Real Writers.
This will be long, and for that I apologize. It will be angry and profanity-laden, and for that I will not apologize. I'll also say that you can link to this if you want to, no problem.
In comments to a post by
gaaneden, rather a long time ago, I said: I often feel shit out of luck in that I can't really do anything every day except the bare needs of life itself - eat, sleep, etc. - and sometimes I don't even do that very well, as my lengthy bouts with insomnia prove. I have gone through periods where I write every day, but it's not consistent. It's part of what sucks tremendously about being bipolar and having issues getting properly treated and medicated.
Then, quite recently, I read a post from a multiply-published, award-winning writer talking about how people who don't work every day are not and never will be "real writers." (No, I am not naming names. This isn't about them.)
The "you MUST write every day or you will never be a Real Writer" assertion really irritates the shit out of me.
See, I can't always write every day. I go through months where I can't write. Years. And to way, way too many people who should know better, that means that I am not now and never will be a Real Writer.
You know, I don't want to do this job any less just because I'm fuckin' crazy. That's not how that shit works.
I am still a Real Writer, thank you very goddamned much. I dare you to read my work and tell me that I am "not a real writer." I dare you to look at what I do and have done and tell me that I am "not a real writer." Because pretty much the only ways in which I am "not a real writer" are:
I am only sparsely published with short stories, and have no books out that were not put out by myself. Since writers are always talking about how publication is not what makes a writer, so that argument can end right here.
I cannot reliably support myself with my writing. That is true of almost every writer, ever, so we can ignore that, too.
I write erotica. Some people regard erotica as a redheaded stepgenre not worthy of their attention. Some people think erotica writers are writers who couldn't hack it anywhere else. Some think erotica writers are just pathetic losers in general, probably perverts too. If you are one of those people, kindly fuck off. Nothing you say matters. Erotica is a real genre, plagued with problems and terrible writing though it may be, and shunting it aside as unworthy of better treatment sure doesn't help things any.
The last way in which I am not a real writer is this: I don't write every day. I don't even write regularly. And that is what I am attacking here.
There's a lot of talk about being a highly-functional mentally ill person and still being a happy, functional artist, but there's not a whole lot that addresses the feelings of those for whom consistent artistic functionality is just a daydream, but who still love their art, and pursue it as hard as they can.
We judge people according to how functional they are. We judge people who cannot keep a regular job. Writing is a job. We judge writers who cannot write. If you're going to argue that writing is a "real job" because you quite fairly want credit for doing a "real job", you have to accept that blaming a depressed person for not being able to write is no different from blaming a mentally ill person for being unable to hold down a 40-hour-a-week clerical job. (Unless you are the kind of person who would blame a mentally ill person for that, in which case, again, there's an off you should be fucking, somewhere in the vicinity of your mom.)
Writing is a complicated and difficult task. A symptom of many forms of mental illness is the inability to deal with complicated and difficult tasks.
Writing is in many ways a decision-making/problem solving process. It has been proven - and mentally ill folks all know this firsthand - that many forms of mental illness impair the decision-making/problem solving process. Meds can do that, too.
While writing, writers make many necessary decisions instinctively, without thinking about it on a conscious level, as the flow of words unspools. It's hard work but it's part of the background process, the behind the scenes stuff. Still takes energy, but it's not what's on stage.
Writers learn to problem-solve, mostly in the editing process, but often while the writing is happening. It's pretty difficult for a healthy person even on a good day. That's why we call it "revision hell."
Mental illness takes all those background processes and drags them under the spotlight. It makes solving problems incredibly difficult. Suddenly, writing is a lot harder. So imagine that your ability to solve those problems and make those decisions was reduced 50%. Now imagine it at only 25%. How much would you be able to get done in a day? Would you even be able to work? Because that percentage does sometimes hit zero. And sometimes it stays there for days. Weeks. Months. Years.
Humans only have so much mental energy to expend each day. Mentally ill people have less, and they have to spend a lot of it forcing themselves to do things that their illness makes really difficult. They use up the energy they'd use for problem solving and decision-making faster than non-mentally-ill folks. They have to use it on everyday things that would not ordinarily tax their resources. Not big decisions, but an endless nickel and diming over these tiny, bullshit, fucking embarrassing things that normal people - even you on a good day - take completely for granted.
