Recovering Writer
TL;DR: I am starting a Creative Writing MFA!
I am sitting in a barely furnished apartment in Houston, writing about getting into a creative writing program and I am still struggling to wrap my head around the fact that this is happening to me - this incredible, scary, good, life-changing thing is *actually* happening to me and I am writing about it.
I wish I could say that the journey leading up to this place has been smooth but nothing describes it as closely as the the first paragraph of my personal statement for my first round of applications in 2022:
When I decided four years ago, after completing a 5-year law degree, that I wasn’t going to be a lawyer, it was perhaps my most definitive act of love for myself. This isolating and incredibly difficult decision, rooted in a love that had me at the centre, has brought me to this place where I’ve always wanted to be, which is applying for an MFA in Creative Writing.
I am happy to announce that this round of applications ended in rejections, from every single school I applied to. But before all the rejections in 2023, there was 2019. 2019 where in fear and crippling anxiety, on a random Sunday in June, I decided that I wouldn’t go to law school but work towards being a full-time writer.
My plan at the time was simple - spend the next year growing as a writer and building my writing portfolio, apply to schools in 2020 and gain admission into a program by 2021. But as with many things in my life, nothing went to plan. I started an unbelievable job before I finished my final year of university, then Covid happened, then life happened, and I mean nothing could have prepared me for this, I don’t know what to do with myself, I feel so lost, this is not the life I hoped for, I can’t remember when last I felt okay, I don’t know if it’s going to get any better type of life happening, and as I suffered, my writing and my confidence in my work suffered too.
Writing, in many ways, has been central to my life. I have embodied all the writer cliches: I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember, I kept journals as a child and teenager, I started a WordPress dedicated to my writing at 16 and published stories weekly, I wanted to publish my first novel at 18, I am studying law but I want to be a writer, I am not going to law school because I don’t want to be a lawyer, etc.
I haven’t always known what I wanted to do, but it was evident to me that the version of my life that made the most sense was a life filled with storytelling. A life that had words at its core, a life where I was writing, creating and surrounded by meaningful work.
But in some ways, I have felt quite far from this life in the past 5 years. I have been doing meaningful work. I have been writing, but not always the writing that I have wanted to do and when I have tried to, I have felt deeply inadequate. I haven’t been publishing or getting published, I have been going months without writing anything and when I have managed to write, I haven’t felt like the work was good enough. My work hasn’t been anywhere near where I hoped it would be.
My Twitter bio for years was: writer, etc and at one of my lowest points, I changed it. It felt untrue, almost hypocritical because are you a writer if you’re not writing? (of course you are but the mind of a struggling/recovering writer isn’t particularly the most hopeful place.)
I couldn’t bring myself to apply to schools in 2021, not after the year that 2021 was. 2021 dealt me the worst of hands and the only thing on my mind was making it through each day. I simply looked forward to tomorrow, because tomorrow had to be better, and if this tomorrow wasn’t, then there was another tomorrow to make it to and I kept waiting for the better tomorrow, until tomorrow became 2022.
In 2022, I was determined to swim, to have my head finally come above water after a year that felt like drowning and gasping for air, waves crashing over and over, before I could make it to shore.
And I did make it to shore in 2022. There were more moments when I felt like myself, where I felt hopeful, where my life made sense, where I was coming into my own. I was finding rhyme and rhythm. There was less despair. I was willing to try. I was writing again, in bits and pieces.
In the months leading up to application season in October, I narrowed down what schools I wanted to apply to and outlined what the schools required of me. A writing sample/portfolio was essential to all of them, so that’s where I decided to start, but the stories wouldn’t come.
My personal statement came to me first, and then my academic statement of purpose for the schools that needed one. By November, I had only managed to write one new story, which I decided would be the bulk of my writing portfolio coupled with two previously published stories I reworked. The application deadline for my first school was December 5th and by December 1st, I had no confidence in my writing portfolio. The stories didn’t feel true to the writer I believed I now was and I would receive feedback confirming sentiments that I already had but I just couldn’t bring myself to write a new story in time to meet the deadline. I edited the portfolio as best as I could, as well as the statements and applied regardless.
The deadline for the remaining four schools was December 15th and I now had less than 10 days to figure out my writing portfolio for the rest of my applications. I knew how important these applications were but I struggled, watching the days go by, unable to write, crippled by anxiety and imminent failure. How was I unable to do the one thing I’ve always wanted to do?
A week before the deadlines, the story came to me. The story I needed to write, that felt true to me, that was raw and vulnerable, an outpouring of myself on paper. I wrote the first draft of the story in one sitting, on the floor, in the corner of my friend’s room and I knew, without a doubt in my mind, it was the missing piece I had been looking for. I completed my applications on December 14th.
