Betsy - I so relate to the writing struggle, having been doing it so many, many years. I've come so close a number of times, but just never get there. And that I write so slow, I find my emotional state and growth (or decline) mismatches the story. I'm at the point where I do not want to be traditionally published any more. After being with two very established and successful literary agents for years, I'm tired of trying (and I acknowledge my lack of success is my fault, not theirs). But I still have to do this thing. "Am I the real deal? . . ." I don't care anymore, especially in this current publishing environment. Everything is "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!" "someone, please look at me". Of course I want to be read, but I want to write what is true to me, or how I see it, and realize I maybe wrong . . . and do it with high craft (or what I think is high craft). My family and friends do not like my writing, only the occasional stranger, the reader who doesn't know me. And sometimes I think, what the hell did these two agents see to keep me on so long? But I keep at it and love it and hate it, lazy, distracted bastard that I am. It's probably more a narcissistic delusion to keep the emptiness off - something I think I do well and have control over. Maybe, in part, pathological. Herman Melville is my hero and muse. His work was finally read extensively, just not in his lifetime; he didn't know what he would become and isn't around to enjoy it . . . And "Yes", the times and circumstances makes my writing feel vain and silly and stupid. I guess we always think the person that we are at the moment matters more than who we were - it must. I'm just a cranky old guy now.
Well - your post touched something in me as this is the most I've ever responded to an article. Don't know if I answered your question, but it got me thinking. As a side note, we're going back home for a visit in Portsmouth and Melvin Village at the end of May - an automatic decompression once back home. Be well.
Thank you for all of this, Tim. Your comments about the current publishing environment hit home and yes, there can be a mismatch for us slow writers when it comes to emotional growth/decline and the story we are writing. The time it takes for me to write makes me question more, not less. I think it is easier for the "person we are at the moment" to exert a stronger influence over the story and, for me, that can be a problem.
Your response was so honest and helpful. Thank you for sharing your thoughts here and as a fellow Melville lover and New Englander, enjoy your trip to Portsmouth. Take pictures and send them!
I don't want to write about work, I want to write about writing. I've been sick since April 1 with a kidney infection, still recovering. For several days, I had a fever. During that time, I often lay awake, but too sick to get up. I wrote haiku in my head. I went over and over them so I would remember them and write them down when I was able to do so. The fever is over, but I can't yet recall those haiku. I trust they will return one day. Meanwhile, I have been able to write a couple of poems. My other writing is on hold. In my life I have written for money (as a journalist) and when I was writing for money somehow I always got the job done, and done on time. Without a paycheck, the writing takes longer, seems more "precious," but I carry on. There was a time in my life when I decided to "quit" writing. I took up gardening. Thank goodness for that time, because now I have both: writing AND gardening. I love watching life arise from the dirt, and flowers come into bloom.
I am so sorry you've been ill, Sandra. I hope you recover quickly and those haikus return to you. I've thought also about the times I wrote for money and got the job done - I think I told myself that the stakes were lower because this wasn't fiction, the kind of writing I hoped I could do.
As for gardening - I totally get it. I've slacked off on big gardening lately but I was weeding the other day and thinking that weeding a garden is a little like editing a manuscript. There are probably lots of simile opportunities there.
I try to think of my writing like eating. I eat because I want to stay alive and I aim for well-being, besides the simply being alive bit. Somedays I grab what's easy--yogurt, fruit, crackers. It's not cooking, just sustenance. Other times I'm planning and prepping, every bite an elaborate construction of idea meets craving meets I just want to make this recipe, almost as if the eating is a second thought. Somedays I dream of walking into a store and buying anything I want to eat, other days I'm enamored with a tender lettuce leaf from my tiny garden, the strawberry from the plant I rustled from the compost heap of that fabulous estate where I worked as a gardener: I wrote every morning those two years, stirring my thoughts into what I hoped was something useful or enticing for whomever stumbled on it, serving it up on a blog nobody, save my sister, ever read. I shopped at a food bank, but I wrote and wrote and wrote. And here I am, we are, right? Write. Write as if your life depends on it Elizabeth. Everything we do, noticing the way steam curls off a skillet or how a word lifts itself from the page, and that damn knife blade called how we spend our time, is shaping the next words we'll write.
Thank you for these images, Mackenzie. They are beautiful and they are helpful. So is the encouragement. I will be thinking of "that damn knife blade called how we spend our time" every time I sit down now.
Thank you, Courtney. It's so unsettling when the stuff that comes out onto the page turns strange. The ups and downs, I know, are part of the deal but I lacked the necessary faith in the moment. I will keep going. It helps to know that this isn't happening only to me -- even though I do know it, intellectually. It just feels different when someone actually says it. Thanks.
