some, but sometimes ... sometimes we actually win some.

So what did I learn from PitchWars? What didn't I learn from PitchWars? I learned how to write a query, much to the chagrin of my writing group and the four hours I held them hostage to help me. I learned how to communicate with "agents." I learned what a partial and what a full is. And above learning, I am so grateful for the experience. Everyone was so kind, so supportive of each other. Everyone wanted the best for each other, because we all know what it's like. We're all writers, and although there are only so many slots for so many people, we all get it. We all are loners who don't want to be alone, and there's something wonderful and empathetic in that. Writers rock. That's what I'm trying to say.

Now we get onto the second part of this blog post, which is what can we do when we get sick? This is still one that I'm trying to figure out. A few years ago, I got really sick. Like really sick. A procedure didn't go as planned. In the middle of a routine checkup, they found a tumor. Not only did that tumor throw a wrench into everyone's plans, but it also gave the doctors cause to just chuck as much anesthesia they could find at my IV drip. I had to be completely out in order for them to try to remove the sucker, and that meant a split-second decision to pump me to sleep.

I'd never recovered from surgery before, and lemme tell you, it's not like how it is in the Disney movies. You don't just flutter awake and go, "Oh my, did it go well?" and then go home and everything is peachy keen. It took a good month and a half for me to feel normal again. And that's not even talking about the lifestyle changes I had to make in order to keep myself cancer-free.

Did I write during that time? No. Do I wish I had? Yes.

I always think about that lost month and a half when I get sick now. Now when I say get sick now, I mean when I get an awful cold and can't go outside for a day or so. When you feel like crud, what can you do? This morning I woke up, and my sinuses pressed up against the back of my eye, and I couldn't even see the words on my laptop screen. This is a frustrating experience. But I grabbed some gauze, taped it to my bad eye, and kept typing. Because sometimes you just have to be Patchy the Pirate to do what you need to do.

But what can you do? Anything you can do. Audiobooks. Music playlists. Mental planning. Phone calls. Notebooks. Drawing. Or hell, writing. Walt Disney plotted out a good amount of his revisions to Disney World's blueprints from his deathbed. They say he "drew it on the hospital ceiling." I don't think he literally did this, because the man was dying and did not have Stretch Armstrong arms, but you get the gist. If you are a writer, you need to write.

If you want to be a published writer, you need to submit your work.

Keep going. Keep fighting. Keep writing.

And come November, check out the #PitchWars Alternate Showcase. I'll see you there. (I Write For Apples hosts this year)

There are times where the world collides with us. External actions interrupt our flow of everyday internal life. We remember that the deepest, oldest parts of us are still there and do have shape and form.

For me, this was Robin Williams killing himself.

Robin Williams dying isn't just another celebrity death. Robin Williams was my fake uncle ("He was everybody's fake uncle!" a friend said yesterday). He was depressed. What artist hasn't been depressed? He was lost. Which of us haven't been lost? As my Facebook newsfeed multiplied throughout the week, I saw personal stories of colleagues, friends, and mentors all divulge the fact that they understood how Robin felt all too well. All the stories had two things in common: everyone suffers, and everyone suffers in silence.

Then the clips started to pop up. You know what I'm talking about. Robin Williams saying something really profound in Dead Poets Society, Robin Williams talking about death in Good Will Hunting and Bicentennial Man, Robin Williams being freed from the lamp in Aladdin. One by one, people pointed to words he'd once said under the guise of a character and declared that there was something profound about his work and his life and his death.

I agree.

"We don't write poetry because it's cute," he said in Dead Poets. "We write poetry because we are members of the human race."

Damn right, Mr. Keating.

He goes on to say that we do business and law in order to live, but we write and read in order to have something to live for.

How much truer can you get about art?

Mr. Williams meant something in this world, because of his art. He suffered, he hurt, and yet he gave his audiences hope. He was sad, but he still sang and danced and dressed in drag to promise us children of the nineties that we were still loved and we had a friend out there. Some of my first imaginary playmates were Batty and the Genie, and when my parents hit their separation, I took Mrs. Doubtfire's closing remarks to be the gospel. Later on when I was having a hard time dealing with adolescence, Peter Pan declared that he believed. Whenever we were weak, he made us stronger.

Even if he was feeling weak himself.

Tom Hanks conjures up a sentiment in Saving Mr. Banks that still hasn't left me, and I saw this movie all the way back during Christmas 2013. He plays Walt Disney, and he discusses the reasons for wanting to change the ending to Mary Poppins. He says that the world is bleak, but by writing hope, storytellers give hope. And maybe, just maybe, those dreams can someday come true.

Walt's dream was to make the happiest place on earth, teach kids that dreams aren't dumb, and the fact that Disney World exists is just one example of how Walt isn't full of, as Mr. Keating would say, excrement.

Robin didn't always have hope, but he knew how to give it. He knew what would make someone smile, cry, or just think for a goddam second. And because of him, we're all the better for it.

We don't do art because it's cute. We do art because we are members of the human race.

Robin is gone. We lost our Captain. He's not coming back. But he did leave his verse. Now he's somewhere standing behind us, whispering in our ear with that grizzled, hairy voice: "Carrrpe. Carrrpe Diieeem. Seize the Day, boys! Seize the Day!"

You're still here. And you don't get to go anywhere, because now it's your turn. How do you fight your own demons? How do you create hope for this world? Where is your poetry?

What will your verse be?

So my reading list has begun for Stonecoast, and this week I actually had two writing retreats: one with Kaitlin, and one with Alex down in the capital so he could take his bar exam. This meant I was shuffled around to hotel rooms with nothing but books and spotty internet access all week.

It was awesome.

So while Alex took his test, I dove into Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman, paired with Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury.

And something clicked.

I've always had this weird, dark place sitting in the back of my head. A rural town where things happen. Little boys in overalls and little girls who can see the future. I wanted to write stories that talked about ghosts, dead grandmothers, prophecies out of the mouths of children that live in old weathered wooden houses at the end of gravel roads. I wanted to write about other worlds and boys who never grow up and men who did too much growing up. But for some reason, for some stupid reason, I thought I was supposed to write "a certain way." I was supposed to learn "how to write a short story" and "what sort of a short story people would want to buy."

