Five years. Five years of long commutes from the North Side of Chicago. Five years of working full-time in the West Suburbs. Five years of late night grad classes in the South Loop. Five years of loner weeknights and loser weekends in front of my computer. Five years of life. Five years of finding time, scraping together minutes, barely finishing. Five years of going, going, going. Five years of trying to write a novel. Five years of fighting for a dream just beyond my reach.
It feels like such a long time. It feels like not nearly long enough.
I’m arranging my thesis in the backseat of a cab. I didn’t want it to happen this way. I wanted to feel cool and calm and confident. I wanted to feel ready. I wanted to feel done. Instead, I haven’t slept, I haven’t showered, and I haven’t finished my novel. I’m only submitting the first 250 pages to my thesis committee in order to graduate. These pages add up to hours and weeks and years of writing, but I can’t stop thinking there should be more. There should be so, so much more.
On the way downtown, everything moves in a kind of slow motion. I’m riding in the only cab in Chicago abiding by the laws. We should be speeding. We should be cutting people off. We should be making illegal turns. We should be honking and swearing and yelling and making hand gestures out windows. But we’re not doing any of those things. It’s rush hour. We’re barely crawling along in bumper-to-bumper traffic on Lake Shore Drive. I keep looking down at the clock on my phone. I’m late. The Fiction Writing office closes soon. Without fail, the students lock the doors right at 6pm. It is now 5:58pm. In my mind, I am already calling out to them, “Someone, please. Hold the door! Hold the door!”
When we get close enough to see the Columbia College building, I tell the cab driver to pull over. “This is good,” I say. “Right here. Stop the cab.” I pass him some money and leap out. I have decided that I am faster than a cab now. I will outrun him with ease. I am a gazelle. I am a cheetah. I am a wildebeest. I am barely shuffling along the sidewalk when the cab flies past me. My heart beats faster and faster. I can’t stop sweating. I pull something in my leg. The shoes I’m wearing are not meant for running. I’m carrying three bags with me because there was no time for condensing or rational decision making when it came down to what to bring. I needed everything. I wanted to be prepared.
Bag #1: A plastic tote containing three copies of my thesis, which took me two ink cartridges, two reams of paper, and a lot of swearing to print.
Bag #2: A carrying case with my laptop inside should I need to make any crucial, last minute changes. Some people bring a jump drive; I bring my entire laptop.
Bag #3: A too-large purse holding only my wallet because I dumped the rest of the contents out onto my floor while searching for my keys and forgot to put them back.
When I finally reach the front entrance, I step onto the first elevator that opens, but it only stops at the odd levels. I’m going to the twelfth floor. A smarter individual would’ve opted for the thirteenth floor and walked down a flight. I choose to exit at eleven and run up a flight of stairs. For some reason, I think it will be faster. I’m convinced I can beat the elevator, too. As I start my climb, it occurs to me then that I probably should’ve changed out of my sweatpants. I should’ve brushed my hair. I should’ve slapped on some lipstick. There is a reason writers work behind closed doors. No one needs to witness this part of the process. No one really wants to see behind the curtain. It’s not pretty. It’s better not to know.
It’s 6:10pm. The door is locked. I knew it would be, but still I check. The massive amount of caffeine coursing through my veins gives me a false sense of power. I stare at the knob, attempting to will it open with my mind, but failing miserably. I consider sliding my thesis under the door page by page when I catch the gaze of a professor, Eric May, through a side window. He’s sitting in a chair and smiling. I never had a class with him. We don’t know each other. But I’ve never been so happy to see his smiling face on the other side of a locked door. He opens it for me and I rush inside before he changes his mind. I’m out of breath. It was only one flight of stairs. I should not be this out of breath. But I feel like I’ve been running this whole time. I haven’t stopped running.
I’m not sure he wants my thesis, but I hand it to him anyway. I need to give it to someone. I struggle to form sentences. I have used up all my words. There are only a few left.
Thesis.
Take.
Please.