After the cost of real-life living comes out, sometimes there isn't much left for writing. It's not a matter of making writing a priority. By the time you get done with the non-negotiable basics, the stuff everyone absolutely has to do, no exception, there's sometimes nothing left for writing. Sometimes, it's not hard to do simple things like put pants on or brush your teeth, but more complicated tasks are impossible. I call it the three-step problem. Things that take more than three steps to solve become almost impossible when I am in a really bad place.
Writing? It's way more than a three-step process. It is incredibly complicated and at least a little difficult for everyone who does it. If it was easy, everyone would be able to do it. Not everyone can. And not everyone who can is able to do it all the time.
Some people do have problems with laziness and not making ass-in-chair time a priority or wanting the fame but not wanting to do the work. Yes. Absolutely. Laziness, not prioritizing, and wanting all the fun parts of fame without all the bad parts of having an actual career are very human problems and at some time or another, every single human being has problems with one or all of those things.
Those are not the people I am talking about when I talk about mentally ill people having difficulty writing, but mentally ill folks get lumped in with them, and I think that is unfair. Not because I'm judging lazy people with poor time management skills and a sweet tooth for validation, I am totally sympathetic to those people, but because it is unfair to treat one like the other.
Treating people with a poor writing work ethic like mentally ill people is unfair because it doesn't teach not-crazy people the very important skill of how to manage themselves. Treating mentally ill folks like folks with a poor work ethic is unfair because it blames them for something they literally cannot change. (If they fucking could, they would.)
It's not an issue of laziness or not making it a priority. It's a matter of being unable to do an incredibly complicated and difficult thing because your brain is honest-to-goodness unable to sustain that level of coordination. I'm not fucking around, here. I'm not making excuses, I am telling you the truth, spot-on, from someone with firsthand experience. In other words, if anyone is qualified to tell you that this is true, I am. Sometimes, when you are crazy, it is literally impossible to make fiction happen. You, personally, may have horrendous mental health issues even worse than mine - I am sorry if you do, that shit sucks and I feel you on that - and still be able to write. That's you, dude. That's not something everyone can do. It's admirable, sure, but you shouldn't hold everyone to that standard. Not everyone's crazy works the same way!
Sigh.
I am making an issue out of this because I think it is unfair and damaging. I am raising a stink, and it will probably piss a few people off, and . . . you know, I honestly hope it does, because I have had about enough of this dismissive shit.
I think it discourages people - especially young people - from doing something that is difficult and sometimes maddening, but is also rewarding beyond any price and beyond the understanding of most people. These people still have valuable things to say, beautiful stories to tell, and they may have quite a future ahead of them. Do not, for fuck's sake, tell them they have already fucking failed.
I think it makes people who work very hard and still can't do it every day feel even more horrible for not "doing it right," or not doing what they "should" be doing. We are shamed so much for the ways mental illness fucks us up. It hurts even more when it affects something we truly do wish we could do.
I think it is extremely disrespectful to the people who can't do it every day, but come back to it again and again and again, wearing away at that stone, not knowing if they will ever be able to make anything of it, but trying as often as they can and as hard as they can because it is a fucking amazing thing to be able to do and nothing else in the world, not even unicorn sex, feels this good.
I am reminded of what little Gaelic I managed to learn years and years ago. If I am remembering it correctly, Gaelic grammar does not say "I am a harper." It says "It is the harper that is in me." Go ahead and get that one good snicker out of your system. I did it, too. Now really think about it. It's beautiful. The harper is in me. The singer is in me. The sculptor is in me. The writer is in me. In a very small and roundabout way, it says that we do is inside of us, a part of us. That it's not an identity we assume, but something that comes from within. From our hearts.
If you can write every day, if you have iron discipline, if you are a workaholic who never misses a deadline, that is amazing and I congratulate you. I love a prolific, hardworking witer! It doesn't mean, though, that people who are not Super-Writer are not real writers. Acknowledging that they are real writers because writing is something that they do, something that is inside them, does not cheapen your accomplishment or your status as a writer. It doesn't cheapen anything.
There are jerks that call themselves writers without having that inside them, people who put that identity on like a fancy shirt, hoping it will get them attention and validation. Absolutely, there are, and I loathe those people too. They are not writers, because the writer is not in them. Bullshit is in them.
There are lazy folks who want it but don't have the dedication, and I don't loathe them because at least they want the thing itself, and not the approval they think it will get them. They are not writers because they don't do the writing, even though they could.