So surprise when I read Bradbury, and he said no.

Don't write for fame or fortune, he warns. Don't be a liar. Don't tug at your audience and try to manipulate them. Just write for you. Write those stories that you've carried with you since you were a kid.

Bradbury talks about Mr. Electrico, a sideshow worker from the circus who told him as a child during an act "You will live forever!" The next day, little Ray found Electrico and spent the whole day with him, going around to the different backstage tents and having his own personal tour. At the end, Electrico told Ray that in a past life, the boy had been his best friend and died in the war. Bradbury writes in his book that he doesn't know if he believes in immortality or past lives, but that little boy does. And that little boy has never steered his writing wrong.

This idea of writing from the heart, from the innocence of childhood and magic, is obviously put into place in Neil Gaiman's book. I've been a longtime fan of Gaiman, seeing him advocate for what he wants to write and always being true to his story and characters. I admire his honesty. And I am in awe of his imagination.

In Ocean, he says he wrote a book to explain to his wife who he was. These people who had lived in his head for years now came to the surface and he wrote them all out in two weeks. Ocean was the water on Helen Keller's hand for my brain. It was the sort of book I'd always wanted to write, but didn't know how. And then I saw how Neil put it all together, and I said to myself, "Yes. This is what writing is."

Writing is sitting down and taking all of those parts of yourself you don't think will interest anyone else, but interest you. And you write them. And yes, they will interest others, because although they're old hat to you and they have haunted you for years, turns out we all have different experiences. My knowledge of ghost stories might not have been a thing that you, the reader, grew up with. Gaiman's ocean at the end of this little country lane was a familiar thing to him as a child, but is completely new to our eyes.

And in writing what we are, who we are, what is at the core of ourselves, we write in that ever elusive "voice." We aren't the next Hemingway, like Bradbury warns us not to be. We are what he calls "The New Element." We are true to ourselves, we do not lie, and so we tell one hell of a story.

Write like Bradbury. Write your Electrico. Write your ocean. It may look like a little pond, but like Gaiman says, it's so much more.

How nice should I be? How mean should I be? I'm editing my classmates' stuff, and I'm used to editing as an editor with a client I am working for. And yes, you as the editor must have a bit of teamwork in that kind of relationship with your client, but at the end of the day, you've either been given many moneys to help that client for your expertise, or you have been hired by a publisher because you know what you're doing. There's confidence in that role. Now I'm sitting not as an editor, but as a classmate, a peer. If I'm too mean, then maybe I'm being precocious. If I'm too nice, then maybe I'm not doing my assignment correctly. Without knowing the culture of the school or how MFA programs work, I might just dip into pro-mode and start giving notes on what must change before this can be published ... before I remember that's not my place in this case.

So in this program, you submit your manuscript about three months before you actually go to workshop. I've completely revised the crappy manuscript I turned in, working with other editors and writer pals to get it to a better place. Now that I look at my old draft, I am so afraid of what is to come at this workshop. I want to give one of those taboo disclaimers, where I stand up and wave my arms in the air and shout, "I know it sucks! I just worked twelve weeks making it not suck! Please God don't think I suck!" But we all know I wouldn't ever do that ...

I'm not gonna lie. I am hella awkward when I don't know anyone in a situation. And I know this is a stupid thing to worry about. I'm an adult! I am like three years away from being thirty, I have a full-time career, I have published a book and plays and have traversed some of the scariest American cities all by myself. I worked at a publishing company for three years. I freelance edit. I've started two writing groups. I teach Creative Writing. I have no bed time, damn it!

I am so scared of coming off like a faker, like a false writer, like an idiot who just finally learned what a chapbook looks like. I have this inexplicable fear of showing up and taking one look at everyone and realizing that while I know my stuff, they all got into a secret club long ago; a club to which I received no invite. I know this is stupid, but how as an adult, do I still worry about who I'm going to sit with at the lunch table?

Again, a stupid one for a grown woman. My fiance just moved up to this town. We haven't been separated since we ended our Long Distance Relationship three months ago. And now, a week, before I'm about to leave, our friend has died. I'm missing my friend's memorial game night to go to this residency, and I'm leaving behind a fiance who has just realized that mortality exists and we all are doomed to say goodbye to one another. I also will not lie: I slept in a blanket fort last night, because my friend made blanket forts, and when bad things happen, blanket forts sound like the best thing ever and you just want to sit in one and drink mounds of pop out of a Twizzler straw. The idea of leaving home right now is a tough one, but life has to carry on and we have to carry ourselves with it. Oh, happy day!

So I'm flying to Maine. I have to fit everything I need into like a suitcase. I've never been to Maine, and I've never been to these dorms or this college. I've heard I need a fan. Other than that, I do not know. What if I forget an important book? What if I forget my toothbrush? What if I forget my homework?!

Honesty, again: I plan to glomp onto the nicest, most patient upperclassman I can find and just tail them for the entire ten days. In the unfortunate event I cannot find a willing upperclassman, what will become of me? I will miss a bus. I will miss a class. I will miss food. I will miss the really cool hangout where everyone gets to know each other. I will get lost in Portland and no one will ever find me again!

I've heard that the Stonecoast residency is "like coming home." From the people I've met, they're so very nice.

I've been thinking a lot about my friend. I met them --- and yes, I am using them out of respect, not out of improper grammar --- on Facebook before I moved away to undergraduate. I was so nervous, not knowing what awaited me in Chicago and this university where fancy things happened and fancy strangers attended. So I reached out, to the people on Facebook who were also going to be freshmen in the fall. This was 2006, so there was actually a spot to write which dorm you were in, and so I searched people who would be living down the hall from me.

My friend was one of these people.

Looking back on our very first conversation via chat, because we live in the world of technological ghosts, I see that we were both very nervous about leaving home and going into the great perhaps. I barely knew the person who would become my friend. They were nothing but a stranger on Facebook, and I couldn't think of a scenario where college was an actual day-to-day, real-life thing I would excel at.

