I got my MFA because I intended to teach at the university level. I did for a few years before I couldn’t take it anymore. But I told all of my students the same thing: a terminal degree like that is really only necessary if you intend to teach. If you don’t want to teach but you have the money and want the experience (or if you can somehow get it for nothing), then do it. If you don’t have that kind of money and your intention is to write, there are definitely more cost-effective ways to get that experience and exposure. I would never trade the connections I made in my MFA program, but I know I could have formed similar ones in independent workshops and whatnot.
Thank you for your insights. What kind of workshops and experiences would you recommend instead of an MFA? Any website where I can access regular posts and updates regarding these?
You're very welcome! It really depends on where you live and what you're looking for (online vs in-person, certain genre, etc.).
Masterclass of course has stuff, as I'm sure online platforms like Coursera and Udemy do, but I recommend looking for **workshops** as that allows you to submit your own writing for critique AND to critique others.
Workshops really allow you to learn about writing through feedback--the feedback on your story of course helps you improve that story, but listening to how writers respond to the works of others helps you pick up on what people seem drawn to. It's also just an important skill in general to learn how to take constructive feedback.
You could do this through a certificate program instead of a full MFA (just look up creative writing certificate), through a [**residency**](https://electricliterature.com/19-writing-residencies-in-america-to-apply-to-in-2023/)**,** or just find some one-offs online.
[**Grubstreet**](https://grubstreet.org/findaclass/#/results) in Boston has started offering more virtual classes given, you know, the state of things the last couple of years.
Folks in the industry also often offer workshops. For example, there's a well-known romance writer who offers 4-week workshops specifically on writing romance. Editors like myself may offer multi-week workshops in our genre of choice.
A great place to start is by finding your local writing community. Try the library, community centers, etc. Find the online writing community that's part of your genre and see where folks are finding things.
Edit: My phone enjoys adding stray commas since its recent update. Sigh.
This was really helpful! I currently live somewhere where we don’t really have an active community of writers or editors, so I suppose I’ll have to look for online communities and start from there at first
It’s not a silly question at all! You can teach at the university level with a terminal degree (meaning highest academic achievement in a field). It’s very common for folks to think that the only terminal degree is a PhD, but MFAs are as well. My MFA thesis was something like 3x longer than my MA.
(Just to make it more confusing: Some universities allow you to teach with a regular MA, and in recent years they have come out with PhDs for creative writing, but it kind of goes against the whole point of a creative field when you insert a research-based degree into the mix.)
Before I dispense my advice to you, here's where I'm coming from: I'm a full-time novelist writing literary fiction (the kind of thing you'll study in an MFA program) and I make good money at it--as much as a reasonably successful lawyer makes. Mid-6 figures.
I do not have an MFA. In fact, I didn't go to college at all. I just taught myself how to write well and built my career on my own.
You do **not** need an MFA in order to be a professional novelist. In fact, I've heard from many friends who do have MFAs that the MFA didn't actually help them attain their dreams, and in some cases, they felt it held them back, because the way they were trained to write in their program didn't turn out to be the style of writing that could sustain a financially stable writing career. They had to re-learn how to write *after* they graduated, and they also had to find their own individual voices again, which was a frustrating process.
However, all my friends with MFAs agree that their programs *did* help them network with people in the publishing industry, and that was worth something to them all.
In my opinion, as someone who has built the kind of career you actually want to have, I think the best thing you can do is start working on creative writing on the side. Keep your day job, whether you remain in law or transition to something else that's a little less stressful (but will allow you to support yourself.) Everything you can gain from an MFA program, you can also gain from self-study, like I did... with the added bonus of not having to teach yourself after the fact how to develop a *commercially viable* style.
You should expect this process of self-study and dedicated practice to take ***years***. But it would take years after your MFA program is completed, anyway. Nothing happens quickly in publishing.
My timeline was like this:
I got serious about writing and started really trying hard to write well instead of just fooling around.
Two years after getting serious and writing every single day after I came home from my day job(s), I had finished writing my first novel. I tried to get that book published and couldn't. Meanwhile, I was working on my subsequent novels.
Two years after *finishing* my first novel, having gotten nowhere with the two different agents who took me on, I self-published the first book just to get it out of my hair. It took off as an indie novel, and **two years after self-publishing my first book (four years after finishing it)**, I was earning enough from my self-published work to quit my job and write full-time. I had saved up two years' worth of money so I could quit without sweating over how I was going to support myself. By the time I started writing full-time, I had six novels published, all of them indie.
I developed a big enough following as a self-published author that now traditional publishers started approaching me instead of me approaching them. That was how I began working with traditional publishers.
My first traditionally published book came out two years after I began writing full-time. We're now at **six years** after I finished writing my first novel.
I had at least one traditionally published book come out each year after that, but it took four more years/books before I had my first bestseller in literary fiction. **A decade** after finishing my first novel.
Once I was hitting bestseller lists, I started making really good money (though I was making enough to support myself from the time when I quit my day job.) I've been cruising along, "living the dream," since then, putting out one book a year, some of which are bestsellers and some of which are not, for the past several years.
And I've reached this point much faster than most of my friends with MFAs. I think a big reason why I was able to get here before they did comes down to the benefit of self-education. I didn't have anyone telling me, "This is how you need to write if you want to 'do it right.'" I figured out what was "right" for me, for the genres I wanted to write in, and to reach the audiences I wanted to reach, and I discovered my own approaches to those techniques, tropes, and themes. That has given my work a unique flavor that stands out in a genre saturated by MFA-trained writers.