And there are people who are fucking crazy, who sometimes cannot even manage to relibably obtain food on their own, and yet they write every moment they are able to. Who work hard when they can work. Who never let go. Who love that place inside all writers go to, that place that is also outside, in every drop of ink and every pixel, between every word and every line and the pages of every book. Who are every bit as dedicated as you, and just don't have the capacity to do it as much as you do. People who have that inside them. And if you have any respect for your craft at all, you should respect that. You should not judge.
I am not trying to evoke pity, but I am going to ask you to imagine that you literally cannot do the only thing in the world you want to do. Maybe you already know that feeling. Picture it now. Feel it in your bones. That feeling is where people like me spend a hell of a lot of time. We're stuck tasting it and then starving, not knowing how long either will last. We don't know if the next time it leaves us will be the last, leaving the husks of stories we still want to tell dead in the fields. We are stuck knowing what we are missing. We love our characters and we want to tell our stories and we feel the need to make things out of words and pretty lies every bit as keenly as you do.
Picture that feeling, picture how we go back to it again and again, trying like hell, until we are able to climb that never-ending wall a little further.
If you are a writer, imagine the stories inside you, the ones you want to tell. You probably know there will never be enough time to tell them all, and that probably causes you very real pain. How many will you have time to tell? Twenty more? Ten? Imagine having your hundred stories inside you, and knowing that you might only get one more. Or two. Because something in you is broken. Not your fault, but broken just the same.
Imagine being desperately poor, but loving something so goddamn much that you spend your time and effort, what little you have to spare, doing that, instead of doing things that might make you money for food and housing, because feeding your spirit is more important. Imagine being judged by ignorant assholes for doing something "frivolous" when you should be working a "real job," and still being told that you aren't a "real writer" by other writers because you can't do it every day. Or most days.
Are those feelings familiar to you already, maybe?
Look at all that common ground, that common love, that common struggle, that common fear, and then look me in the eye and tell me I am not a real writer.
I am a real writer. And goddamn to hell anyone who tries to tell me otherwise and spits on all the effort it took to kick ass and take names and go hungry and sleep scared and endure scorn for being "lazy" and "not working" a "real job" just to be able to do the one thing worth doing - if you're a writer you know what I mean by that. It spits on everything I have managed to accomplish in the face of an illness that has tried to kill me, and might.
If you are a writer, I do not want your fucking pity. I want your fucking respect. I may not be as good as you are line by line, I may not ever have a bestseller, I may have no critical acclaim, I may never publish an actual book, I may swear a lot more than you think is appropriate, I may not look the part, I may not work every day, I may utterly suck at self-promotion, I may be fucking terrible at this in every way, but everything I have to give, I give to this one thing that I love.
In any way that matters, how are we different?
I am every inch as much a writer as you.
X-posted from Dreamwidth. Comment count:
In comments to a post by
gaaneden, rather a long time ago, I said: I often feel shit out of luck in that I can't really do anything every day except the bare needs of life itself - eat, sleep, etc. - and sometimes I don't even do that very well, as my lengthy bouts with insomnia prove. I have gone through periods where I write every day, but it's not consistent. It's part of what sucks tremendously about being bipolar and having issues getting properly treated and medicated.
Then, quite recently, I read a post from a multiply-published, award-winning writer talking about how people who don't work every day are not and never will be "real writers." (No, I am not naming names. This isn't about them.)
The "you MUST write every day or you will never be a Real Writer" assertion really irritates the shit out of me.
See, I can't always write every day. I go through months where I can't write. Years. And to way, way too many people who should know better, that means that I am not now and never will be a Real Writer.
You know, I don't want to do this job any less just because I'm fuckin' crazy. That's not how that shit works.
I am still a Real Writer, thank you very goddamned much. I dare you to read my work and tell me that I am "not a real writer." I dare you to look at what I do and have done and tell me that I am "not a real writer." Because pretty much the only ways in which I am "not a real writer" are:
I am only sparsely published with short stories, and have no books out that were not put out by myself. Since writers are always talking about how publication is not what makes a writer, so that argument can end right here.
I cannot reliably support myself with my writing. That is true of almost every writer, ever, so we can ignore that, too.