Now, eight years later, my friend and I had our last conversation a week ago, before they were taken. Our last conversation, funnily enough, was about that first year of college and who we'd roomed with. We reminisced on the hard parts, but also the good parts. We didn't know it would be our last conversation.

But that conversation was full of good memories. Although we'd been nervous about moving to the city and taking on the world, we'd done it. We both found happiness. We both grew into strong adults. We both had been brave enough to take that step into adventure and friendship.

Now I feel that anxiety again, starting a new chapter and a new program. I've met people on Facebook in preparation, and I feel as if I'm about to make a whole new bunch of friends. I can't imagine my day-to-day life being in a place far away that I've never seen in a program I've never experienced.

But eight years from now, I'll look back on this list of worries, and I'll laugh. Because new adventures are always frightening, but they're always worth it.

To all of you starting your MFA Programs, may the odds be in our favor.

A few weeks ago, Alex and I took a trip to Disney World.

I hadn't been there since I was like a year old, so my memory is fuzzy when it comes to the finer points of Disney travel.

For some reason, I assumed that the entirety of Winter Gardens, etc., would be just as beautiful as the Disney property. In my true naive fashion, I assumed that Florida's Welcome Sign was a cardboard set of Mouse Ears that said, "WELCOME, Y'ALL."

Not the case.

Now for those of you who have never been to Disney, I'll paint this picture for you. On the way to the park, you go down this highway that is lined shoulder-to-shoulder with the skeeziest, most awful stores imaginable. For some pictures of the skeeze and just how awful one's experience can be, check this blog entry from a Disney traveling blog. Big garish wizard heads, ugly plastic giraffes the size of apartment complexes, and big yellow signs reading CHEAP TICKETS CHEAP TICKETS.

Leeches flocked to the gates of Disney.

This was even sadder when we had to drive through it again to get back to the hotel. It was sad, because for those of you who haven't gone to Disney, the Magic Kingdom re-instills your faith in humanity. Cast Members are paid next to nothing, but they still work at the park because they believe in Disney's message of hope and kindness. The Imagineers believe in creating a home we all miss but never really knew. The whole resort revolves around pushing themselves so hard that you as a well-paying guest can come in and really get whisked away to a dream world.

There is a great give-and-take in the business of Disney World. You pay the money, they give you what you paid for. They are honest and true and classy when it comes to their product, and they uphold everyone on property to that same standard.

The highway outside does not. And the realization that people would set up faux ticket shops in the shadows of such a magical place just made me sad again. As soon as we exited the resort property, we were slapped in the face once more by cynicism, deceit, and all around shadiness.

I guess what I learned from this experience is how to carry my own "business" in the world. For anyone with a twitter account, you know there are legitimate people out there who try their best to gain followers, connect with other writers, and share their thoughts on a wonderful social media platform. Then there are others who don't know how to conduct their business. They spam you with automatic DMs, they promote their books with enough hashtags to break the pound sign on their keyboards, and they buy followers.

If you are a writer, be Disney World. Don't be the creepy plastic wizard store five feet from Disney. Believe in yourself, hold your head high, and conduct your business with class. People will recognize it, and people will follow you and buy your product.

I know a lot of us are still learning, and I think we shouldn't be hard on ourselves when we mess up, but we need to push forward to make our social media persona as good as possible. Let's all help each other out, let's all learn from each other, and let's be the good in the world.

Stay classy, internet.

 I started writing one of my books in 1999. While other books have been completed, I am still revising this particular manuscript even today.

You have probably been in a similar position with something you’ve written or are still writing or will always be writing. You have your friends go from being excited about your magnum opus to being sad because they think you’re stuck like a crazy person in a padded room. “You think maybe you can send it off now? No? Okay.”

But hey, how long did it take to write Gone with the Wind? A long time; ten years to be exact. So maybe sometimes it takes a while to get something right.

But hey, how long can you wait until the earth has passed on and your book is no longer relevant? So maybe you need to just give up or get it out there.

The thing about writing is that there’s no one sitting there telling you when it’s ready. There’s no real deadline except for the one you set for yourself. So you can keep pushing it back. You keep learning, so your manuscript can keep growing, right?

When is it time to let go? That’s what we’re going to focus on today. In answering this question, maybe you should first answer these questions:

Why am I still writing this book?
Do you still get something out of writing this book? There is definitely a script or two that I just gave up on because it didn’t matter to me or the world anymore. One of these was a play that was a thinly-veiled metaphor for the 2008 Election (and also my pining after a young man who broke up with me a month prior to me writing said play). But a year ago, I went and looked back at this poor play and decided never to work on it again. Why? Well, because I can barely remember what that heartbreaker looks like, and the 2008 Election was in 2008. So I’m not really getting anything out of it, and neither would the world. It’s best to let it lie and let go.

However, the best manuscripts are timeless, to both ourselves and the world. Genres and hot-topics come and go, but we will always enjoy reading something like Lovely Bones or The Color Purple. Pieces about the universal human condition have a little longer shelf life. But don't ride on that one comforting fact; if the reason you're still writing this book is because you're scared, you need to let it flutter its wings and fly.

Is it worth it?
Do you love this book enough to keep going? If you’ve grown a lot as a writer over the years, you may have to start over from scratch. Are you willing to do that to make it the best it can be? Or is it best to just let it be what it is? I know this is an issue for a lot of graduate students who grow exponentially after starting their studies. Honestly, I have no answer. I've revised many an old manuscript if I love it enough, but that brings us back to the question at hand. Is it worth it?

Is the clock ticking?
Ah, the shelf life again. If you were writing a vampire novel, your ship has sailed by this point. Breaking Dawn II premiered two years ago, and how many successful vampire movies have there been since? Even the dystopian schooner is breaking off in the distance. We’re now looking at alternative historical novels. So are you running out of time? Is the pot boiling over and the chicken over cooking? Is the insert another colloquialism here? If so, then maybe it’s just time to let it breathe and have agents see it before the agents don’t want to see it anymore?