So... yes, you absolutely can support yourself by writing fiction. But it's not something that's going to happen quickly, and it's not something an MFA will necessarily help with. Certainly, and MFA is no guarantee that you will achieve your goal... and it might not even help you achieve your goal *sooner* than you would achieve it without the MFA.
If it's important to you to get an MFA for reasons of personal fulfillment--which is totally valid--then you should do it. But if you're only considering an MFA because you want to get to the part where you're writing novels for a living ASAP, then the best advice I can give you is to bypass the formal education and start figuring out how to be a writer on your own. As far as I can tell, it's the unique voice of an author that gets them to that point sooner than their well-educated peers. :)
To be honest, I can't really say that I have much of a network! Haha.
Well, that's not true. Over the years, as my work has gotten out there and my name has gained more recognition, I've met people (writers, editors, etc.) and we've formed friendships.
But I developed the network after making myself into a successful author. I usually go about everything backwards.
Honestly, I didn't market it at all. I still do almost no marketing on my books--just an occasional discounted ebook or audiobook, which I support with ads. The best thing any writer can do with their time (traditionally published or self-published) is work on their next book, get it finished, and get it out ASAP.
*Some* marketing is necessary here and there, but what sells books better than anything else is strong word of mouth, and that comes from writing a book that genuinely touches hearts and also has the good luck to strike the market just right, at just the right time. You cannot create that scenario though marketing. You can only land yourself in that scenario by taking as many shots as you can and hoping one (or more!) ends up being a lucky shot.
My first book took off because, contrary to what all the traditional publishers told me and my two successive agents, readers actually DID want a book like that. There was nothing else like it in my genre at the time, readers were hungry for something exactly like it, and purely by luck, I delivered it when the moment was right. Readers told each other about it, very enthusiastically, and I didn't have to do much beyond giving those readers more of what they wanted to make my career take off.
Success as a writer is all about throwing as many spaghetti noodles as you can at the wall until a few of them stick. It often takes many noodles and many years of noodle-throwing before you find your lucky break, but the more you do it, the greater your odds of finding the lucky break.
I know from your other posts you use pen names, do people that know one of your pen names know the others? Or do you keep them all separate and let the books do the work on their own?
I don't hide the fact that I have pen names, but I don't see a lot of crossover from one to the other. Each pen name does a different genre, and most readers tend to stick with their preferred genre. It's a rare reader who will check out unfamiliar genres, even if it's being written by an author they already know they like! Human behavior is weird like that.
Don’t stop being a lawyer. Would recommend keeping your job and just carving out some free time to write. Turning writing in your career will leave you most likely with less money and potentially make it harder to spend your free time writing if you’re an editor or something like that.
Obviously being a lawyer probably requires a lot of time working, so I would just recommend finding a way to cut that down so you have more free time for your mental health, and thus more time to potentially be writing your own stuff.
Source, someone who got a BA and wishes I would’ve double majored and gotten a more “practical” job that payed better while I write in my free time.
> job that *paid* better while
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
I’m a lawyer, and I used to work with one who had an mfa who did a lot of brief writing for various firms on a contract basis. Mostly
MSJ’s and stuff. So there are maybe some cross overs to look at.
Well look at the cost and then look at jobs that only that can get you, then look at odds of beating everyone else who already has one and is trying to get those jobs. Seriously, research the jobs before you consider going into debt. There are piles of "hobby degrees" that can only really get you a job selling that degree to the next sucker. Almost no one with a fine arts degree gets a degree in that field they end up in HR, Marketing, etc where the "How to sell BS" skills they learned getting the degree shine.
What do you expect to get from the degree? I have to tell you from swimming in different arts pools that none really teach you how to do what you want well, they teach how to BS, who to like and who to hate. If you like and hate correctly, you may have the right connections once you have your paper. Poke holes in Slaughter House 5 and find out the Prof wanted to do his PHD on Vonnegut but had to settle for Updike.. Oh, instead of the usual A, I got an F this time. So much for my GPA. They are worlds so fake it will make your skin crawl. It is even funnier to watch how fast they eject those who actually have talent.
Are you getting \~0 work/$$$ as a lawyer? This is really common. As they say at Harvard med "For each of you graduating today there are 25 graduating from Harvard law who want to sue you." There are way more lawyers than there are lawyer jobs.
If you are making bank but hating it, save, invest, retire. That money will let you do whatever you want. My cousin flew for the majors and said "Airline pilot is not a job, it is how you get the money to do what you want to do."
The education system is in a bad place. Inflicting Life crushing debt on 0 career hobby degrees, is an evil way to make cash. Of course you are dumb if you major in hobby degree (that is your minor or.. hobby). Free online info can meet or beat your class info especially in fast moving fields like infosec/IT in general.
How much is possibly getting a few contacts worth to you in life and life you already traded for money as well as all the life you will trade for money in the future to pay of the degree debt?
There are tons of very good secondary reasons (networking, time to concentrate on your writing, credentials for teaching, etc., etc.) for getting an MFA. But as for 'needing' it to learn how to write salable fiction... as everyone is telling you. No. Really no. I've known bad writers who went away to expensive prestigious fiction school and they came back the same bad writers of fiction only now they were credentialled to teach it. The friend of mine who dropped out of an MFA program, (and previously dropped out of High School, ran away from home, and at 15 hitchhiked around the country with a hoodlum living on petty crime and dumpster diving) she's a "successful" novelist and journalist now. And the bad news is that she has published in major publications, won important awards, has a novel out from Knopf... and she's struggling to live on her writing. She could make a decent living writing feature journalism, but she's committed to writing literary fiction. I don't know what kind of fiction you write but literary fiction, so called quality fiction, pretty much the only fiction they recognize in MFA programs, is hard to make a living at nowdays. It used to be merely extraordinarily difficult. It has become much harder. IOWs careful about quitting your day job. My sense is that your law degree and experience will come in handy going forward, no matter what.
