Tomorrow is December first, meaning as of midnight tonight I have exactly one month to finish grad school applications. In the range of the 140 American MFA programs in Creative Writing, I will apply for one school in the top 15, four in the top 50, possibly another in the top 100, and one in the bottom 16. If I can't get into one of them, I will be in a very tough place.
And this is the problem with writing: its only value is in the public forum. The naive purist, I suppose, will point to the value of personal enrichment and growth, but truth be told, every piece of writing is ultimately written for public consumption. The risks of seeking a public forum are, of course, both success and failure. It would be nice to say failure is not an option, but frankly, it is. Not even just an option, but a mathematical probability.
Giving up, on the other hand, doesn't have to be an option and won't be. But persevering in the face of failure is enough to cause any person to question every step that led to the point of failure, and every step to come.
Success, I am sure, breeds its own perils. But that is a bridge I am more willing to cross when I come to it.
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