Why haven’t you sent it off yet?
Nothing is ever going to be perfect. Your manuscript is never going to be what you want it to be. Are you holding your manuscript hostage because it has holes and issues you need to fix … or are you just scared? If you’re just scared, get over it and just send it out!

If you still believe in a project, don’t give up on it. But make sure that you’re willing to put in those ten years to make it what it should be. And if you lose interest, it’s totally okay to let go. Sometimes we have projects that just need to die. Sometimes projects are nothing more than stepping stones to better projects.

What’s the longest time you’ve spent on a manuscript? When do you think it’s time to quit? When do you think it’s time to send?

Death is a weird thing. We don't know what happens afterwards. We're not sure anything happens. All we know is the story of the survivor; the people still on this side of the curtain, missing and hurting and hoping. It's not fun to die, not from our perspective. And that causes turmoil when death happens. We don't see it as a moving on; we see it as a loss. As an end.

So something weird happened to me this week while I was writing. I killed a character, and I actually couldn't continue to write the scene. It gave me the same visceral reaction the end of Harry Potter gave me when Sirius Black died (and the plethora of other characters who followed).

I actually packed up and went home and refused to finish the scene.

"This will be the last scene I write," I told Alex. "I can't. If I write this scene, and it's done and this is the way it has to go, then I cannot in good conscience write these characters just to end them in this much hurt."

"Well," Alex shrugged. "That's a good thing, right?"

This might sound like the dumbest conversation ever, to people who don't write. To those of us who have had to kill a character, it is a struggle we've faced since we started being "Gods of our Universes," as an old professor said. There is a lot of philosophy and theory that goes into writing a world, because honestly, in order to have a realistic world, it must be real. If someone doesn't believe writers think like this, please direct them towards Zack Helm's Stranger Than Fiction.

So if the world is real, does that mean then, that in some way, we are killing an entity? When Sherlock dove off the cliff, when Sirius fell behind the veil, or when Mufasa slammed into the bottom of the canyon, were those not deaths that made a difference? Was that not the absence of an entity in our world?

For anyone who has ever read vigorously or written passionately, the answer would be yes.

During Nanowrimo, one of the prompts read: "Write a letter as your protagonist to yourself, the author." This is all my letter said:

"Dear Ms. Dawson,

Please don't kill them.

- (Character)"

I showed it to Alex, and he started crying.

That's how ridiculous and invested we may be.

But is it a good thing? If I feel physically ill and mentally spent after killing a character? Does that automatically mean a good ending?

Honestly, it doesn't.

For how many good reasons to kill a character, there are a hundred bad reasons. I've seen characters die of God complexes, shitty twists, tear-jerkers, and stupid-shitty-writer-itis. What is stupid-shitty-writer-itis? When you do something stupid and shitty just because you're a writer.

"It will mean something if I kill him." "It will cause stress to my readers if I kill her." "Ah, but I will surprise and shock them because it hasn't been done before!" Or the worst, the stupidest, and the shittiest: "If these people die, then you just don't know who's going to go next!"

That last award goes to George R.R. Martin. To clarify, Martin is not a shitty writer. But as much as I absolutely love Martin's prose and language and character building, I can't bring myself to read the next book and I am forced to watch the TV show. While I agree with and love the the idea of "Drew Barrymoring" a character in order to create the feeling that no character is sacred (see: Scream), I do think that Barrymoring every character in every other chapter is just too overwhelming and gives no reason to keep reading. We connect through our characters.

But I will also argue that I am much younger and not as brilliant as George R.R. Martin, so I may completely agree with him in twenty years.

When you kill too much or you kill for the wrong reasons, then the book becomes meaningless and contrived.

So when is it okay to kill characters? Some people make the mistake of never killing a character. Everyone either Disney Deaths back to life (getting in the sobs of a death scene only to cough a little and open their eyes to a "Baloo! You're alive!"), or they protect all of their main characters out of a fear of doing them wrong or having to say goodbye to them too soon.

So here it is, the reason why you should kill a character. It must push the story developmentally through one of the elements of fiction (minus "language," because no you don't get to kill someone off just to write a beautiful paragraph about butterflies and gravestones):

1. It moves a character forward. (Harry must move alone without his parentals in order to grow)
2. It moves the plot along. (Because of Voldemort's death, we lead into the denouement)
3. It sets the tone for your time and place. (Cedric Diggory is dead, and things are getting real)
4. It fits into your overall theme. (Sirius Black dies without any reason, which is how death works, and it teaches Harry to heal and keep moving on)

Those are the only four reasons why you should kill a character.

One other thing you need to look at: What does death mean in your book's world? In some of my own books, I have no afterlife. In the one I am writing right now, there is an afterlife. Continuing with the Harry Potter examples, Rowling most definitely has a clear afterlife involved in her mythos. Because of this, death does not take on the same weight as death takes on in Westeros, where you are dead and cold as soon as the blood drains from the heart from whence the Hound stabbed the ever-living crap out of you.

So if you have created an atheist world, that means your character is gone forever. If you have created a Christian world, that means your character is being judged. If you have created a world with resurrection, or reincarnation, or hauntings, or other dimensions or other levels ... what does that mean for the growth of your surviving characters?

So looking at my story, I agreed to kill this character off. I will not write it now, because it hurts too much. There needs to be a sense of choice in the story, a sense of the character maybe getting off easier. But I won't erase what I've written. I can't save them. No matter what I do, I can't. It fits, and it is going to be sad, but it makes sense.

So I'm sorry, Character, I can't save them. I would if I could, but I can't.

So this story has a happy ending. I got into the school of my dreams, and I have purchased my plane ticket to whisk off to Maine this July so I can learn how to write about robots and dragons. Just keep that in mind. After three times of trying, I finally got to go to college.

A lot of people have stories that are similar, and other people, like my friend's girlfriend, only tried for one school once and landed a funded position. So sweet for her, and sucky for the rest of us.