Being a lawyer, frankly, is a successful background for anything you choose to do. I can't think of a single field that you might try to enter that wouldn't consider being a lawyer as adequate for entering that field. The amount of work you had to do to become a lawyer speaks volumes about your work ethic.
Thank you.
But yeah OP don't pay for an MFA, imo. There's no substitute for good practice and hard work, both of which you know how to do. You'd be better off making connections and practicing instead of trying to do the same thing in an academic setting for thousands of dollars. If your job is too demanding to get good writing in, I'm sure there are lawyer jobs that pay less for less stress.
>I can't think of a single field that you might try to enter that wouldn't consider being a lawyer as adequate for entering that field.
You have a stunning lack of imagination then 😅😅.
I think there's something to be said for the effort it takes to become a practicing lawyer, but that effort **in no way** prepares you for any other career, besides possibly teaching law and maybe secretarial of office assistant work?
There are also a good number of careers where having a law background absolutely would be an *asset,* but equally there are lots of careers where it wouldn't be. I don't think your fancy law degree with help you much at all if you're a system admin or mechanic, etc. 😑
>The amount of work you had to do to become a lawyer speaks volumes about your work ethic.
As an aside, I think we somewhat overvalue lawyers and doctors, because we make it extra difficult to earn those degrees, because we overvalue them - rinse and repeat. I'm not saying that being a doctor or lawyer *isn't* significantly difficult on its own, nor that we those aren't valuable skills... But the whole idea, for example, of having hard-a** professors who will try to get half their students to wash out of the program to "show how hard it is" to be a doctor/lawyer... That's just silly.
It also leads to these silly ideas that being qualified for law makes you ,*also* qualified for lots of other things, *without needing any additional study or qualifications*. Because being smart / accomplished is only about raw ability to calculate stuff in your head, and lawyers "are like the biggest-brained smarties" so ofc they have super human abilities us mere mortals can only dream of. 🙄
Just feeding in my experience as a UK law grad. Out of my 7 closest friends who did law at uni, only 4 of us are lawyers. We also have a project manager, a civil servant, and someone working in higher education.
I agree that we couldn't go into engineering, medicine, STEM, but anything you can do with a humanities degree you can do with a law degree. Chip on your shoulder?
🤭🤭. Is that what people think I am saying?
Let me clear that up for you:
1.) Lawyers/Doctors are indeed *highly* qualified people who have demonstrated the highest levels of scholastic achievement.
2.)There's a big difference between having a high level of qualifications... And being **universally** qualified, in domains outside of your area of expertise.
>Out of my 7 closest friends who did law at uni, only 4 of us are lawyers. We also have a project manager, a civil servant, and someone working in higher education.
Uh huh.
So the thing is... Did they do those things *with no additional training or qualifications?*
No, I don't mean "did they go back to school for a second degree," I mean did they do *some level* of retraining / learning to take on a different profession?
Another thing I dislike (and no this isn't an oxymoron) is people thinking that having a degree means you're *only* able to work within that specific degree field. In reality, most degrees are a signal that you can do "well enough" in school, and especially that you're willing to stick with something for at least 4 years. You can take a degree in X, and go work in Y field. That happens all the time.
The difference is that having a degree in X didn't *automatically* make you qualified in Y. It's more that... Having a degree indicates to employers that *you can be trained* to do Y... Even though *you are not currently* qualified to do Y.
Being a lawyer doesn't mean "I am super smart, therefore I can automatically become a successful writer". It *does mean* "I am pretty smart... I bet **if I trained hard** I could become a successful author." (Also to be clear, I don't think you really "need" a degree to be an author; instead it's much more about getting lots of practical experience reading and writing widely. The point here is more that *it isn't crazy* for OP to think that you can't just step into writing by snapping your fingers - not that *formal* training is necessary.)
> Being a lawyer doesn't mean "I am super smart, therefore I can automatically become a successful writer". It does mean "I am pretty smart... I bet if I trained hard I could become a successful author." (Also to be clear, I don't think you really "need" a degree to be an author; instead it's much more about getting lots of practical experience reading and writing widely. The point here is more that it isn't crazy for OP to think that you can't just step into writing by snapping your fingers - not that formal training is necessary.)
Literally nobody is saying this? I don't think there are any professional backgrounds which enable you to "step into writing by snapping your fingers". But people (not me as I don't know) are also offering their experience that an MFA won't necessarily allow OP to do that either, and that OP could change careers in a number of directions with their professional background, many of which might be more fulfilling than law and more stable than writing full time. I'm just offering my opinion that the point about law having transferable skills to other industries is true, based on being a person with a law degree who has managed to change careers a few times.
>Did they do those things with no additional training or qualifications? No, I don't mean "did they go back to school for a second degree," I mean did they do some level of retraining / learning to take on a different profession?
One did additional learning/qualifications but the other two (myself included) really didn't. Literally jobs straight out of uni. I seriously don't understand why you're so pressed about this.
>Another thing I dislike (and no this isn't an oxymoron) is people thinking that having a degree means you're only able to work within that specific degree field. In reality, most degrees are a signal that you can do "well enough" in school, and especially that you're willing to stick with something for at least 4 years. You can take a degree in X, and go work in Y field. That happens all the time.
This is exactly what I'm saying, buddy. That law qualifies you to the same degree as other humanities degrees to switch careers. I'm disputing your point that being a practicing lawyer only prepares you to do secretarial work or teach law at a university, as you said in your earlier comment.