I write erotica. Some people regard erotica as a redheaded stepgenre not worthy of their attention. Some people think erotica writers are writers who couldn't hack it anywhere else. Some think erotica writers are just pathetic losers in general, probably perverts too. If you are one of those people, kindly fuck off. Nothing you say matters. Erotica is a real genre, plagued with problems and terrible writing though it may be, and shunting it aside as unworthy of better treatment sure doesn't help things any.
The last way in which I am not a real writer is this: I don't write every day. I don't even write regularly. And that is what I am attacking here.
There's a lot of talk about being a highly-functional mentally ill person and still being a happy, functional artist, but there's not a whole lot that addresses the feelings of those for whom consistent artistic functionality is just a daydream, but who still love their art, and pursue it as hard as they can.
We judge people according to how functional they are. We judge people who cannot keep a regular job. Writing is a job. We judge writers who cannot write. If you're going to argue that writing is a "real job" because you quite fairly want credit for doing a "real job", you have to accept that blaming a depressed person for not being able to write is no different from blaming a mentally ill person for being unable to hold down a 40-hour-a-week clerical job. (Unless you are the kind of person who would blame a mentally ill person for that, in which case, again, there's an off you should be fucking, somewhere in the vicinity of your mom.)
Writing is a complicated and difficult task. A symptom of many forms of mental illness is the inability to deal with complicated and difficult tasks.
Writing is in many ways a decision-making/problem solving process. It has been proven - and mentally ill folks all know this firsthand - that many forms of mental illness impair the decision-making/problem solving process. Meds can do that, too.
While writing, writers make many necessary decisions instinctively, without thinking about it on a conscious level, as the flow of words unspools. It's hard work but it's part of the background process, the behind the scenes stuff. Still takes energy, but it's not what's on stage.
Writers learn to problem-solve, mostly in the editing process, but often while the writing is happening. It's pretty difficult for a healthy person even on a good day. That's why we call it "revision hell."
Mental illness takes all those background processes and drags them under the spotlight. It makes solving problems incredibly difficult. Suddenly, writing is a lot harder. So imagine that your ability to solve those problems and make those decisions was reduced 50%. Now imagine it at only 25%. How much would you be able to get done in a day? Would you even be able to work? Because that percentage does sometimes hit zero. And sometimes it stays there for days. Weeks. Months. Years.
Humans only have so much mental energy to expend each day. Mentally ill people have less, and they have to spend a lot of it forcing themselves to do things that their illness makes really difficult. They use up the energy they'd use for problem solving and decision-making faster than non-mentally-ill folks. They have to use it on everyday things that would not ordinarily tax their resources. Not big decisions, but an endless nickel and diming over these tiny, bullshit, fucking embarrassing things that normal people - even you on a good day - take completely for granted.
After the cost of real-life living comes out, sometimes there isn't much left for writing. It's not a matter of making writing a priority. By the time you get done with the non-negotiable basics, the stuff everyone absolutely has to do, no exception, there's sometimes nothing left for writing. Sometimes, it's not hard to do simple things like put pants on or brush your teeth, but more complicated tasks are impossible. I call it the three-step problem. Things that take more than three steps to solve become almost impossible when I am in a really bad place.
Writing? It's way more than a three-step process. It is incredibly complicated and at least a little difficult for everyone who does it. If it was easy, everyone would be able to do it. Not everyone can. And not everyone who can is able to do it all the time.
Some people do have problems with laziness and not making ass-in-chair time a priority or wanting the fame but not wanting to do the work. Yes. Absolutely. Laziness, not prioritizing, and wanting all the fun parts of fame without all the bad parts of having an actual career are very human problems and at some time or another, every single human being has problems with one or all of those things.
Those are not the people I am talking about when I talk about mentally ill people having difficulty writing, but mentally ill folks get lumped in with them, and I think that is unfair. Not because I'm judging lazy people with poor time management skills and a sweet tooth for validation, I am totally sympathetic to those people, but because it is unfair to treat one like the other.
Treating people with a poor writing work ethic like mentally ill people is unfair because it doesn't teach not-crazy people the very important skill of how to manage themselves. Treating mentally ill folks like folks with a poor work ethic is unfair because it blames them for something they literally cannot change. (If they fucking could, they would.)