Betsy - I so relate to the writing struggle, having been doing it so many, many years. I've come so close a number of times, but just never get there. And that I write so slow, I find my emotional state and growth (or decline) mismatches the story. I'm at the point where I do not want to be traditionally published any more. After being with two very established and successful literary agents for years, I'm tired of trying (and I acknowledge my lack of success is my fault, not theirs). But I still have to do this thing. "Am I the real deal? . . ." I don't care anymore, especially in this current publishing environment. Everything is "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!" "someone, please look at me". Of course I want to be read, but I want to write what is true to me, or how I see it, and realize I maybe wrong . . . and do it with high craft (or what I think is high craft). My family and friends do not like my writing, only the occasional stranger, the reader who doesn't know me. And sometimes I think, what the hell did these two agents see to keep me on so long? But I keep at it and love it and hate it, lazy, distracted bastard that I am. It's probably more a narcissistic delusion to keep the emptiness off - something I think I do well and have control over. Maybe, in part, pathological. Herman Melville is my hero and muse. His work was finally read extensively, just not in his lifetime; he didn't know what he would become and isn't around to enjoy it . . . And "Yes", the times and circumstances makes my writing feel vain and silly and stupid. I guess we always think the person that we are at the moment matters more than who we were - it must. I'm just a cranky old guy now.
Well - your post touched something in me as this is the most I've ever responded to an article. Don't know if I answered your question, but it got me thinking. As a side note, we're going back home for a visit in Portsmouth and Melvin Village at the end of May - an automatic decompression once back home. Be well.
Thank you for all of this, Tim. Your comments about the current publishing environment hit home and yes, there can be a mismatch for us slow writers when it comes to emotional growth/decline and the story we are writing. The time it takes for me to write makes me question more, not less. I think it is easier for the "person we are at the moment" to exert a stronger influence over the story and, for me, that can be a problem.
Your response was so honest and helpful. Thank you for sharing your thoughts here and as a fellow Melville lover and New Englander, enjoy your trip to Portsmouth. Take pictures and send them!
I don't want to write about work, I want to write about writing. I've been sick since April 1 with a kidney infection, still recovering. For several days, I had a fever. During that time, I often lay awake, but too sick to get up. I wrote haiku in my head. I went over and over them so I would remember them and write them down when I was able to do so. The fever is over, but I can't yet recall those haiku. I trust they will return one day. Meanwhile, I have been able to write a couple of poems. My other writing is on hold. In my life I have written for money (as a journalist) and when I was writing for money somehow I always got the job done, and done on time. Without a paycheck, the writing takes longer, seems more "precious," but I carry on. There was a time in my life when I decided to "quit" writing. I took up gardening. Thank goodness for that time, because now I have both: writing AND gardening. I love watching life arise from the dirt, and flowers come into bloom.
I am so sorry you've been ill, Sandra. I hope you recover quickly and those haikus return to you. I've thought also about the times I wrote for money and got the job done - I think I told myself that the stakes were lower because this wasn't fiction, the kind of writing I hoped I could do.
As for gardening - I totally get it. I've slacked off on big gardening lately but I was weeding the other day and thinking that weeding a garden is a little like editing a manuscript. There are probably lots of simile opportunities there.
I try to think of my writing like eating. I eat because I want to stay alive and I aim for well-being, besides the simply being alive bit. Somedays I grab what's easy--yogurt, fruit, crackers. It's not cooking, just sustenance. Other times I'm planning and prepping, every bite an elaborate construction of idea meets craving meets I just want to make this recipe, almost as if the eating is a second thought. Somedays I dream of walking into a store and buying anything I want to eat, other days I'm enamored with a tender lettuce leaf from my tiny garden, the strawberry from the plant I rustled from the compost heap of that fabulous estate where I worked as a gardener: I wrote every morning those two years, stirring my thoughts into what I hoped was something useful or enticing for whomever stumbled on it, serving it up on a blog nobody, save my sister, ever read. I shopped at a food bank, but I wrote and wrote and wrote. And here I am, we are, right? Write. Write as if your life depends on it Elizabeth. Everything we do, noticing the way steam curls off a skillet or how a word lifts itself from the page, and that damn knife blade called how we spend our time, is shaping the next words we'll write.
Thank you for these images, Mackenzie. They are beautiful and they are helpful. So is the encouragement. I will be thinking of "that damn knife blade called how we spend our time" every time I sit down now.
Thank you, Courtney. It's so unsettling when the stuff that comes out onto the page turns strange. The ups and downs, I know, are part of the deal but I lacked the necessary faith in the moment. I will keep going. It helps to know that this isn't happening only to me -- even though I do know it, intellectually. It just feels different when someone actually says it. Thanks.