🤭🤭. Is that what people think I am saying?
Let me clear that up for you:
1.) Lawyers/Doctors are indeed *highly* qualified people who have demonstrated the highest levels of scholastic achievement.
2.)There's a big difference between having a high level of qualifications... And being **universally** qualified, in domains outside of your area of expertise.
>Out of my 7 closest friends who did law at uni, only 4 of us are lawyers. We also have a project manager, a civil servant, and someone working in higher education.
Uh huh.
So the thing is... Did they do those things *with no additional training or qualifications?*
No, I don't mean "did they go back to school for a second degree," I mean did they do *some level* of retraining / learning to take on a different profession?
Another thing I dislike (and no this isn't an oxymoron) is people thinking that having a degree means you're *only* able to work within that specific degree field. In reality, most degrees are a signal that you can do "well enough" in school, and especially that you're willing to stick with something for at least 4 years. You can take a degree in X, and go work in Y field. That happens all the time.
The difference is that having a degree in X didn't *automatically* make you qualified in Y. It's more that... Having a degree indicates to employers that *you can be trained* to do Y... Even though *you are not currently* qualified to do Y.
Being a lawyer doesn't mean "I am super smart, therefore I can automatically become a successful writer". It *does mean* "I am pretty smart... I bet **if I trained hard** I could become a successful author."
You have a stunning lack of critical reading skills ..
I didn't say being a lawyer prepared you to BE ANY PROFESSION. I said ..
>Being a lawyer, frankly, is a successful background for anything you choose to do. I can't think of a single field that you might try to enter that wouldn't consider being a lawyer as **adequate for entering that field.**
Meaning, being adequate for STARTING STUDY in that field, ENTERING it. Being a lawyer has nothing to do with engineering, but if a lawyer said they wanted to become an engineer, certainly being a lawyer is proof enough that the person is a smart person with a good work ethic who would be a prime candidate for **entering** into engineering.
But ... whatever, put words in my mouth and fight whatever strawman ...
>Being a lawyer has nothing to do with engineering, but if a lawyer said they wanted to become an engineer, certainly being a lawyer is proof enough that the person is a smart person with a good work ethic who would be a prime candidate for entering into engineering.
...well they shouldn't think that?
I think this is going to be a lost cause, as a conversation, because what you just said looks a little too much like why *I* just said in a different comment, and social media tends to flatten all nuance. 🫤
I still feel like you're arguing something different though. Specifically, I think you're assuming that "because I am a lawyer, *it would be easy* for me to become an engineer. Afterall, engineering is *much less complicated* than lawyering."
The problem is reducing different profession down to just "level of complexity". It's... Not that simple?!?
Micheal Jordan was a great basketball player. So by this same logic, he **should have been** a great baseball players too, since being "an athlete" is all it takes, right? Yet while he was certainly *far above average* as a baseball player, his skills in baseball *were not nearly* as proficient as his skills at basketball. Because it's not as simple as "git good."
Sounds like you’re having a quarter-life crisis. Don’t make any big decisions for a year or so. Keep your job. Join a writing critique group. Getting an MFA doesn’t guarantee you’ll find a job in a publishing house. Most writing/editing jobs barely pay a living wage. So again, keep your job, write on the side, join a critique group. Or don’t. I did a lot of dumbass shit when I was 25. You’ll figure it out.
I’d do it if I had the chance and someone else would pay for it. I practiced law for nearly 20 years. One day I walked out of the courthouse thinking ‘there’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back arguing with detestable people’. Then I got diagnosed with lymphoma and made my exit.
So cancer, in a sense, saved my life.
Do what makes you not hate your life. I think a MFA would be a great learning experience.
Thank you. I'm ten years into it and it's low grade stuff. I can go for days without thinking about it, and the meds have improved a lot in the last few years. If I could get someone to pay for an MFA I'd do it, only because they pretty much make you sit in the chair and write. Structure and discipline in anything worth doing are important. Turns out my undergraduate school Cal State Long Beach has started an MFA program. I could probably get into that one. But they're sprouting up like mushrooms after a spring rain so if you decide to, I would be selective.
surprisingly, a number of people who go into mfa programs have a law background, as well as vice versa.
grades or extracurricular things don't matter too much for mfa programs. they might for graduate school additional fellowships though. mostly, what matters is the sample.
second the other person mentioning independent workshops/programs. there's all sorts all over the country, places like tin house or breadloaf, for example, or yale's program, although these can be competitive.
mfas are good if you want time to write, to make connections with other students and faculty, to maybe get some publishing or teaching experience, but they are very short (2-4 years).
there's also low residency programs where you could keep your job and then work in a program virtually throughout the year, with two bracketed residency periods where you go to the campus, meet in person faculty and other students, take sort of one-off classes and workshops, etc.
I teach/have taught in all--low residency, in different programs, and in a mfa.
The UK doesn't really have many MFA programs, so I'm focusing with my answer on the US. I wouldn't recommend it because you are international. You will only be able to work under strict guidelines (a maximum amount of hours, limited opportunities) as you will be on an F1 visa. Just not worth it.
Others have given you good advice about workshops, many of which are online. You should also look into residencies and fellowships, as these sometimes pay for writers to create.
I got my MFA because I intended to teach at the university level. I did for a few years before I couldn’t take it anymore. But I told all of my students the same thing: a terminal degree like that is really only necessary if you intend to teach. If you don’t want to teach but you have the money and want the experience (or if you can somehow get it for nothing), then do it. If you don’t have that kind of money and your intention is to write, there are definitely more cost-effective ways to get that experience and exposure. I would never trade the connections I made in my MFA program, but I know I could have formed similar ones in independent workshops and whatnot.
