Richard Ford referred to us as “young
writers” throughout our hour-long discussion in CU 321. The term seemed apropos
given the context of an MFA program, but also appropriate given Ford’s age of
seventy-one. He spoke with the grizzled confidence of a man who has put in
countless writing hours that have produced seven critically acclaimed novels
and four short story collections. His best-known work, Independence Day, won the Pen/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize
for Fiction in 1995. He was kind and generous with his advice, an attribute that,
for “young writers,” resulted in a small amount of idolization. “His eyes literally
sparkled,” said a friend. “When he smiled,” said one of my colleagues, “it
looked like a comedic theatre mask.” And perhaps that grin, an angular,
thin-lipped joviality that pressed against his cheeks, betrayed a satisfaction
with the work he’d accomplished in his career. When describing an ongoing
dispute with his editor at Knopf, he claimed that at this point in his life he didn't care if his new book got published. When we pressed him about possible
solutions to the problem (his editor, he claimed, “didn't want to edit”), he
shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I've written enough books in my
life. I don’t need this one.” This statement was, most likely, not entirely
truthful—I imagine even Richard Ford longs to see his book in print after
writing it—but it’s an interesting thing to explore. It’s a statement that
seems to signal a comfort with his legacy. I wondered: what is it like to be a
writer in the twilight of a career and have that sort of satisfaction? What does
it feel like to look back and feel that you have written enough, that you've said what you wanted to say? What does it take?
The aspect of writing that Ford seemed
most adamant about was the importance of taking the task seriously. He admitted
that “marrying well” allowed him to stay at home and write (he suggested we all
“marry as well” as he did), but it seems the seriousness with which he
approached writing might be what separated him from other authors. He explained
that he does not begin to write a word—“not a single word,” he emphasized—until
he has done a year of research. This research included detailed notes on narrative
structure and character and setting, notes which he said he would study as if
he was taking the Bar exam. He was careful to include “thinking” as research, explaining
how it was necessary for him to become completely engrossed in his project. The
urgency with which he explained his research bolstered his overall message: “take
you work seriously,” he told us. “No one else is going to. It’s your work.”
FAU has had a string of accomplished
writers visit us this year: Jo Ann Beard, Phil Klay, Roxane Gay, and now Ford. All
of them have spoken about writing with the same dogged determination. Jo Ann
Beard explained that she might sit down to write for an eight-hour stretch and
not compose a word. Phil Klay spoke about fighting with an editor about a word
choice because, “a serious sentence” he said, “contained a syllable count of 3-3-4-3.”
“It didn't really matter,” he admitted. “But it mattered to me.” Of course,
this isn't the first time we've heard writing discussed in this way. On our own
faculty Professor Bucak writes so carefully that she tends to finish just one
story a year. Professor McKay wakes up each morning at five and commences to
write. Writing hard and meticulously is something that, hopefully, most of us
already do. But the MFA provides an atmosphere in which it is easier to take
our writing seriously because there is always a deadline approaching. And at
the end of that deadline there are peers and professors whose job it is to read
our work with careful attention. By virtue of our program, FAU creates an
atmosphere in which we are considered serious writers.
Which is why, after leaving my
thesis defense last week, I had a strange mixture of accomplishment and
foreboding. It felt wonderful to discuss my work confidently with professors
that I have learned under for three years. I did not come into the program with
that ability. But at the same time it felt as though I had been dropped from a
very high ledge. The final deadline had been met. I passed. And there was no
more work to turn in. I was on my own.
Of course, graduating does not mean
that the professional and friendly ties that I've made at FAU are severed, but the
end of an MFA does signal a new phase of my development as a writer. I am
confident that I will continue to write, but am also wary that the vigor with
which I wrote during the MFA will be tempered by life’s complications. I am
wary about this because, to a certain extent, I feel the real writing has just
begun—the true test lies ahead. The impetus to write hard and long and well
must now come solely from within. There is no longer the benefit of artificial
deadlines and a community of writers who support my endeavors. It is up to me.
And at this moment in my life, the goal is not necessarily to publish eleven
books, but I do want to be seventy-one years old and know I have written everything
I am capable of writing, to have said what I could say.
This weekend I was on Highland Beach
and saw, probably 100 yards away, a commotion on the shoreline. A crowd of
beachgoers gathered and, through the swarm of legs and sea foam, I saw someone
performing chest compressions on a motionless body. The tips of the waves
flowed up the sand and stopped at the feet of the unconscious man. We all sat
in our beach chairs and looked. We were too far away to do anything, but it
seemed sacrilegious to smoke a cigarette while I watched someone die. I walked
closer to the crowd and asked a woman what had happened. She told me that the
man had been caught in the riptide and taken out to sea. Two girls saw him
floating beyond the break and swam to retrieve him. “But he’s dead,” she said. “He’s
gone.”
When the paramedics arrived they
strapped a machine to his chest, a sort of jacket that performed chest
compressions. Lifeguards from Delray came as well, riding down the beach in a
four-wheeler. The paramedics lifted the man onto the vehicle and I watched them
drive past. One of the paramedics held the man’s limp arm by the wrist, checking for a pulse. The drowned man was old, probably in his seventies: stocky, with a
healthy, white beard. When his chest was compressed, his belly shook. And as I
watched him being taken away, I couldn't help but wonder if he had said what he
wanted to say. I wondered if he had written his books.
Donovan Ortega is graduating this semester
with an MFA in fiction.
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