Starting from Zero

“I know that I know nothing.” -Socrates

If you’re reading this, thank you. I’m starting this Substack for people like you, who may be writers, or folks exploring a writer’s life, or readers interested in a glimpse of one writer’s experiences.

I hope, of course, that you’ll keep coming back. I aim to earn your attention by offering actionable insights into the writing life that have served me well and could do the same for you.

I expect to post on a monthly-ish basis, ensuring you get something useful while saving you time and inbox clutter.

Below are a few topics I’ll cover. I’m choosing to focus on the non-commercial aspects of the writer’s life—learning, living, finding community, and doing the actual writing—rather than the business parts like submitting and publishing. Nothing against those topics or the Substacks that explore them so well; I just want this to be one small space in your life where you can leave the market at the door.

• The craft of fiction writing. No lists of rules. My approach to craft is founded on openness and possibility, giving you new angles on whatever you want to do in your work. I’m still learning to write myself—and I never plan to stop.

• Writing education. Choosing the right MFA program for you (and your other educational options besides doing a degree); surviving and thriving in your MFA; and getting the most personal and professional benefit from your program for your post-grad life.

• Post-grad opportunities. Finding/building a supportive community where you can keep growing; applying for writers’ residencies and conferences; writing an artist or project statement; choosing work samples.

• Daily life as a writer. Balancing your writing with a day job or other obligations; devising a writing routine/practice; and making your non-writing responsibilities a gift to your work, not a distraction.

• Very occasional posts with updates on my own writing/career. (This newsletter isn’t a diary, but I’m also not a ghost and won’t pretend to be one!)

In addition, I’m open to other topics you suggest.

A little about my writing outlook…

A few years ago, I read about something here that I couldn’t forget—the Japanese novelist Yoko Tawada’s belief that “literature should always start from zero.” A longtime resident of Germany, Tawada switches between writing in Japanese and German “every time she gets too comfortable, as a deliberate experiment.”

Starting from zero is a statement of everything I hold true about writing. It signals radical openness—a call to begin fresh with every story we tell. It’s a demand that what we “know” about writing should serve our work in the most generous way. The beliefs we choose should make our stories new and dangerous.

About me: I publish under “Anthony Otten,” but I’m Tony to just about everybody. I hold an MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. I’ve published stories in StoryQuarterly, Hawai‘i Pacific Review, The Forge Literary Magazine, and other journals, and I’ve received residencies from Yaddo and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. I work a day job in higher ed and have been writing fiction while studying or working for eighteen years and counting. And, like Socrates, I still don’t know anything.

This Substack is free. It will always have a free tier for monthly posts, whether or not I’m able to add a paid tier with additional benefits in the future.

If my tips work for you, you have the totally optional option of leaving me a small tip yourself in support of this project. Here is my Buy Me a Coffee button (but wait until I earn it, of course!):

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This introduction doesn’t count as my monthly-is post, so make sure to subscribe for free and look for something helpful in your inbox soon.

Please introduce yourself in the comments. Feel free to recommend your own or other Substacks (I’m always looking for good reads). And consider passing along this Substack to a friend. All the best.