My own personal story started in 2008, when I decided I was going to try for an MFA in the first place. In late 2010, I applied for real. I applied to Brown (ha, no), Cornell (wait, what?), Michigan (yeah right), and IWW (death knells). As you can possibly imagine, I was not old enough, experienced enough, good enough, nor ready enough to go to any of these programs. I turned in a personal statement talking about how the MFA was a glass box upon a shelf full of my dreams and aspirations, and I was scared to take it down off the shelf and get my fingerprints on it or some other random nonsense like that. I also spelled Sherman Alexie's name wrong.

The second year, I got into a program. But there was no funding, and instead there was a fat benign tumor in my guts, which meant I needed to put the MFA (and a lot of my writing projects) on the back-burner for one more year so I could make sure I was well enough to move away and do my thing.

This brings us to the third year.

And even while I count the days until that beautiful plane with the one connecting flight in O'Hare takes me to Stonecoast, I sit with six rejections and two waitlists in my pocket to the other eight schools I applied to. I just lucked out that the one school I wanted was the one school who wanted me.

In short terms: it's hard out there for a pimp.

I freaked myself out so hard, guys. An entire year of my life was dedicated to this freakish awful circus called MFA Applications. And I, too, scoured the internet to figure out what the hell I should be doing.

Now that I am through the tunnel of doom and on the other side, I unfortunately still don't know everything. I know a lot of people got way more acceptances than I did. I know a lot of people know how to spell Sherman Alexie's name right the first time. But I also know I survived, and I'm wiser for it.

Here's the Top 10 Things I Wish I'd Known.

MFA applications can be hard and tedious. It'd be nice to have someone there to just give you a pat on the back and be like, "It's okay! I'm going through hell, too! THE ODDS ARE NEVER IN ANYONE'S FAVOR! THE CAKE IS A LIE!" So for this reason, I wish I'd known about MFA Draft long before I did. I actually found the Draft after all of my applications were turned in, and I was waiting to hear back. I wanted to know when people were being contacted, and that meant finding places like gradcafe and MFA Draft. Unfortunately, Draft would have come in handy about twelve months earlier, since people share tips and swap drafts of their writing samples and keep each other sane through GRE testing. If you're applying for 2015, look up MFA Draft 15. Do it now. Introduce yourself. And get started.

So I started in June. I turned down my Round 2 MFA Application Anti-Acceptance Due to Tumor in April, and then I started MFA searching in June. I thought I was on top of it all. I thought I was ridin' the wave of productivity and haha to those unfortunates who wouldn't start until October! I sat my rump down at a Dunkin Donuts and I read the Poets&Writers MFA Edition and I highlighted the crap outta that sucker. I was gonna do it! I was gonna get ready for the GRE and Mama, I was gonna be a star!

I should have started in March. There's so much to do, especially on the writing sample and even just really researching what schools would be a good fit for you, that you cannot wait until June. You just can't.

I applied to nine schools. I write "popular fiction" or "genre fiction" or "science fiction" or "speculative fiction" or "hack-style" or whatever you want to call it. So I knew that not every MFA program was going to be for me. But oh, I still underestimated just how gloriously my paper airplane of a writing sample would crumple and fall into a fiery ball of sad. My writing sample included a story about a man who moves backwards in time instead of forwards, a granddaughter recounting her grandmother's last day on Earth before the Noah's Ark Rocketship took off, and of course an excerpt of my science fiction novel. Except for Brown, where I needed a few more pages and I included my YA Steampunk Trilogy (excerpt, of course). I am brilliant. So very brilliant.

The thing is, I took a chance. I wanted a school to pick me for who I was, not for who they thought I was. And this is who I am, guys. But instead of wasting my time and money and paper and postage on schools like NCSU and Brown, I should have probably focused more on smaller schools with good funding who would take on a crackerjack like me.

Stonecoast, thank God, was looking for crackerjacks. They collect crackerjacks. And now I get to crackerjack for two years with people who can actually help me.

And imagine if you got into one of those programs where you couldn't actually be yourself. I was (surprisingly) waitlisted at a school that was research heavy. I hate research. Why the hell would I apply to someplace that would expect me to research things?! I don't know, but I did.

I also looked at Poets & Writers for the answers. Obviously if a school is ranked 60 out of 150, it's easier to get into than IWW or Brown, right?

Ha, by like four percent, maybe! You're still sitting at 4 out of 900 applicants! Good luck to you, ma'am!

This is in no way saying that P&W isn't legit; it totally is and you need to read it and ear-mark it and kiss it before bed. But you also need to do some of your own research on the programs. You need to see if low-res is going to work out for you a little better than full-res, or maybe Amherst would be your worst nightmare instead of your dream come true, because you have nothing in common with the faculty. Or maybe there is a really sweet program in Kalamazoo (there isn't any program in Kalamazoo, please don't get your hopes up) that gives full funding but it's up-and-coming, and no one knows about it yet.

That happened to me with Wichita.

Cut to: 2008. Interior. Book Fair at AWP. I see Wichita's table. It's small. I go over there. They are really nice and sweet and they tell me all about new stuff that is happening. I decide Wichita is not for me.

Cut to: 2014. I'm near the end of my application process, and I decide in a panic to apply to Wichita. It's been a few years. They've grown. Seth Abramson mentioned them and now everyone wants WSU.

Guess who didn't get in.

Find the place that fits you, not the place you need to fit.

I wasted so much time and money. And in the end, Stonecoast didn't even need my damn GRE.

So yes, let me begin this by saying that you absolutely should study for that test and yes, it does mean a lot when coming down to the nitty-gritty of funding and TA positions. And yes, there are specific programs that need a certain GRE score in order to be admitted. So in no way am I saying that the GRE is not important.

But it's not important as it will seem.

I feel like a lot of us glomp onto the GRE because it's the only assessment-based score we get during our progress in this dark hole of applying. But really, seriously, if you figure out what programs you really want to apply to, and none of them want the GRE, then you may not want to take the GRE. Of course, other people will disagree with me, saying that you may find a program you like down the road and you're going to need that score. It's a gamble, but either way, GRE or no GRE, don't use your entire summer studying for it instead of workshopping your writing sample.

