Can Six Days in Iowa Change Your Life? - Mickey Hadick the Writer

Back in 1988, trying to figure out how to learn to be a writer, I signed up for a summer workshop at The University of Iowa. That’s the same place where one of the most famous writing workshops, the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, happens, but this was not the same thing. This was on the same campus, but we paid to be there for six days of lecture, workshop, and feedback on our stories.

Six days. You can learn a few things in six days, but can you change your life?

There was life-changing potential there, but it pretty much passed me by. I think it passed most of us by.

Except one guy: Abe.

Abe, it seemed, was fully in tune with the life change he needed, and he flapped his butterfly wings and flew his ass to a brand new life.

The Butterfly Effect

You may have heard about the butterfly effect, which refers to small, seemingly negligible changes that have profound effects through space and time. The titular example is that the beating wings of a butterfly in one part of the world may trigger cascading events that result in a hurricane weeks later on the other side of the world.

Here’s another way to think of it: the science fiction trope of time travelers being warned not to change history because it can have tremendous effects on the future. In Back to the Future, for instance, Marty McFly spends two-thirds of the movie trying to make things happen exactly as they happened once before, lest he disappear from existence. But he makes one subtle change—George, his father, punches Biff the bully—and Marty’s present-time life is improved profoundly.

What few of us realize is that we can trigger cascading events in our own life on a daily basis. Every choice we make can lead to happiness, success, or good health in the future. The trick is we have to make the right choice.

How to improve your tomorrow today

It’s easier to know what to do in the past if your goal is to have everything be exactly the same. Much harder is to do something today that will have a positive impact on the future.

Rather than take chances on something new, we fall back to current patterns of behavior:

I’m not going to apply for a new job because I don’t really mind what I do after all
That person I’m attracted to probably isn’t all that good in bed, so I’m not going to bother asking them out.

Both of those excuses for taking no action may, in fact, be the best choice. You just don’t know. That new job may have a tyrannical boss, or that would-be lover may be a cereal killer, and refuse to share the Lucky Charms.

Back to me, Abe and writing

At the end of the six-day writing workshop in Iowa, our instructor published Abe’s story in the North American Review, where he (our instructor) was the editor. My story was praised, but it wasn’t published.

Abe and I corresponded, and the next year he urged me to join him for another summer writing workshop. I made a different choice, though, quitting my job to get a master’s degree. My plan was to teach at a community college and, hopefully, have more time to write.

Two years later, master’s degree in hand, I couldn’t find a teaching position. Thanks to the recession of 1990, I was lucky to find a job at all, and returned to working in an office. But really, I chickened out. I should have kept pushing to find a way to write, and to learn from better writers, and to figure out this difficult profession. I took the easy way out.

Abe, on the other hand, quit his job and joined the Iowa Writer’s workshop (the prestigious one). Two years after that, he sold a memoir, then sold another memoir two years after that. His first novel, Cutting for Stone, went on to sell 1.5 million copies, and his second novel, which was just published, is expected to do better.

Oh, and last month he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship—the genius award.

I’m not saying I chose wrong. I had a lot to figure out about myself, and I wasn’t ready to do that. Maybe Abe was a genius all along, and it wasn’t going to matter much what he chose, either.

I think Abe understood himself and what he wanted to do. That’s powerful stuff but it doesn’t come naturally.

Honestly, I think those MacArthur genius awards are rigged. I’ve been applying for one every year for going on forty years now, and I haven’t heard a peep out of the MacArthurs. I swear, they’re almost as tight-assed as NASA, who hasn’t called me yet about becoming an astronaut.

So I hope you enjoy this Picayune and my books, because it’s all I have to offer.

Meanwhile, at My Writing Desk…

This past week, while awaiting feedback on my novel, I’ve been focused on the story I’m going to tell at the Moth GrandSLAM. It’s happening tonight (Tuesday) so I’ll have to tell you about it next time.

Maybe You’d Like

This week, I’ve joined with authors in a Thriller Giveaway:

https://storyoriginapp.com/to/woFR3Gs

Next Picayune

Thanks for reading the Mickey Picayune. I’ll be back in two weeks with absolute news about how I did in the Moth GrandSLAM.

All the best,

Mickey

To be clear, Abraham Verghese is a fantastic writer and a pretty good doctor. You should read his books, and here is the (archived version) NY Times review about his latest, The Covenant of Water.

https://archive.ph/Oh63c