Another professor, Betty Shiflett, stands in her office. She glances over at me. She smiles, laughs a little to herself, and continues shuffling papers on her desk. She’s seen this all before. I’m sure she’ll see this again. In general, few writers submit work early. We use every last minute, every last second. We are never fully done. There is always more we can do.
Eric May asks me questions. Who is your advisor? Did you fill out all the forms? Do you have an abstract? I’m not sure if I’m answering him or simply nodding, taking small steps backwards, moving slowly in the direction of the nearest emergency escape route. He promises to personally deliver my thesis to the correct people, and I believe him. As he disappears down a hallway, I slip out of the office and press the down arrow for the elevator like it’s some kind of panic button.
I ride to the bottom alone. When the doors open again, there’s a crowd of students waiting to get on the elevator. They look so young, so excited, so clean and fresh and new. Or maybe they only appear that way to me because it’s the opposite of how I imagine myself to look. They rush past me, our shoulders bumping as I work my way to the exit. There are no high fives. No thumbs up. No fist pumps. No one chants my name. I don’t take a victory lap. It all feels so anticlimactic. If I were writing this moment in a story, I would circle these last few paragraphs and scribble a single word in the margin: Heighten. But it doesn’t work that way in reality. We don’t have the luxury of revision. We can’t always control how things turn out. It’s a difficult truth to accept.
The adrenaline drains from my body as I walk down the sidewalk. I feel myself wandering. I’m trying to find my way. I feel lost. I feel free. I feel lighter. I feel like I want to do a cartwheel. I feel like I want to learn how to finally do a cartwheel. I feel like I want to throw up. I feel like a writer.
When I get home, I stand in the doorway of my now destroyed office. There are papers everywhere. There are drawers open. For some reason, my chair is tipped over. Books are piled in haphazard stacks. What happened in this room? I wrote a thesis. I submitted my thesis. I gave it away. Someone, please, take my thesis. Do they read it? Does anyone read it? Did I read it? Oh, God. I didn’t have a chance to read it all the way through. I should’ve read it.
Of course, there’s no turning back now. It’s gone. It’s over. The end. Another chapter of my life comes to a close, and like each one that came before, I now have decisions to make. There is time, I tell myself. I deserve a short break. But then, before I have a chance to take it all in, to exhale, to enjoy the peaceful silence of not having something due, people are already asking, “What now? What next?” This is the question on everyone’s mind, the only question it seems, and it’s one, as writers, we ask ourselves all the time. We spend hours in front of a notebook, in front of a computer, brainstorming what happens next. But when it comes to our own lives, when it comes to being a writer, the answer isn’t always that simple. You go to school to become a doctor, and when you’re done, you become a doctor. You go to school to become a lawyer, and when you’re done, you become a lawyer. But you go to school to become a writer, and when you’re done, you become whatever pays the bills, and you become a writer. There’s no newfound free time. Doors don’t start flying open. Your phone doesn’t ring off the hook. There is still work to be done. You spend any and every opportunity you can writing or submitting or reading or networking. You have only just begun.
A week later, I’m on the El with my family riding to the Chicago Theatre for my graduation ceremony. A group, dressed in ponchos with cameras hanging around their necks, crams onto the train car at the Addison stop. As the doors close, one of the girls near the end cries out, “Marina! We left Marina.” People are distraught. No one knows what to do. An older woman actually yells, “What do you want me to do?” The answer escapes them. The train is moving. There’s no turning back now.
I exchange glances with my best friend, Sarah, sitting in the row of seats next to me. I mouth to her, “Poor Marina,” and she smiles. She holds my cap. I hold my gown. I wasn’t ready to put them on yet. It made it all too real, too final. I needed more time.
One of the girls finally calls Marina on her cell phone. She has a thick accent. Polish, maybe? German? I can’t figure it out. She yells over the rumbling el train: “Marina, why didn’t you get on the train? Marina, I tried to tell them. Marina, stay where you are. We will come back for you. Don’t move, Marina. We will come for you.”