Like me.

I worked so hard on that GRE, and I got a pretty good score. By pretty good, it was high enough to get into any school I wanted ... if this was the ACT and I was going for undergrad. But I wasn't, and the GRE really meant nothing because they didn't like my writing sample. So hey, kids! Know your vocabulary, but go to the writing sample. Use your summer for the writing sample.

Writing sample.

Also, know which programs you want to send your GRE to, before you leave for the testing. They give you four free schools, and use that. It's an extra hundred dollars.

Everyone says this and no one believes it. Have a strong SOP, have strong recs, but seriously, it comes down to the sample. You double-check that puppy five times before you send it out, for any typos whatsoever. Because guess who had typos even after checking it and rechecking it and having two other people recheck it? Two thumbs to this gal.

Don't do novel excerpts. Don't show off something that you just wrote. And don't ever turn anything that wasn't workshopped. Workshop it. Send it out. Tear it apart, or the applicant committee will.

I worked nonstop from June to the end of January on my MFA applications. It was a near-to year of my life. I've had relationships shorter than the application process for this graduate degree. I was meticulous, I was ruthless, I was egocentric, and I missed out on a lot of films during Oscar season.

But then there's this weird drop-off come February, when there is nothing to do and no one is telling you how you did.

Around mid-March, I should have been having the time of my life, since my bridesmaids and I went on vacation to check out my wedding venue and I had a week off from school. However, I was fervently watching MFA Draft 14 to see if I had gotten into Boulder or Wichita. I checked the mail every day, I pestered my parents to see maybe my mail had magically ended up in their mailbox ten miles away.

You just have to forget about it. From January 3 to April 15, you will know nothing, Jon Snow. You have to carry on with your life. Your beautiful, fulfilling, day-job life.

Ah. Yes. That day job.

I actually got into an argument on MFA Draft about how some people are using the MFA to run away from a life they don't want.  I think that every writer has a small little part of their brain that says, "Man, if I could just write all day for a living and do nothing else, then I would have it made." Well, I know writers who write for a living, all day, and it's not as easy as you'd think. Just assume that anything you do, anywhere you go, anyone you love will have their setbacks. That weird, tired, frustration that comes with being alive and breathing on Earth does not go away just because you have moved away, changed jobs, gotten married, or even entered an MFA program.

I said that in fact I'd known people who were using the MFA application as a possible "escape hatch" from their crappy lives and their crappy situations. Having someone pay you a stipend to sit in a dorm and type, type, type? Greatest thing ever, right?

No. And I was a little vindicated when a few days later, another Drafter posted that she was frustrated and sad because not getting into a program this year meant having to go back to her crappy job where no one treated her with any respect. Someone commented with words of wisdom, asking, "Will you then be okay working that crappy job and getting disrespected while you're in graduate school?" Because guess what, kiddos, you're still going to have to work to put yourself through school (and yes, that includes full funding).

"But Dawson!" you exclaim. "I got into Brown and I have enough savings!"

Sweet. But then you run into other problems. Like absolutely no job prospects when you graduate (helloooo adjuncts!). Or you're living in Providence, which is a gigantic college town with swindly landlords who will shut your heat off in the middle of the night. Everything looks shiny and beautiful, until you get there and start to see the grease marks right up close.

And I was in a writing cohort in my undergrad. I will be the first to tell you that getting a writing degree is not easy. Is it fun? If you love it, and I loved it, it will all be totally worth it. But I still had to contend with deadlines, a ridiculous amount of writing, and everything I wrote got torn apart to shreds. I had to deal with everyone else and the competition of having four people going for one final little slot of production at the end of the four years, and everyone was good. And even when people weren't good, you wondered why they got praise that day and you didn't. I had a professor who absolutely hated my writing style, and I thought that meant that I sucked forever.

It's not easy. Writing is never easy. But we do it because we love it.

This also plays into this Michael Chabon idea that if you go into an MFA program, you will immediately become someone. You won't. You'll probably end up flitting around from adjunct job to adjunct job, trying to make ends meet.

In summation: You go into an MFA program to get better at writing. You don't go into an MFA program to hide from the world or jump-start your life out of your parents' basement. Otherwise, you're going to be even more frustrated and depressed than you were when you were applying in the first place.

Yes, you need to do the FAFSA. Yes, there are scholarships outside of your department. You need to scour the college's website very early on, so you know exactly when scholarships are due and which ones you can apply for. Do your FAFSA as soon as you get your tax information from your jobs. Just do things early. There aren't a lot of federal grants and there's barely any scholarships out there that don't come from your schools, but you need to keep things in mind for GA's, TA's, and scholarships:

There is the department.

And then there is the graduate school as a general whole.

Two chances. Two sets of opportunities. Don't forget that second one.

Oh, and even if you are paying completely out of pocket, you should do the FAFSA. Some schools consider it a requirement.

Also. Another big thing to remember about money. Applications cost. A LOT.

Now some people go overboard and read every single faculty's book. That's ridiculous. Don't do that. But you do need to see who you're going to be working with. I've worked with teachers and professors before who just do not see eye-to-eye with what I want to do with my writing. They write something completely different than what I'm interested in writing, and neither of us can find any common ground. That said, I actually met one of the greatest influences in my writing life because I switched one Creative Writing class time slot when I was a sophomore in college.

And now that person is one of my recommenders. Oh look! A transition!

It's important to trust your recs. It is important to know these people believe in you and are going to fight for you. One of my recommenders the first time around was a very fancy person, but they wrote the absolute worst recommendation I've ever seen (because yes, they gave me a copy). They meant no malice by it; they were just an awful letter writer. It was literally a paragraph, and not a big fat paragraph. It was like a tiny little "I endorse this message" disclaimer more than it was a meaningful explanation of their adoration for my work. Or you know ... whatever.

