My second novel had just been signed by Harper Collins and I was stalking my fiftieth birthday, when I boarded a flight to England to attend the University of East Anglia in the medieval city of Norwich. Though I might have taught the masters in creative writing, instead I had enrolled. Then, before I knew it, I'd enlisted: the one year MA in creative writing had swept me into the three year PhD in creative and critical writing. I'd never craved a doctorate. And degrees don't dictate the worth of a writer or her writing. But it was too good a gig to pass up. Here are ten reasons why.
The Eye of the Day
1. Misery loves company. I love writing, but as with everything I love, there's always a corner of misery. Writing a novel is lonely, gritty, isolating work in an imaginary world full of fictional protagonists to whom you are more or less married for two to ten years. The inevitable marital problems are eased by other PhD'ers at the pub. 2. Do what you compulsively do and get a PhD for doing it. 80% of my dissertation is my novel in progress: The Westward Hours. 20% is a creative-critical essay examining the philosophical/psycho-geographical landscape that both Cormac McCarthy's desert novels and The Westward Hours share. So even when I'm not writing my novel, I'm writing my novel. 3. Be paid for process, even if you get jack for product. Advances are shrinking, and the industry is struggling, and you might well sell your novel for a month of rent. But if you can secure a merit scholarship for your PhD, you'll see a living wage for three long years. 4. Spare your friends but not your supervisor. Every writer knows that a good reader is invaluable. And if that person is your spouse or your best friend, well, great. Maybe. There's the problem of repetition: asking him to read your chapter, then read it again, enthusiastically, the next five times you rewrite it. And there's the problem of contradictory demands. 'Why can't he unconditionally support me? Why can't he read my work more critically? Why can't he turn off The Game of Thrones and read it now!' Your supervisor is paid to negotiate all of the above. She's priceless: another writer whom you respect, whose actual job it is to read your work. And to read it painstakingly and repeatedly. And to respond appropriately, whether your manuscript is a mess that wants encouragement, or a delusion in need of a reality check, or a masterpiece ready for fine-tuning.5 & 6. It's a long haul writing the long form: find stability and continuity. How long does it take to write a novel? Ruth Ozeki told me she spent ten years, some of it writing, some of it tending to family needs, before releasing A Tale for the Time Being. Iain Banks claimed he restricted his writing to certain months a year and designed his novels for annual output. A PhD in Creative and Critical Writing offers you three years to complete up to 100,000 words of writing. (Four years, if you take the write-up year, though the money dries up after three.) Of course life and death might interfere, but at least the intention is firm: several years, stable, constant work.
7 You'll have the real job others craved for you: soon to be a doctor.
8 Seriously, employment. I'm in a curious situation; new immigration restrictions have made it extremely difficult for a university to sponsor a non EU national. So instead of taking a lectureship in creative writing after finishing my PhD, I'll be pursuing an entrepreneurial passion and opening an art gallery. (The Home Office isn't interested in novelists and creative writing professors, but they think I might be valuable to society as a business woman.) So this point is only for those of you with the right to remain in Britain: two things - publication and the PhD - enable you teach at university level. And while you are pursuing the PhD, even without publication, the university will pay you to teach the undergraduates.
9 . And if you always wanted to go into business? Due to my immigration woes, I've discovered that the university will support you with free classes and one-on-one business supervision for up to three years after graduation. It's not specific to a PhD in creative writing, but if you don't get the scholarship and you're weighing up the value of your tuition fees, it's worth knowing.
10. You're too big to fail . You're not GM or the Bank of England, but fewer people give up on PhD's than they do on a furtive manuscript read exclusively to the long-suffering dog.It doesn't matter much where you are in your career - dreaming of ditching your book tour to hunker down with the undergrads in the library, or struggling to write your first chapter - a PhD in creative writing is worth considering.
Dennison Smith is the author of The Eye of the Day published by Periscope