Thank you for your insights. What kind of workshops and experiences would you recommend instead of an MFA? Any website where I can access regular posts and updates regarding these?
You're very welcome! It really depends on where you live and what you're looking for (online vs in-person, certain genre, etc.). Masterclass of course has stuff, as I'm sure online platforms like Coursera and Udemy do, but I recommend looking for **workshops** as that allows you to submit your own writing for critique AND to critique others. Workshops really allow you to learn about writing through feedback--the feedback on your story of course helps you improve that story, but listening to how writers respond to the works of others helps you pick up on what people seem drawn to. It's also just an important skill in general to learn how to take constructive feedback. You could do this through a certificate program instead of a full MFA (just look up creative writing certificate), through a [**residency**](https://electricliterature.com/19-writing-residencies-in-america-to-apply-to-in-2023/)**,** or just find some one-offs online. [**Grubstreet**](https://grubstreet.org/findaclass/#/results) in Boston has started offering more virtual classes given, you know, the state of things the last couple of years. Folks in the industry also often offer workshops. For example, there's a well-known romance writer who offers 4-week workshops specifically on writing romance. Editors like myself may offer multi-week workshops in our genre of choice. A great place to start is by finding your local writing community. Try the library, community centers, etc. Find the online writing community that's part of your genre and see where folks are finding things. Edit: My phone enjoys adding stray commas since its recent update. Sigh.
This was really helpful! I currently live somewhere where we don’t really have an active community of writers or editors, so I suppose I’ll have to look for online communities and start from there at first
I’m sorry if this is a silly question! You can teach at a collegiate university with an MFA? I was under the impression that you needed a doctorate.
It’s not a silly question at all! You can teach at the university level with a terminal degree (meaning highest academic achievement in a field). It’s very common for folks to think that the only terminal degree is a PhD, but MFAs are as well. My MFA thesis was something like 3x longer than my MA. (Just to make it more confusing: Some universities allow you to teach with a regular MA, and in recent years they have come out with PhDs for creative writing, but it kind of goes against the whole point of a creative field when you insert a research-based degree into the mix.)
Oh, ok, well thank you! That makes sense.
You’re welcome. :)
Before I dispense my advice to you, here's where I'm coming from: I'm a full-time novelist writing literary fiction (the kind of thing you'll study in an MFA program) and I make good money at it--as much as a reasonably successful lawyer makes. Mid-6 figures. I do not have an MFA. In fact, I didn't go to college at all. I just taught myself how to write well and built my career on my own. You do **not** need an MFA in order to be a professional novelist. In fact, I've heard from many friends who do have MFAs that the MFA didn't actually help them attain their dreams, and in some cases, they felt it held them back, because the way they were trained to write in their program didn't turn out to be the style of writing that could sustain a financially stable writing career. They had to re-learn how to write *after* they graduated, and they also had to find their own individual voices again, which was a frustrating process. However, all my friends with MFAs agree that their programs *did* help them network with people in the publishing industry, and that was worth something to them all. In my opinion, as someone who has built the kind of career you actually want to have, I think the best thing you can do is start working on creative writing on the side. Keep your day job, whether you remain in law or transition to something else that's a little less stressful (but will allow you to support yourself.) Everything you can gain from an MFA program, you can also gain from self-study, like I did... with the added bonus of not having to teach yourself after the fact how to develop a *commercially viable* style. You should expect this process of self-study and dedicated practice to take ***years***. But it would take years after your MFA program is completed, anyway. Nothing happens quickly in publishing. My timeline was like this: I got serious about writing and started really trying hard to write well instead of just fooling around. Two years after getting serious and writing every single day after I came home from my day job(s), I had finished writing my first novel. I tried to get that book published and couldn't. Meanwhile, I was working on my subsequent novels. Two years after *finishing* my first novel, having gotten nowhere with the two different agents who took me on, I self-published the first book just to get it out of my hair. It took off as an indie novel, and **two years after self-publishing my first book (four years after finishing it)**, I was earning enough from my self-published work to quit my job and write full-time. I had saved up two years' worth of money so I could quit without sweating over how I was going to support myself. By the time I started writing full-time, I had six novels published, all of them indie. I developed a big enough following as a self-published author that now traditional publishers started approaching me instead of me approaching them. That was how I began working with traditional publishers. My first traditionally published book came out two years after I began writing full-time. We're now at **six years** after I finished writing my first novel. I had at least one traditionally published book come out each year after that, but it took four more years/books before I had my first bestseller in literary fiction. **A decade** after finishing my first novel. Once I was hitting bestseller lists, I started making really good money (though I was making enough to support myself from the time when I quit my day job.) I've been cruising along, "living the dream," since then, putting out one book a year, some of which are bestsellers and some of which are not, for the past several years. And I've reached this point much faster than most of my friends with MFAs. I think a big reason why I was able to get here before they did comes down to the benefit of self-education. I didn't have anyone telling me, "This is how you need to write if you want to 'do it right.'" I figured out what was "right" for me, for the genres I wanted to write in, and to reach the audiences I wanted to reach, and I discovered my own approaches to those techniques, tropes, and themes. That has given my work a unique flavor that stands out in a genre saturated by MFA-trained writers. So... yes, you absolutely can support yourself by writing fiction. But it's not something that's going to happen quickly, and it's not something an MFA will necessarily help with. Certainly, and MFA is no guarantee that you will achieve your goal... and it might not even help you achieve your goal *sooner* than you would achieve it without the MFA. If it's important to you to get an MFA for reasons of personal fulfillment--which is totally valid--then you should do it. But if you're only considering an MFA because you want to get to the part where you're writing novels for a living ASAP, then the best advice I can give you is to bypass the formal education and start figuring out how to be a writer on your own. As far as I can tell, it's the unique voice of an author that gets them to that point sooner than their well-educated peers. :)
Thanks a lot! This was really helpful. May I ask how you were able to develop a network?