I was convinced that 2023 was the year I’d leave Lagos. I started the year on a high and I often thought to myself, “I won’t be here for much longer”, until the rejections started coming in. When the first one came in early February, I consoled myself with the fact that it was “my safe school” and I really didn’t want to go there anyway so better was coming.
I decided to throw a birthday party for my birthday in March because it was probably going to be my last birthday in Lagos for a while (narrator: it in fact wasn’t) and in the weeks leading up to the party, it was rejection after rejection. On the day I sent out the invites to my friends, I received one rejection, and then another on the day I paid the event decorator’s deposit. One more after I ordered the custom stickers for the party favours and place cards for my guests, and as I concluded on the cocktails and mocktails to make for the party, I’d find out that my last school didn’t even deem it fit to send a proper rejection. I opened the portal to see “not accepted”. I threw my party regardless like I hadn’t cried every single day leading up to it.
When my birthday finally came around, I wrote to myself in consolation: but this is me saying (to myself mostly) that this is also a good place. that there is so much extraordinariness in the seemingly ordinariness of my life. that my existence is a miracle in itself.
The hardest part about the rejections was how much I internalised it. It wasn’t simply that I didn’t get into any school, it was that: I wasn’t good enough and my writing sucked and there were writers more deserving, writers who wrote like their lives depended on it and made room for their writing, no matter what. And what a joke it was to think that I, who was barely writing, whose writing was suffering, would get into a prestigious writing program.
After the tears dried, I decided to give the only school I considered the UK a shot and applied in April. I had an interview scheduled for July and I spent the months waiting, toeing the line between being hopeful but managing expectations. My interview went so well that it didn’t come as a surprise to me when the offer of admission came two days after the interview. I had 10 days to pay the deposit to secure my place in the program but I hadn’t heard back on the funding I applied for. I simply couldn’t afford the tuition without funding. I waited and waited, each Gmail notification holding promise, but as the July 31st deadline rolled into August 1st, with no funding, I felt my joy turn into sorrow.
When application season came around again in September 2023, I didn’t feel up to applying to any schools. The sting of rejection stays and the aftermath of disappointment is long-lasting. I didn’t feel confident in my work. I was still barely writing. But my desire to leave Lagos was stronger than my desire to wallow. 2023 took such a terrible turn and I knew I owed it to myself to try again, to give myself a shot at living the life I often dreamed of. So in doubt and through anxiety, I thought about what I truly wanted out of a creative writing program, re-did my research on schools, narrowed down my choices and reworked my statements. I was still convinced that the story from my previous round of applications was the one, so I reworked it as much as I could and wrote one new story for my writing portfolio. I took advantage of whatever opportunities for feedback I could find and incorporated what felt helpful to my work. By mid-November, I had sent out all my applications.
On the last day of 2023, my friend sent me this message:
I truly did a lot of sowing in tears in 2023, and in the years prior. Her words stayed with me and when the new year came around, all I could think about was the joy that was coming.
But it didn’t come. In fact, I spent all of January grieving (and I still am.)
When the rejections started coming at the end of February and then all through March, it was sad, but because of how much sadness I was already navigating, my mood was: another one, thank you.
It’s almost unbelievable to say, but I remained incredibly hopeful about the year regardless. I was convinced that this was the worst of the year happening and the joy that was promised, was on the way.
In April, joy came. I had received the kindest, most promising waitlist letter from the University of Houston at the end of March. You see, UofH had all the things I wanted out of a creative writing program but of all my choices, they were the school with the most well-thought-out application process. It seemed like they deeply cared about you, even as an applicant. The tone of the waitlist letter was consistent with what I already expected. I felt seen, as a writer. I tried very hard to not get my hopes up, to not fall into the “almost but not quite” hold, but God kept reminding me that joy was coming.
In the first week of April, I received a fully funded offer of admission from the University of Houston. Joy came and joy has stayed. Everything else leading up to me moving to Houston has been so divinely orchestrated that it has been hard to doubt that I am meant to be here. I have been helped on every side, I have experienced ease, my hands have been held, my tears have been wiped. My dreams are on the horizon.
I have left Lagos and everything I know. I have said goodbyes (see you soon please) to everyone I love. I am terrified, but I am still so incredibly hopeful. In many ways, I am reminded that I am loved and seen and supported (I don’t know what I’d do without the people God has placed in my life), and because I have figured things out before, I can figure things out again. I know what it means to be pressed on every side but to not be defeated because God is with me. I feel like my possibilities are truly endless.
Today, all I can think about is the fact that I am sitting in a barely furnished apartment in Houston because I am starting an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Houston and I am writing again.
This was so beautiful and uplifting — joy truly comes in the morning. Congratulations Ona 🎉
Onaa! This was such a thought-provoking piece to read. Thank you so much for sharing. God is good!!! I’m super happy for you and I wish you all the very best!!! Congratulations Ona! Congratulations!