futures

I've always known I want to write, but over the past few months I've been plagued with indecision over the right path to take. I'm uncertain what I should do once I'm finished by MA at the U of R next summer.

Should I take a year off and travel? Get a job? Write a PhD research proposal for sshrc funding and apply to schools? Apply for MFA programs? Which genre--poetry or fiction? In Canada or the States?

I change my mind at least once a day... I'm getting sick of it, and so is my family.

In an attempt to reach some sort of steady footing, I've been trying to get back to what made me want to write in the first place. I try to sift through all the distractions that may have entered my life since then. I want to get back to that initial, excited feeling, and maybe then things will be clearer, and I will feel more certain.

A week ago I bought Alice Munro's Selected Stories at the RSO book sale and today Nathan asked me which story he should read next. He'd just finished "Vandals," a story that's been a favourite of mine ever since hearing a professor speak about it. I scanned the table of contents and started flipping through the book, rediscovering the stories that had excited me so much when I first started taking writing workshops. Flipping through the book, I immediately felt reunited with the many characters and plots. I couldn't just recommend one story. I wanted to read them all over again. You could spend a lifetime reading Munro's stories. So maybe I'll do just that. Something like that. Reading, thinking.