Gilbert Ostini (Writing for the Page, 2024)
My MA was such a fulfilling year because I was able to be utterly earnest and whole-hearted about it.
Gilbert writes: 'I've wanted to be a writer since I was pretty young, but my Masters' year was where I learned to write. It was so much harder than procrastinating uni study by writing overwrought Twin Peaks fanfiction or isolated scenes that never went anywhere. I had to be committed and systematic and tolerate my own agonisingly terrible first drafts. In order to get to the next sentence, I first had to write sentences that sucked so badly it shook my sense of self to see them appear on the screen and realise I, I was the only one who had made that sentimental, un-syntactical, preachy parochial childish piece of garbage. And then my supervisor read it, and knew—oh God—that this was who I truly was, before the cleansing exorcism of editing. And I had to do it, and keep doing it. Because it was my degree that I signed up for.
'To be fair, about six weeks into the year, I did what I've done with every project I've ever needed to commit to, and said "what if I scrapped this and did something completely different?" However, Kate Duignan very gently said, you're being crazy, go back to work, and I did. And that was the Masters' year — one scene by scene, sentence by sentence excavation of the story I was trying to tell, guilted by deadlines, inspired by whatever fire it is that makes us do this thing, guided by the wisdom and grace of Kate, my classmates, my supervisor, my friends.
'On Monday nights, my flatmates and I would do our weekly shop at Pak'n'Save, and I'd always grab a bag of pick and mix or those terrible barbeque rice puff things on the way out. They'd drop me off at uni around 9:30PM, and I'd get an instant coffee from the IIML kitchenette before heading next door to the offices, burrowing down into the lovely quiet where no-one needed me except my characters; where I could stare out the window for half an hour, losing myself in the blackness of the harbour, where I could eat licorice allsorts and chat with the security guard and read my colleagues' work, and write. It was so delicious. It was so hard. And it changed me.
One thing that surprised me that year (and still does, but I'm acclimated to the surprise, at least) was that I could make stuff up. I started doing it for fun, once I realised that a story didn't have to stay the same, even once I'd written it — that, really, a narrative is a very plastic thing, and I could stretch and manipulate and apply pressure and heat to these characters, places, ideas, sentences. At one point, I killed my main character just to see what his sister would do. (Obviously I resurrected him, but I spent the rest of the year feeling vaguely guilty, like he knew what I'd done to him and resented me for it.)
'Even in the depths of winter, with stacks of my classmates' work and reading packets to get through, and fresher English Lit essays to mark, I kept reading novels and essays and poetry, inhaling other people's words as calories to sustain my own writing. I asked other people for recommendations, prowled the shelves in the IIML library, and read the novels written by my supervisor and class convenor and course administrator. I read stuff that was "irrelevant" (whatever) and learned things about sentences and feelings and structure and my own heart from them anyway. I don't think anyone really can be an artistic genius in isolation (and I don't particularly see why you'd want to be). Both in my MA year, and life on either side of that, reading is what saved me.
'That's the other thing — you really don't have to do any of this alone. The students who shared hours and hours with me in that sunny classroom were a tremendous blessing. But I also gained a great deal from wandering around knocking on the doors of people I admire; Ingrid Horrocks was the Writer In Residence, so I went to talk to her about bodies of water, and psychoanalysis. Shelley Burne-Field, the Māori Writer in Residence, gave a lecture as part of our reading programme, and we had a conversation on the grass outside the gym that was both grounding and inspiring. As well as being deeply helpful, my supervisor was also funny and encouraging and a voice of reason and experience. Other writers and creative, critical folk know that this work is hard, and that it's worthwhile.
'That would really be my encouragement to anyone thinking about applying for, or who's just starting the programme: my MA was such a fulfilling year because I was able to be utterly earnest and whole-hearted about it. As well as the labour of writing, there's the collegiality, the taking-yourself-seriously-as-a-writer, the Writers on Mondays programme, the guest sessions, and the conversations in the kitchen or over beers or holed up in one of the writing offices — it was all deeply worth the hearty commitment. I mean, woe to me for sounding like Sheryl Sandberg, but if you want to do the thing, lean in! This is not the time to be cool and ironic! I don’t think the programme is necessarily perfect, and it definitely isn't easy, but it seems to me to be seriously set up to reward whole-heartedness, commitment and curiosity. Also, I loved being surrounded by writers, who are generally very pleasant weirdos.'
Bio: Gilbert Ostini is a dual citizen of Australia and Aotearoa, and he takes this very seriously. He has a BA (Hons) in English Literature and History, and an MA (Creative Writing) from Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, and his fiction is obsessed with big haunted landscapes and small knotty social lives. In 2024, he won the Adam Foundation Prize.
Read more:
from Turbine | Kapohau 2024:
An interview with Ingrid Horrocks
An essay on reading and bodies
'four hauntings from the colonies' (At the Bay):
'Saved from a fate worse than Queensland' (Readingroom):
'A queer faith: trans abundance in the Anglican Church' (Salient):