You also need to treat your recommenders like real people, because they are real people. On the flip side of life, I work as a recommender for other people. I absolutely hate it when people hand me a form or an address or information and they're like, "Yeah it's due tomorrow." I tell people I want at least two weeks' notice, and I think that's being pretty nice to them. On the other hand, I also get pissed when people hand me information and they're like, "Oh yeah, and it's due in I don't know ... April?" And it's October. I will forget. Don't think just because you dropped it off and touched base (in a very literal way ... like reaching out and touching a base and then running away with immunity to taggers), that I am even going to remotely remember that you need a recommendation come April. I've had relationships shorter than the time you are asking me to remember something. So no, that don't cut it.

Also, get them a present. They'll really appreciate it, and then they'll do more recs for you.

Also, ask for more than what you need. I've heard so many horror stories about people who didn't get into a school because some a-wad didn't turn in their rec letter. How dumb is that? You do everything right. You pay money. And you don't get in because your recommender didn't turn a piece of paper in?!

But it happens.

So if you need three, get four. Or five. I had five people on deck for three slots, and all of my recs got turned in on time.

Also, you need to send them SASE's for their rec letters and you need to write out all of the information for them. It needs to be organized and categorized so they know exactly what is going on with life. If not, they'll shut down or just get really angry that you didn't make this easy. And do you want an angry person writing your rec letter?

No. The answer is no.

Last thing: if you can, meet the faculty. One of my biggest regrets was not being able to make it to AWP this year. I've got every year since 2008 when I discovered AWP existed as a wee sophomore in college. You need to go to those booths, make actual connections with people, and really honestly have that human experience with other humans. Talk to students, get to know the school. Once at AWP, I went up to the booth of one of my top picks, and this little girl with a fancy t-shirt informed me and a group of kids, "Oh. If you write genre, don't even think about applying here. Or at least try to mask it in your writing sample."

That was a big fat nope from me. And I saved 70 bucks on my application, and the faculty saved their eyesight not having to read it.

Also, take advantage of AWP. I actually had someone come up from NEOMFA and woo me to their program and took my name and got really excited about me going there. NEOMFA wasn't for me, because at the time, I did not have a driver's license. But it was really sweet to be wooed. Wouldn't all of us love to be wooed during this process?

Your heart is going to be broken, guys. All of your hearts. You will not get into every program you want to get into, and even if you're one of those lucky Top Ten who gets in everywhere and then has to choose between Michigan and Brown, you're going to be sad eventually because you'll go there and think to yourself, "Maybe I'm not good enough."

Well, you are good enough. We all are. Because we are wanting to dedicate two years of our lives to getting better at something. How many people in the world do that? Who gets up in the morning and thinks, "I want to go and get better at this thing that is not going to make me any money and will probably cause me to spend a lot of time by myself, miserable and self-loathing." Furthermore, how many people say, "There is this thing I love to do, but I am humble enough to know that I could get better?" If you think a lot of people say these things, then I commend you, because you have kept good company.

But I've met a lot of people who just sort of slug through life, or they have such an ego, they never try to get better. So many people out there would rather say, "Oh, well, I'm sure it'll happen on its own." or "I always wanted to do this thing, but you know, stuff." People suck because they procrastinate. People always talk about what they could have been or what they're going to be, but they never do anything to better their situation.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars.

So the fact that you are even reading this blog, looking at schools, applying to programs, and going off into the great perhaps ... all of that tells me that you are worth something, and you want your writing to be worth something.

Be kind to yourself. Allow yourself to be open to growth and criticism. But never allow anyone to make you feel like you're a nothing. And if you don't get into a program, it does not mean that you suck. It means that your writing sample sucked. Or maybe your writing sample just didn't fit whatever that school wanted. Or maybe you just aren't ready for the great perhaps, but perhaps next year you will be.

The only thing you can do is keep loving yourself, keep writing, and keep fighting.

Good luck. And God Bless.

Welcome to another week of the world not knowing the difference between winter and summer! Last week, there was a glitch in posting, so expect another post to make up for last week's lack of a post.

But for today, I thought the next most important topic would be the thing that everyone struggles with. It’s worse than writer’s block. It’s scarier than your final chapter. It’s even more frustrating than the query letter. Even authors who somehow manage to pull this thing off barely escape with their lives. It is … exposition.

So you have the idea for your book. You know what makes the legs of the world’s table. Regardless if it’s a realistic fiction piece about a middle-aged woman who has just filed for a divorce and enjoys planting her garden, or if it’s a sci-fi adventure about space cowboys trying to save the final hope of humanity, there is always the “stasis” that we begin with. There is an already established world when we open the first page and begin to write.

Problem is, the reader has no clue what this already established world is.

So here are four key rules to have a successful reveal of exposition:

1. Just the Facts, Ma’am
Have you ever had that conversation with a friend where you just wish they’d get to the point? They’re going into more detail than need be, and you’re not sure why they’re talking. Look at these two different dialogues:

- “So we went over the Jane’s place, and she’s got like this new parakeet that just keeps honking or … tweeting … whatever a bird does. And she’s like, ‘Go ahead, sit down I just gotta get the dog in the basement.’ So we sat down and she had Nickelodeon on, which I was a little confused about but whatever. But yeah, Sally’s doing good. She seems better. All things considered, I’d be a real wreck after last month, but she’s tough. Always has been. But so like we got into Jane’s car and Sally was talking about it. And I was surprised she was talking about it. She doesn’t really talk about stuff like that. And Jane starts talking about Dan, and I’m like … yeah is Dan still around? I know, Dan. Dan’s still around. You know, John doesn’t like Dan very much. I know, John doesn’t like anyone. But he has reason not to like Dan. But so anyway … no, Dan wasn’t there. I didn’t mention that. Dan didn’t come with us cause that’d be awkward. I think Dan knew that Tom knew. Maybe John told him. But anyway, so we pull up to the Golden Corral. And we go in and pay and stuff. And Sally and I are just hanging out and I finally ask her like, ‘You seem to be doing better. Are you doing better?’ And she goes, ‘Yeah. Well. I don’t know.’ Which worried me again … and all of a sudden, Tom comes in. And he’s furious. Like, I’ve never seen Tom like that. It was terrifying. And Tom’s like, ‘Jane!’ In front of everyone. And he goes up to Jane and Jane’s got this attitude like, ‘Why are you late?’ And Tom’s like, ‘Outside. We’re talking outside right now.’ And Jane’s like, ‘No.’ And Tom’s like, … well they go back and forth, and then Tom says, ‘Dan just told me what you did.’ And Jane doesn’t say a word. She just leaves. And Tom …”

- “So we went out to the Golden Corral afterward and Tom found out Jane had been cheating on him.”

