This is gonna be a super self-indulgent post.

At my school, there’s a specific major for creative writing. And, like any major, it has a senior thesis program so you can graduate with honors in that major. And the creative writing senior thesis is really, really hard to get. Only a few people get it every year. And you have to apply in sophomore year, too.

It’s so difficult to get because it’s a really, really great opportunity. You work for the last two years at school with a published author to write… usually a series of short stories or poems, although it’s not unheard of to do a novella or something longer. And at the end of those two years, after writing all of that, there’s a possibility that it could be published and everything.

I applied for the creative writing senior thesis last spring, and the people in charge of the senior thesis program e-mailed me back over the summer. They said that they really, really liked my work, and that they thought I was a fabulous writer. However, at that point I hadn’t taken any fiction workshops in the school yet, and this confused them. I had taken an Intro to Creative Writing workshop, and I’m enrolled in a screenplay workshop for this semester, but I hadn’t taken a short or long fiction workshop. They asked me to schedule a meeting with the head of the creative writing senior thesis committee to discuss my interest in fiction.

So I did that. I met with the professor, and we talked about all sorts of things involving writing, and I tried to explain that I had meant to take a fiction workshop this semester, but my schedule had gotten screwed with last semester for a variety of reasons, so even though I was supposed to take the screenplay class then, it had to be pushed back to now, and that I intended to take both the short and long fiction workshops next year. The professor reiterated that he liked my work, but that it was unprecedented for someone to do the thesis without having taken a fiction workshop, so he’d have to discuss my case with the other head of the senior thesis committee, and he’d get back to me.

…He e-mailed me today. I didn’t get it.

I know it’s all because of technical stuff, and my writing is that good and it’s not a reflection on me whatsoever. I know I can do a single semester senior project next year. And I’ll graduate with the creative writing major, and I’ll do a senior thesis in theater - my other major. I know all of this.

But still. Fuck. I really wanted that opportunity.

Well, so it goes.

A cookie to you if you actually read all of this.