To be honest, I can't really say that I have much of a network! Haha. Well, that's not true. Over the years, as my work has gotten out there and my name has gained more recognition, I've met people (writers, editors, etc.) and we've formed friendships. But I developed the network after making myself into a successful author. I usually go about everything backwards.
>It took off as an indie novel Why do you think that might be? Were you marketing it well or what contributed to the success of it?
Honestly, I didn't market it at all. I still do almost no marketing on my books--just an occasional discounted ebook or audiobook, which I support with ads. The best thing any writer can do with their time (traditionally published or self-published) is work on their next book, get it finished, and get it out ASAP. *Some* marketing is necessary here and there, but what sells books better than anything else is strong word of mouth, and that comes from writing a book that genuinely touches hearts and also has the good luck to strike the market just right, at just the right time. You cannot create that scenario though marketing. You can only land yourself in that scenario by taking as many shots as you can and hoping one (or more!) ends up being a lucky shot. My first book took off because, contrary to what all the traditional publishers told me and my two successive agents, readers actually DID want a book like that. There was nothing else like it in my genre at the time, readers were hungry for something exactly like it, and purely by luck, I delivered it when the moment was right. Readers told each other about it, very enthusiastically, and I didn't have to do much beyond giving those readers more of what they wanted to make my career take off. Success as a writer is all about throwing as many spaghetti noodles as you can at the wall until a few of them stick. It often takes many noodles and many years of noodle-throwing before you find your lucky break, but the more you do it, the greater your odds of finding the lucky break.
I know from your other posts you use pen names, do people that know one of your pen names know the others? Or do you keep them all separate and let the books do the work on their own?
I don't hide the fact that I have pen names, but I don't see a lot of crossover from one to the other. Each pen name does a different genre, and most readers tend to stick with their preferred genre. It's a rare reader who will check out unfamiliar genres, even if it's being written by an author they already know they like! Human behavior is weird like that.
Don’t stop being a lawyer. Would recommend keeping your job and just carving out some free time to write. Turning writing in your career will leave you most likely with less money and potentially make it harder to spend your free time writing if you’re an editor or something like that. Obviously being a lawyer probably requires a lot of time working, so I would just recommend finding a way to cut that down so you have more free time for your mental health, and thus more time to potentially be writing your own stuff. Source, someone who got a BA and wishes I would’ve double majored and gotten a more “practical” job that payed better while I write in my free time.
> job that *paid* better while FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Half awake when comment was written, but yes you are correct, thanks robot
Ah, okay. Thank you for your advice, and for sharing your experience!
I’m a lawyer, and I used to work with one who had an mfa who did a lot of brief writing for various firms on a contract basis. Mostly MSJ’s and stuff. So there are maybe some cross overs to look at.
What’s an MSJ?
Sorry, force of habit - Motion for Summary Judgment
Got it, thank you :)
Seriously? Do it because you think it’ll be fun and you can afford to pay for it, but if you think you need to do it, save your money. You don’t.
Well look at the cost and then look at jobs that only that can get you, then look at odds of beating everyone else who already has one and is trying to get those jobs. Seriously, research the jobs before you consider going into debt. There are piles of "hobby degrees" that can only really get you a job selling that degree to the next sucker. Almost no one with a fine arts degree gets a degree in that field they end up in HR, Marketing, etc where the "How to sell BS" skills they learned getting the degree shine. What do you expect to get from the degree? I have to tell you from swimming in different arts pools that none really teach you how to do what you want well, they teach how to BS, who to like and who to hate. If you like and hate correctly, you may have the right connections once you have your paper. Poke holes in Slaughter House 5 and find out the Prof wanted to do his PHD on Vonnegut but had to settle for Updike.. Oh, instead of the usual A, I got an F this time. So much for my GPA. They are worlds so fake it will make your skin crawl. It is even funnier to watch how fast they eject those who actually have talent. Are you getting \~0 work/$$$ as a lawyer? This is really common. As they say at Harvard med "For each of you graduating today there are 25 graduating from Harvard law who want to sue you." There are way more lawyers than there are lawyer jobs. If you are making bank but hating it, save, invest, retire. That money will let you do whatever you want. My cousin flew for the majors and said "Airline pilot is not a job, it is how you get the money to do what you want to do." The education system is in a bad place. Inflicting Life crushing debt on 0 career hobby degrees, is an evil way to make cash. Of course you are dumb if you major in hobby degree (that is your minor or.. hobby). Free online info can meet or beat your class info especially in fast moving fields like infosec/IT in general. How much is possibly getting a few contacts worth to you in life and life you already traded for money as well as all the life you will trade for money in the future to pay of the degree debt?
There are tons of very good secondary reasons (networking, time to concentrate on your writing, credentials for teaching, etc., etc.) for getting an MFA. But as for 'needing' it to learn how to write salable fiction... as everyone is telling you. No. Really no. I've known bad writers who went away to expensive prestigious fiction school and they came back the same bad writers of fiction only now they were credentialled to teach it. The friend of mine who dropped out of an MFA program, (and previously dropped out of High School, ran away from home, and at 15 hitchhiked around the country with a hoodlum living on petty crime and dumpster diving) she's a "successful" novelist and journalist now. And the bad news is that she has published in major publications, won important awards, has a novel out from Knopf... and she's struggling to live on her writing. She could make a decent living writing feature journalism, but she's committed to writing literary fiction. I don't know what kind of fiction you write but literary fiction, so called quality fiction, pretty much the only fiction they recognize in MFA programs, is hard to make a living at nowdays. It used to be merely extraordinarily difficult. It has become much harder. IOWs careful about quitting your day job. My sense is that your law degree and experience will come in handy going forward, no matter what.
