why i am (mostly) ok with not getting into the MFA program

Dear Ms. Peterson, We have given your candidacy very careful consideration, but are sorry to say your application was not a finalist. The interest in our MFA program was very high this year, etc. etc. Wishing me the best. And...the end.


I only had a 1 in 150 chance of getting in, assuming they were going to take someone from the university to begin with. If not, I had a 0 in 300 chance. Not very good odds. And I was up against some fierce competition. And I only really felt comfortable with half of what I submitted. And it was the literary equivalent of a kamikaze run to only apply to one school. So, I honestly didn't expect to get in anyway. But dang! If it didn't still hurt. Like, a whole lot.

I suppose most of the pain stems from the cold, hard truths that yet another "no" presses out of me:  That I am pushing 36 years old. Whatever youthful optimism or beauty I once had has been slowly bled out of me over the last few years of cruel, harsh reality. I have no idea where I am going to go or what I am going to do to provide for my precious children. I have lost my father. My mother. Lost close friends to death or distance. I've lost my husband. I've lost a good deal of my health. I've lost the few relationships I've been in. I will more than likely soon lose my home. And now I've lost the one foreseeable path I had to accomplishing my dream of being the type of writer I want to be. People whose talent I very much respect looked at what I put hundreds upon hundreds of hours into writing and said, "Not good enough." Will my best ever be good enough for anyone or anything?!

God...I will go where you want me to go and do what you want me to do, but please tell me you're still there and still mindful of me. Please tell me that there is still some purpose in my acting, that I do not have to surrender to being acted upon.

Boo hoo. Poor me. Enough self-deprecating already, I know. Sometimes I just have to get it out of my system.

Despite not having the time to do so, I sat down and re-read all of John Gardner's "On Becoming a Novelist". It was one of the books that first inspired me to chase this dream in the first place. Only this time, I read a portion of it I hadn't before--the foreword, written by Raymond Carver. And this is what it said:

"So along with this desire to get an education, I had this very strong desire to write; it was a desire so strong that, with the encouragement I was given in college, and the insight acquired, I kept on writing long after "good sense" and the "cold facts"--the "realities" of my life told me, time and again, that I ought to quit, stop the dreaming, quietly go ahead and do something else."

And may I remind you that was Raymond freaking Carver?! Who soon went on to become the darling of the literary world for over a decade? I'm sure every great novelist or short story writer has said at some point, "I should give up". But they don't.

Not that I expect Carver-esque fame, but I KNOW I am a passable writer. Better than the average bear, even. The MFA seemed like the most probable way to get me to where I wanted to be, with the joyous added benefit of teaching, but I can go on and get better with or without it. Not all publishers care if you've got an MFA stuck after your name.

Ninja promised to take me to the gun range to shoot the rejection letter. That sounds therapeutic.


Something will come along, right? And who knows. Maybe, just maybe, I've got enough gumption left in me to apply one more time.