The second one is much clearer. We know that they went out to eat. We know that Tom found out Jane had been cheating on him. We don’t care about Sally. Who is Sally? Not important to our plot, that’s who. We have no idea what we’re supposed to be paying attention to, so we get all tangled up in our following the story. Look at Dickens for a good example of how exposition can be simple.

- Not Dickens: “Scrooge was an old man who lived in London. It was the 19th Century, and he was somewhat miserly. And by somewhat, I mean a lot. He was all crouched over and had money bags on him at all times. His closest employer was Bob Crachit, but even Bob didn’t like him very much. Scrooge hated Christmas, too. Just plain hated it. Every year when his nephew Fred invited him over to dinner, he told him, ‘Bah humbug!’ Scrooge used to have a friend, and his name was Jacob Marley. However, Jacob Marley had died. It had been a stormy evening, and Scrooge didn’t seem to really care that Marley was dead. He thought about Marley from time to time, how they went on that trip to the country when they were boys and he was still with Isabella. That had been a good summer. They’d had cucumber sandwiches, the three of them, and Scrooge actually smiled back then. But Marley and him had grown into misers and bankers, both terrible things. And so Marley had finally kicked the bucket, and he wasn’t coming back. Yes, it was Christmas and Marley wasn’t there.”

- Dickens: “Marley was dead, to begin with.”

See the difference? Do we need to know that he loved Isabella? Do we need to know about Freddy and Bob yet? Do we need to know that he’s a banker and a miser and no one really likes him? We will know all of this through the development of the characters and plot once the story gets rolling. All we need to know to start off is that Marley is dead.

Try this with your own manuscript. If you only had three sentences to set up the world with, what three sentences would it be?

2. In and Out
Which leads us to our second point. Think of the first day of school. The teacher has to tell you her name, what the class is, go over the syllabus, get yourself acquainted with the expectations, etc. But all of this is usually done quickly because we need to actually start the class.

When a reader begins your book, you have them for about the first two pages before they’ve made a decision about your work. That’s frustrating, but it’s the truth. How many times have you picked up a book and then put it back down? Books are laborious tasks and not always the cheapest things to invest in. So why would you spend a few days reading a book that doesn’t pull you in from the first chapter? It doesn’t matter how wonderful that scene on page 72 is; we aren’t going to get to page 72 if page 1 isn’t stupendous. Believe me, I have this problem myself. In the book I’m preparing right now, my favorite scene is on page 200. The first forty pages (usually what you send in a query) are not as great as I wish they were. So before I go congratulating myself on page 200, I need to go back and pave the way to that scene.

Thus, with the first pages being crucial, the exposition has to be in and out. Three sentences. One paragraph. Not thirty pages of setting everything up without the plot moving.

Some authors, such as George Orwell, figured out a way around this. Orwell’s whole entire first two chapters of 1984 is setting up his world. However, he has his main character moving and being active while he shows off the world to us. It isn’t just a description, it’s exploration.

3. Let the Reader Discover
There is a universal truth about people; they like to be treated with respect. They also like to discover things for themselves. How many times have you felt like someone is spoon-feeding you information? Probably none of those times was during a read of a very good book. Great authors know that they need to “show, not tell.” Don’t start your book off explaining the world in such great detail that the reader is an expert on the subject. We don’t need a textbook. We need to be immersed into the main character’s head. We need to see it through their eyes and feel smart when we find something out about the world on our own. This makes it personal. This makes us connect.

Two wonderful examples of this is Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and Stephen King’s The Green Mile. Lee does what Mark Twain does in a lot of his novels; use a child as a protagonist in order to discuss difficult adult topics through a child’s innocent eyes. Because Scout doesn’t understand her world completely, we don’t either. But we discover it along with Scout, thus making Scout our best friend instead of some sort of informer or forced character that we have no connection to. Stephen King does it a little different in The Green Mile; there were specific facts that he needed to share with us about Louisiana in the 1930′s, about electric chairs, about death row, etc. However, when he has to tell us the exposition of how John Coffey ended up in prison, he gives Paul Edgecombe a report to read, and Paul has a viceral reaction to the report. It pushes the story forward, both through plot and character. And aside from the exposition, we don’t know everything about the world. We don’t know how Paul is still alive eighty years later. We don’t know why John Coffey is so odd. There are questions unanswered because Paul hasn’t got all the answers.

4. Clarity and Focus
This pertains to something touched in the first point. Think back to Sally. Why did we need to know about Sally in order to get Jane and Tom’s story out? We didn’t. This is a pitfall that happens to the best of writers when they’re world creating, especially in fantasy and sci-fi. We get so excited about creating a world that we have notes upon notes about what each character’s favorite food is, why they wear what they wear, what the correct protocol for exiting a room is on the planet of Zuba … none of this really matters if your thesis to your story has absolutely nothing to do with exiting a room. When giving us the exposition, keep it simple. And don’t only keep it simple, but have it guide us in the right direction.

Look at Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. He begins his story by establishing that Huck is best friends with Tom, Huck is uncivilized, and a widow has taken Huck in and is attempting to civilize him. Why is it important that this is the exposition we get? Because the entirety of the story is about Huck teetering between the “uncivilized” and “civilized” way of doing things. There is the constant anxiety of doing right and going to Heaven and doing wrong and going to Hell. At the end, on the very last page, Twain’s still very focused on this thesis when he book-ends the story by having Huck run away and go west.

Exposition needs to be short, to the point, and involved with the plot and the reader’s discovery. It’s hard starting the engines to a story, but if done well, the rest of the book will stand on very strong legs.