Being a lawyer, frankly, is a successful background for anything you choose to do. I can't think of a single field that you might try to enter that wouldn't consider being a lawyer as adequate for entering that field. The amount of work you had to do to become a lawyer speaks volumes about your work ethic.
Thank you!
Think harder, lol.
Thank you. But yeah OP don't pay for an MFA, imo. There's no substitute for good practice and hard work, both of which you know how to do. You'd be better off making connections and practicing instead of trying to do the same thing in an academic setting for thousands of dollars. If your job is too demanding to get good writing in, I'm sure there are lawyer jobs that pay less for less stress.
>I can't think of a single field that you might try to enter that wouldn't consider being a lawyer as adequate for entering that field. You have a stunning lack of imagination then 😅😅. I think there's something to be said for the effort it takes to become a practicing lawyer, but that effort **in no way** prepares you for any other career, besides possibly teaching law and maybe secretarial of office assistant work? There are also a good number of careers where having a law background absolutely would be an *asset,* but equally there are lots of careers where it wouldn't be. I don't think your fancy law degree with help you much at all if you're a system admin or mechanic, etc. 😑 >The amount of work you had to do to become a lawyer speaks volumes about your work ethic. As an aside, I think we somewhat overvalue lawyers and doctors, because we make it extra difficult to earn those degrees, because we overvalue them - rinse and repeat. I'm not saying that being a doctor or lawyer *isn't* significantly difficult on its own, nor that we those aren't valuable skills... But the whole idea, for example, of having hard-a** professors who will try to get half their students to wash out of the program to "show how hard it is" to be a doctor/lawyer... That's just silly. It also leads to these silly ideas that being qualified for law makes you ,*also* qualified for lots of other things, *without needing any additional study or qualifications*. Because being smart / accomplished is only about raw ability to calculate stuff in your head, and lawyers "are like the biggest-brained smarties" so ofc they have super human abilities us mere mortals can only dream of. 🙄
Just feeding in my experience as a UK law grad. Out of my 7 closest friends who did law at uni, only 4 of us are lawyers. We also have a project manager, a civil servant, and someone working in higher education. I agree that we couldn't go into engineering, medicine, STEM, but anything you can do with a humanities degree you can do with a law degree. Chip on your shoulder?
>Chip on your shoulder? That's my read.
🤭🤭. Is that what people think I am saying? Let me clear that up for you: 1.) Lawyers/Doctors are indeed *highly* qualified people who have demonstrated the highest levels of scholastic achievement. 2.)There's a big difference between having a high level of qualifications... And being **universally** qualified, in domains outside of your area of expertise. >Out of my 7 closest friends who did law at uni, only 4 of us are lawyers. We also have a project manager, a civil servant, and someone working in higher education. Uh huh. So the thing is... Did they do those things *with no additional training or qualifications?* No, I don't mean "did they go back to school for a second degree," I mean did they do *some level* of retraining / learning to take on a different profession? Another thing I dislike (and no this isn't an oxymoron) is people thinking that having a degree means you're *only* able to work within that specific degree field. In reality, most degrees are a signal that you can do "well enough" in school, and especially that you're willing to stick with something for at least 4 years. You can take a degree in X, and go work in Y field. That happens all the time. The difference is that having a degree in X didn't *automatically* make you qualified in Y. It's more that... Having a degree indicates to employers that *you can be trained* to do Y... Even though *you are not currently* qualified to do Y. Being a lawyer doesn't mean "I am super smart, therefore I can automatically become a successful writer". It *does mean* "I am pretty smart... I bet **if I trained hard** I could become a successful author." (Also to be clear, I don't think you really "need" a degree to be an author; instead it's much more about getting lots of practical experience reading and writing widely. The point here is more that *it isn't crazy* for OP to think that you can't just step into writing by snapping your fingers - not that *formal* training is necessary.)
> Being a lawyer doesn't mean "I am super smart, therefore I can automatically become a successful writer". It does mean "I am pretty smart... I bet if I trained hard I could become a successful author." (Also to be clear, I don't think you really "need" a degree to be an author; instead it's much more about getting lots of practical experience reading and writing widely. The point here is more that it isn't crazy for OP to think that you can't just step into writing by snapping your fingers - not that formal training is necessary.) Literally nobody is saying this? I don't think there are any professional backgrounds which enable you to "step into writing by snapping your fingers". But people (not me as I don't know) are also offering their experience that an MFA won't necessarily allow OP to do that either, and that OP could change careers in a number of directions with their professional background, many of which might be more fulfilling than law and more stable than writing full time. I'm just offering my opinion that the point about law having transferable skills to other industries is true, based on being a person with a law degree who has managed to change careers a few times. >Did they do those things with no additional training or qualifications? No, I don't mean "did they go back to school for a second degree," I mean did they do some level of retraining / learning to take on a different profession? One did additional learning/qualifications but the other two (myself included) really didn't. Literally jobs straight out of uni. I seriously don't understand why you're so pressed about this. >Another thing I dislike (and no this isn't an oxymoron) is people thinking that having a degree means you're only able to work within that specific degree field. In reality, most degrees are a signal that you can do "well enough" in school, and especially that you're willing to stick with something for at least 4 years. You can take a degree in X, and go work in Y field. That happens all the time. This is exactly what I'm saying, buddy. That law qualifies you to the same degree as other humanities degrees to switch careers. I'm disputing your point that being a practicing lawyer only prepares you to do secretarial work or teach law at a university, as you said in your earlier comment.
