WRITER ENCOURAGEMENT: WHY IT MATTERS

Writer encouragement works like this:

“I just read a book so good I will stop writing forever.”

That’s encouragement if you read between the lines.

Read a book that moves you to feel something.

My favorite book?

The one that makes me turn the page.

At the moment that book is The Plot.

Jean Hanff Korelitz takes a shot at a writer who had his Golden Ticket punched to Midwestern University’s MFA program for writers.

But it isn’t named, this university. Could it be Northwestern?

Not likely. It has to be Iowa Writers Workshop.

Even if it’s not Iowa, I like the application deadline date.

My Iowa Is Different

I went to Iowa for fame and fortune and a plaque that looks like a car hubcap.

If you don’t know anything about amateur wrestling, this plaque is the gold standard.

It opens doors to new opportunities since college wrestling coaches scouted the biggest high school tournament of the year.

My dream started with hitchhiking from the Oregon coast to Des Moines, then catching the Oregon All-Star team.

We toured for a month, wrestling all-star teams at each stop.

I call it my version of a cultural exchange trip, but instead of New Zealand, South Africa, or Japan like other guys, I made the team going to Iowa.

The language barrier wasn’t as challenging.

In the biggest match of my life I lost by one point. Since I tied the eventual champion, and he beat my last guy by more than one point, I fell to third place.

The two guys ahead of me made national teams and won senior championships.

It was a bitter loss at the hands of an incompetent referee and a teammate who cheered against me.

I brought home a smaller plaque with a label that fell off.

That’s my Iowa; a wrestling room with Dan Gable, not a quonset hut with John Leggett.

For decades, Workshop classes were held in temporary, quonset-style army barracks near the Iowa River, where the Iowa Memorial Union stands today. 

Read The Plot For Writer Encouragement

What is it about a guy whining about his bad fortune after so much good fortune?

You get the golden ticket to Iowa. Spend two years getting an MFA while finishing a novel that is also your graduate project.

Get the book published to genuine acclaim, then the publisher passes on your next book which gets published by a ‘highly respected’ university press.

Then spiral down with each proceeding effort until you see your own diminished future in hopeful students with dreams that you’ve already lived.

What’s not to like? Bitterness in Iowa is right up my alley.

The MC of The Plot needs some writer encouragement, but he’s the writer giving encouragement.

As was said a few times in O’ Brother Where Art Thou, he’s in a tight spot.

I’m not to the part where the tricky stuff happens. So far it’s whining and complaining, which is helpful to anyone looking for that sort of inspiration.

You make good decisions that turn out wrong? Bad decisions that turn out worse?

And you want me to turn the page?

Gladly.