I want to shout out to her, too: They will come for you, Marina. But why didn’t you get on the train? I suppose some of us don’t always make it on the train. We delay. We hesitate. We need more time. I understand, Marina. You weren’t ready yet.
At the next stop, the entire group piles off the train and I’m already rewriting the story in my mind. In my new version, one of the guys on the el train has Marina’s cell phone. He borrowed it from her earlier and forgot to return it. He pulls the phone from his pocket very dramatically and holds it up in the air. The girl on the end cries out, “Noooo! Marina!”
Fiction is always better than reality. Once you realize that, there’s no turning back. You’re hooked.
We eventually exit at State and Lake. There’s a homeless man standing near the escalator. He stares at the ground, his body wavering. As we walk past, he starts singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” My novel is loosely inspired by “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” As this song echoes through the tunnels, I smile. This is something cheesy that would only happen in a movie. But it happens to me. It happens for real, and it feels right. I would never be able to write this in one of my stories. I would pass it off as too coincidental, too sentimental, too perfect.
Sometimes, just sometimes, reality is better than fiction. And these are the moments we remember. These are the moments we cling to as some kind of proof we are heading in the right direction, proof we are making the right decisions.
The inside of the Chicago Theatre is beautiful, intricate, full of amazing details. This building is a story, and I am inside of it. I am a character. There are a few familiar faces, but not as many as I had thought there would be, the rest of the grad students I started with having already finished, having already moved on to the next thing, leaving me behind.
We stand in a line on a staircase and wait for our turn. It’s not long before the music begins. We are close. This is happening. The band plays “Walk This Way.” We follow the lyrics like instructions and head down the main aisle way, taking our seats in the second row. I feel like somebody of importance. I’m sure I will never be this close to a stage again. I’m trying to take it all in.
The ceremony finally begins. We are sitting. We are standing. Our robes are getting caught on chairs. There is tugging. There is pulling. There is yanking. I have my cell phone and a tube of Chapstick shoved down my bra. The necessities. I’m wondering what else I could’ve fit in there. Snacks? Something to drink? Why is there so much room in my bra? We are singing. We are clapping. The band is playing. The gospel choir is belting out a tune. I feel like I’m at church. When was the last time I was at church? I expect someone in the crowd to cry out, “Hallelujah!” or, “Amen!” Hell, that someone might be me. I might yell it.
There are a few various speakers. The valedictorian calls us misfits and we cheer because we are all different and we celebrate our differences. Mavis Staples, one of the Staples Sisters, is given an honorary degree. During her acceptance speech, she breaks into song, her voice and her story filling the Chicago Theatre. She knows a place. She’ll take us there. It’s the same promise writers make to readers with each new story. And so we go with her, just like that, because in the end so many of us are simply trying to find our way and here is someone who knows, someone who is willing to show us.
In that moment, I find myself missing my characters. It feels like they should be here with me now in the audience somewhere. It’s been days since I’ve had a chance to sit with them. A strange connection develops when you spend so much time alone with a group of made-up individuals. Like a child with an imaginary friend, deep down you know they’re not real, but sometimes you want them to be, sometimes you fool even yourself into believing they could be.
I think about my thesis, about my novel. I imagine a copy of it buried under a stack of papers on a professor’s desk, propped up next to a recycling bin, shoved inside a filing cabinet, these copies existing somewhere without me, my characters existing without me, and it’s no longer enough that they exist. I want them to be heard, to be seen, to be read, to be introduced to as many people as possible. It’s my job to make sure that happens. How do you make that happen?
It’s not long before they start handing out diplomas. As I approach the stage, my picture is taken and my name is called. The guy actually pronounces it right. I’m a little surprised, though I’m also certain I would’ve accepted a diploma on behalf of whatever name they called. After I walk up the stairs, my hood is placed over my head. I’m part of a secret society now, only it’s not so secret. People know. They are applauding. I think I hear my family cheering in the crowd. I’m a writer now. It’s official. Or is it?
What now? What next?