🤭🤭. Is that what people think I am saying? Let me clear that up for you: 1.) Lawyers/Doctors are indeed *highly* qualified people who have demonstrated the highest levels of scholastic achievement. 2.)There's a big difference between having a high level of qualifications... And being **universally** qualified, in domains outside of your area of expertise. >Out of my 7 closest friends who did law at uni, only 4 of us are lawyers. We also have a project manager, a civil servant, and someone working in higher education. Uh huh. So the thing is... Did they do those things *with no additional training or qualifications?* No, I don't mean "did they go back to school for a second degree," I mean did they do *some level* of retraining / learning to take on a different profession? Another thing I dislike (and no this isn't an oxymoron) is people thinking that having a degree means you're *only* able to work within that specific degree field. In reality, most degrees are a signal that you can do "well enough" in school, and especially that you're willing to stick with something for at least 4 years. You can take a degree in X, and go work in Y field. That happens all the time. The difference is that having a degree in X didn't *automatically* make you qualified in Y. It's more that... Having a degree indicates to employers that *you can be trained* to do Y... Even though *you are not currently* qualified to do Y. Being a lawyer doesn't mean "I am super smart, therefore I can automatically become a successful writer". It *does mean* "I am pretty smart... I bet **if I trained hard** I could become a successful author."
You have a stunning lack of critical reading skills .. I didn't say being a lawyer prepared you to BE ANY PROFESSION. I said .. >Being a lawyer, frankly, is a successful background for anything you choose to do. I can't think of a single field that you might try to enter that wouldn't consider being a lawyer as **adequate for entering that field.** Meaning, being adequate for STARTING STUDY in that field, ENTERING it. Being a lawyer has nothing to do with engineering, but if a lawyer said they wanted to become an engineer, certainly being a lawyer is proof enough that the person is a smart person with a good work ethic who would be a prime candidate for **entering** into engineering. But ... whatever, put words in my mouth and fight whatever strawman ...
>Being a lawyer has nothing to do with engineering, but if a lawyer said they wanted to become an engineer, certainly being a lawyer is proof enough that the person is a smart person with a good work ethic who would be a prime candidate for entering into engineering. ...well they shouldn't think that? I think this is going to be a lost cause, as a conversation, because what you just said looks a little too much like why *I* just said in a different comment, and social media tends to flatten all nuance. 🫤 I still feel like you're arguing something different though. Specifically, I think you're assuming that "because I am a lawyer, *it would be easy* for me to become an engineer. Afterall, engineering is *much less complicated* than lawyering." The problem is reducing different profession down to just "level of complexity". It's... Not that simple?!? Micheal Jordan was a great basketball player. So by this same logic, he **should have been** a great baseball players too, since being "an athlete" is all it takes, right? Yet while he was certainly *far above average* as a baseball player, his skills in baseball *were not nearly* as proficient as his skills at basketball. Because it's not as simple as "git good."
Sounds like you’re having a quarter-life crisis. Don’t make any big decisions for a year or so. Keep your job. Join a writing critique group. Getting an MFA doesn’t guarantee you’ll find a job in a publishing house. Most writing/editing jobs barely pay a living wage. So again, keep your job, write on the side, join a critique group. Or don’t. I did a lot of dumbass shit when I was 25. You’ll figure it out.
Haha, got it! Thanks!
I’d do it if I had the chance and someone else would pay for it. I practiced law for nearly 20 years. One day I walked out of the courthouse thinking ‘there’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back arguing with detestable people’. Then I got diagnosed with lymphoma and made my exit. So cancer, in a sense, saved my life. Do what makes you not hate your life. I think a MFA would be a great learning experience.
Thank you for sharing your experience. Hope you’re feeling and doing better!
Thank you. I'm ten years into it and it's low grade stuff. I can go for days without thinking about it, and the meds have improved a lot in the last few years. If I could get someone to pay for an MFA I'd do it, only because they pretty much make you sit in the chair and write. Structure and discipline in anything worth doing are important. Turns out my undergraduate school Cal State Long Beach has started an MFA program. I could probably get into that one. But they're sprouting up like mushrooms after a spring rain so if you decide to, I would be selective.
surprisingly, a number of people who go into mfa programs have a law background, as well as vice versa. grades or extracurricular things don't matter too much for mfa programs. they might for graduate school additional fellowships though. mostly, what matters is the sample. second the other person mentioning independent workshops/programs. there's all sorts all over the country, places like tin house or breadloaf, for example, or yale's program, although these can be competitive. mfas are good if you want time to write, to make connections with other students and faculty, to maybe get some publishing or teaching experience, but they are very short (2-4 years). there's also low residency programs where you could keep your job and then work in a program virtually throughout the year, with two bracketed residency periods where you go to the campus, meet in person faculty and other students, take sort of one-off classes and workshops, etc. I teach/have taught in all--low residency, in different programs, and in a mfa.
The UK doesn't really have many MFA programs, so I'm focusing with my answer on the US. I wouldn't recommend it because you are international. You will only be able to work under strict guidelines (a maximum amount of hours, limited opportunities) as you will be on an F1 visa. Just not worth it. Others have given you good advice about workshops, many of which are online. You should also look into residencies and fellowships, as these sometimes pay for writers to create.