What Keeps You Awake at Night

Posted by Guest Writer in WBN News & Events      6 comments

Apr
4

(Editor’s Note: Here is the final entry in Mike Britt’s three-part series on trying to find a job with an M.F.A. in Writing. Read Parts One and Two. And check back next week, because he might just keep writing this shit for us. DD)

Michael,

I wanted to write to tell you that we have offered the Web Content Editor position and it was accepted. I was very glad to meet you and would like to keep you on file for other positions as they arise here at M— C—. Best of luck in your job search.

-Robin

There it is; short, sweet and to the point. I considered drawing this post out with more descriptions of follow-up emails, ass-kissing and then at the end dropping it on you that I hadn’t gotten the job, but I just don’t have it in me anymore. I don’t understand why they didn’t just write, “Dear Michael, Suck it!” It would have communicated the point faster, and I would have been forced to respect the brevity. Instead all this email accomplished was to tell me to fuck off and force me to respond with another simpering, “Oh I also appreciated meeting you, yes, please, oh please think of me in the future for other opportunities that don’t interest me and have nothing to do with my skills or education.”

I’m just happy it’s over. I applied for this job the first week of January and I just got this email last week. That’s a long time to wait and wonder.

I could have used that time to write, but I can’t write.

I can’t write because I’m preoccupied with trying to find a job. Every time I sit down at my computer to write something–a few lines I thought of as I was falling asleep, something I’d seen that I thought might be a nice moment in a short story–all I can think of is how I need a job, and then, then I’ll write. But I probably won’t write then either. I look back at the two years I was in my M.F.A. program and I could pound out a 20-page short story once a week, and now I don’t even have an idea.

What keeps me awake at night is the story. Everyone has one great story in them, but what is it? How do you come to it? Here are some ideas I’ve had, and the reasons I’ve discarded them:

1) Alcohol

It helps, sure, but the amount of editing you have to do after the fact just ruins the whole ebb and flow of intoxicated writing.

2) Pot

Always an option, but then you get hungry and totally forget you were even writing as you make a Magic Bullet 10-second chicken quesadilla and press play-all on the disc of Delocated. By the time you get back to your computer all you’ve written is, “Did you know Clint Eastwood is an anagram for Old West Action?” That’s not a story and never will be.

3) Methamphetamines

I read that Bret Easton Ellis wrote Less Than Zero over Christmas break his junior year of college on a meth binge, but I live in upstate New York. I’ve seen the people who gravitate toward meth and they are not the most creative people I know. Almost any night of the week you can go down to the bar and see them smiling their baked bean teeth smile at nothing in particular. I ran into a guy who was a year behind me in high school: his hair had turned gray, his lips were cracked like Tom Hanks in Joe vs. the Volcano and his skin was bee’s wax yellow. He asked what I’d been up to while looking furtively over each of my shoulders. I told him, “Nothing much.” To which he nodded and then walked off to grab his girlfriend by the ponytail for some reason which never became clear to me. Yeah I don’t think that’s my ticket to the muse.

4) Cocaine

Is too expensive to waste sitting home alone.

I guess I could be sober to write, but that doesn’t really fit the Hemingwayesque writing life I’ve imagined for myself.

Any book you read or class you take about writing, the author/teacher will tell you, “Write every day.” They tell you to make a schedule and write for a set amount of time; make it your job to write. That might work for some people but not for me. I have to wait for something to tickle at the back of my mind until it has to come out. And even then most of the time it peters out after the first paragraph or two. They will also tell you to write outlines, work out of the movements of the piece before you start writing. But I like to be surprised where my characters take me; I’m always waiting to see what is going to happen next. Maybe mystery writing is the way to go? You know, start at the end and work backward. It turns out the guy with the mustache did it.

It’s funny: everyone I’ve told about not getting the job immediately asked me “Who got it?” I don’t know who got the job. Why would I know? How could I know? Shit, if I knew I’d be leaving dog turds in his mailbox just to make myself feel better. But I do like to imagine this person walking into the place and all the people I’d solicited to put in a good word for me giving them the evil eye. I can’t wait to read the next catalog and criticize every product description.

The thing that really hurt is when I had to tell my 91-year-old grandmother that I didn’t get the job, and she said, “I’ll keep praying for you.”

And all I wanted to tell her is not to waste her breath. I’m only qualified to wait tables, and I couldn’t even get Applebee’s to call me for an interview.

Mike Britt is a writer and aspiring villain. He is a master of Krav Maga, diabolical plots and loves turtlenecks. Follow his twitter feed @TheNathanFiles for updates on his plans for world domination.