Patty McNair stands on the stage as acting Chair. I hug her. We don’t know each other. We are strangers. But I hug her, and I mean it. I remember going to an open house for Columbia College Chicago and she was there. She made me want to go that school. I was in the audience listening to her talk about the program and it hit me: This is what’s next for me. Sometimes, it’s that simple. If only it were always that simple.
As the rest of the graduates are called, my hood pulls at my neck. I am choking on the weight of it. My thoughts drift back to Marina standing on that El platform. Did they find her? I will write a story about what happened to Marina after she broke off from the group. There will be adventure. There will be romance. There will be struggle. I will write what happens next. This is what we do.
A few days later, I’m already getting emails from Student Financial Services. They want their money. They want to help me get them their money faster. They want to make it really easy for me to send them their money. Oh, God. I owe them a lot of money. It’s gaining interest every minute. How will I ever pay them back all that money?
People ask me, “Do you get a raise at work for having your MFA now?”
“No,” I say. “But people ask me to proof their emails more often.”
“Don’t they have Spell & Grammar Check?”
“Yes,” I say. “They do.”
“So what does your degree get you then?” they ask.
“I’m a better writer now,” I say.
“That’s good, I guess,” they say. “That’s something.”
“Yes, it is something.”
“Well, I’d love to read your book someday,” they tell me.
“Yeah,” I say. “Me, too.”
What now? What next?
The problem with what happens next is that there’s an endless amount of possibilities and no one right answer, each decision simply leading to a slightly different story. It reminds me of those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books from when I was a kid. I remember being given one for the first time, only no one explained to me that it was different than any other book, so I read it cover to cover, disregarding the directions at the end of each chapter to make a decision. The story made absolutely no sense to me, but I kept reading through to the end. No jumps, no leaps, no skips. I just figured it would all eventually become clear to me. I guess I’ve always approached life in the same way. I have no idea what the future holds for me, but I keep trying, I keep fighting, I keep moving forward. I have faith that eventually it will all make sense to me. I will figure it out. The truth is a part of me likes not knowing. In some ways, I’d rather not know. I like the endless possibilities of it all.
But most readers want to know what happens next. It’s what keeps them reading. They don’t want to leave it up to the imagination. They want to know. They want answers. They are convinced we have all the answers. We must, right? It’s our story. But what they don’t realize is that sometimes we’re figuring it out as we go. We trust that the story will tell us what happens next and we follow wherever it may lead. And then, at a certain point, we move on to the next thing, understanding that stories don’t end, we simply stop telling them. We don’t always need to know what happens next. Sometimes, it’s not nearly as important as what has already happened or what is happening right now.
We make so many different decisions when we sit down to write. Every word. Every sentence. Every piece of dialogue. These are decisions we make over and over again. Our lives are no different. Writers are not afraid of what comes next. We think about it all the time. We write about it. We write to a point of change for a character. That is what matters most: the change. It’s what causes something to happen. It’s what propels us forward. I feel changed. I feel different. I feel ready for what comes next.
A novel in a year? That’s plenty of time. Or is it? It’s taken me five years to get an almost full draft of a novel, and there is still so much work to be done. So what’s taken me so long? That’s what people want to know. They don’t understand it. They think it should be quick. They make jokes about my unfinished novel. It breaks me a little. I have six primary characters, six lives. What happens next? I actually know the answer. I’m the only one who does. But these characters are so close to me that each decision holds new weight. They are depending on me to tell their story, and I want to get it right. I want to get it perfect.
What now? What next?
Now the real work begins. Now I write like hell. Now I never stop. This is what comes next. It’s what we do.
Noelle Aleksandra Hufnagel received her BA in Creative Writing from Western Michigan University and MFA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College Chicago. Her writing has appeared in The Allegheny Review, Knee Jerk Magazine, Hair Trigger, Story Week Reader, Zine Columbia, Fictionary, Hypertext Magazine, and elsewhere. When she’s not reading, editing or trying to eke out a living, she divides her time between a blog where she barely ever blogs and a novel that has been in progress for far too long.
