Writing's High Cost

Yesterday I decided to scrap my plans for applying for Internship A.

The fact that it pays nothing, that I'd have to work a job on top of a 40-hour-a-week internship, and still eat through my savings just to pay outrageously high rent in D.C. isn't something I can justify as a responsible use of the leftover scholarship money I've been blessed with. That money is not only my cushion, it's a potential start-up fund for a business, money for a new car, or the nest egg to pay my bills until the writing career gears up.

So, yes, the opportunity would be great, but with no guarantee of writing gigs and money to follow, it would definitely give me a great experience, but possibly but leave me in a deep financial hole.

However, I will still apply for Internship S. It is an extra month, running from January-July, also in D.C., also with a major national magazine. But this is a paid internship! And it's my dream magazine.

Getting this internship will be much harder, though: instead of accepting up to five interns per term, as the other magazine does, this magazine takes only one at a time. Instead of being open to only undergrad students and recent graduates, as the other magazine's internship is, this internship is available to recent graduates and recent graduates of grad school programs. The competition will be more intense, but the reward is far higher. Even better, this is a straight-up writing internship. The other one is an editorial internship with some writing thrown into the mix.

I've got a fallback plan in the works, too. If I don't get Internship S, or if I were to get it and for some reason choose not to take it, I'm going to apply for another writing opportunity. But this is another one you've got to pay for.

My dad suggested I look into residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, which is fairly close to home, and offers several three-week residencies throughout the year, giving artists the chance to work with poets, fiction writers, playwrights, composers, photographers, and performance artists. I've got my eye on a residency in April with a poet I admire.

The catch is that it costs $850 -- but financial aid is available. Financial aid! I'd thought those days were over forever, barring grad school.

And speaking of grad school, a residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts would look quite nice on my resume in the event that I apply to MFA programs in the next couple years. I'm going to need every bit of help I can get in order to get accepted into a top poetry program like UVA or Vanderbilt.

MFA programs are terribly expensive. I've decided that another thing I can't justify is paying several year's worth of an average person's salary for a masters' degree that probably won't increase my income. So in order to get my MFA, I'll have to get into a top program, like UVA or Vanderbilt -- where they only accept 3 or 5 poets each year, but give them free tuition and a modest stipend.

But I'm excited, ever-optimistic, and most important, completely in love with what I want to do -- and even with what I am currently doing, in spite of the fact that it's not bringing in the big bucks. I love brainstorming for new article ideas and turning my interests into newspaper stories; I love taking a break from drafting query letters to crank out a sudden poem; I even love those query letters now, and choosing which published clips should accompany each query.

If this is what I am meant to do, as I've believed it is since I was five years old, I know success will eventually follow as long as I am persistant.

I'm at peace that this is what I'm meant to do.