Douglas Glover, my new faculty advisor, said that to tackle the critical thesis I should focus on an area of my own writing that was deficient and rigorously examine the successful deployment of that technique in the writing of others. ![]() During the third semester at VCFA students write a critical thesis on literary works, themes, or craft. Three weeks after that morning I started my third semester, none the wiser on how to crack my chronology problem. What was I doing wrong? Chronology in my essays seemed obvious to me-I’d been there after all-but how was I failing to convey the basic sequence of events to readers? So I sat on my patio with coffee cooling beside me and the ocean fog still thick over the fields, and I felt like I too was under a fog. ![]() “Maybe you should cut the first three pages?” Or, with inky red arrows pointing to a specific paragraph, “I feel like the essay starts here.” Others would ask: How old are you in the essay? At what time (of the year, month, or day) does this essay occur? How many years passed between the time of the experience and the time of writing about it? In the work I’d received back from my advisor that morning he’d asked the same types of questions. Time and again in letters from my advisors and comments from peers in writing workshops my essays had elicited the same questions and prompted the same critiques. I’d just finished my second semester in a master’s degree program in creative nonfiction at Vermont College of Fine Arts, and I’d imagined that when I reached the midway point of my degree program I would feel elated. on June third wrapped in a drab green blanket-late spring mornings in Maine are still too chilly for short sleeves-while steam rose from a neglected mug of coffee and twirled away through the air. ![]() I remember sitting outside on my patio around 8 a.m.
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