I believe I mentioned over the summer that I had enrolled in a MFA program for creative writing in fiction. I had actually applied to three programs and was accepted to all of them, but went with my first choice. So far, the program has been wonderful, and I've made a lot of progress on my novel.
Actually, I've made more than just a lot of progress. I participated in the National Novel Writing Month and finished my book last year. My program requires me to make regular submissions to either a workshop or tutorial instructor of between 8-25 pages, so I've been steadily submitting a chapter per submission. I just submitted chapter 7 last month and I've gotten some really helpful feedback.
We just had a residency, which was virtual due to covid, and during that time, my tutorial instructor/program director started talking to me about doing an accelerated thesis. His reasoning was that he wanted me to get the most out of the program and by doing the accelerated thesis, I could move forward with getting my book to agents and eventually publishers much sooner than going the normal route.
Because I am an overthinker, I had millions of questions and we walked through the all during phone calls and through emails. I finally pulled the trigger and said let's do it. After confirming a thesis advisor and notifying the admin that I needed to update my plan, he tells me that it's too early in my program to do the thesis. Instead, he offers another program that they have which earns credits towards the MFA.
Again, I have a multitude of questions, and I'm awaiting his response to those, but talk about an emotional and anxious rollercoaster. This all came to a head on Friday when I was already going back and forth with my boss on my performance review. Since I was converting from a PMF to a normal employee, my supervisor had created a plan for the lower pay scale level I was at before conversion, with the intention of creating a new plan once I reached the upper level. He had given me an outstanding initially, but downgraded it to essentially "exceeds standards" because he felt that, as it is my first year at the higher pay level, it wouldn't make sense to give an outstanding. This is not a problem, it's still a good review, but it did bruise my ego a bit to be downgraded. I had been earning "outstanding" reviews at the state, but have yet to reach that level with the feds. Ah well, maybe next year.
So, at this point, I don't really know what's going on with my MFA. I can, obviously, just do the normal program. This would mean I would need to either write a series of short stories or start a new novel as I'll run out of submissions for my current project mid-way through next fall. But I think my professor makes a good point in that I should try to get as much out of the program as I can, and getting this book ready to publish sooner than my graduation (currently set for January 2023) would achieve that goal. At the same time, it's very much outside of my comfort level (hence the multitude of questions I bombarded both my professor and the program's administration with on Friday).
Hopefully once I hear back from them, I will be able to make a decision and the anxiety rollercoaster will cease...at least for a little while.