It's not an issue of laziness or not making it a priority. It's a matter of being unable to do an incredibly complicated and difficult thing because your brain is honest-to-goodness unable to sustain that level of coordination. I'm not fucking around, here. I'm not making excuses, I am telling you the truth, spot-on, from someone with firsthand experience. In other words, if anyone is qualified to tell you that this is true, I am. Sometimes, when you are crazy, it is literally impossible to make fiction happen. You, personally, may have horrendous mental health issues even worse than mine - I am sorry if you do, that shit sucks and I feel you on that - and still be able to write. That's you, dude. That's not something everyone can do. It's admirable, sure, but you shouldn't hold everyone to that standard. Not everyone's crazy works the same way!
Sigh.
I am making an issue out of this because I think it is unfair and damaging. I am raising a stink, and it will probably piss a few people off, and . . . you know, I honestly hope it does, because I have had about enough of this dismissive shit.
I think it discourages people - especially young people - from doing something that is difficult and sometimes maddening, but is also rewarding beyond any price and beyond the understanding of most people. These people still have valuable things to say, beautiful stories to tell, and they may have quite a future ahead of them. Do not, for fuck's sake, tell them they have already fucking failed.
I think it makes people who work very hard and still can't do it every day feel even more horrible for not "doing it right," or not doing what they "should" be doing. We are shamed so much for the ways mental illness fucks us up. It hurts even more when it affects something we truly do wish we could do.
I think it is extremely disrespectful to the people who can't do it every day, but come back to it again and again and again, wearing away at that stone, not knowing if they will ever be able to make anything of it, but trying as often as they can and as hard as they can because it is a fucking amazing thing to be able to do and nothing else in the world, not even unicorn sex, feels this good.
I am reminded of what little Gaelic I managed to learn years and years ago. If I am remembering it correctly, Gaelic grammar does not say "I am a harper." It says "It is the harper that is in me." Go ahead and get that one good snicker out of your system. I did it, too. Now really think about it. It's beautiful. The harper is in me. The singer is in me. The sculptor is in me. The writer is in me. In a very small and roundabout way, it says that we do is inside of us, a part of us. That it's not an identity we assume, but something that comes from within. From our hearts.
If you can write every day, if you have iron discipline, if you are a workaholic who never misses a deadline, that is amazing and I congratulate you. I love a prolific, hardworking witer! It doesn't mean, though, that people who are not Super-Writer are not real writers. Acknowledging that they are real writers because writing is something that they do, something that is inside them, does not cheapen your accomplishment or your status as a writer. It doesn't cheapen anything.
There are jerks that call themselves writers without having that inside them, people who put that identity on like a fancy shirt, hoping it will get them attention and validation. Absolutely, there are, and I loathe those people too. They are not writers, because the writer is not in them. Bullshit is in them.
There are lazy folks who want it but don't have the dedication, and I don't loathe them because at least they want the thing itself, and not the approval they think it will get them. They are not writers because they don't do the writing, even though they could.
And there are people who are fucking crazy, who sometimes cannot even manage to relibably obtain food on their own, and yet they write every moment they are able to. Who work hard when they can work. Who never let go. Who love that place inside all writers go to, that place that is also outside, in every drop of ink and every pixel, between every word and every line and the pages of every book. Who are every bit as dedicated as you, and just don't have the capacity to do it as much as you do. People who have that inside them. And if you have any respect for your craft at all, you should respect that. You should not judge.
I am not trying to evoke pity, but I am going to ask you to imagine that you literally cannot do the only thing in the world you want to do. Maybe you already know that feeling. Picture it now. Feel it in your bones. That feeling is where people like me spend a hell of a lot of time. We're stuck tasting it and then starving, not knowing how long either will last. We don't know if the next time it leaves us will be the last, leaving the husks of stories we still want to tell dead in the fields. We are stuck knowing what we are missing. We love our characters and we want to tell our stories and we feel the need to make things out of words and pretty lies every bit as keenly as you do.
Picture that feeling, picture how we go back to it again and again, trying like hell, until we are able to climb that never-ending wall a little further.
If you are a writer, imagine the stories inside you, the ones you want to tell. You probably know there will never be enough time to tell them all, and that probably causes you very real pain. How many will you have time to tell? Twenty more? Ten? Imagine having your hundred stories inside you, and knowing that you might only get one more. Or two. Because something in you is broken. Not your fault, but broken just the same.
Imagine being desperately poor, but loving something so goddamn much that you spend your time and effort, what little you have to spare, doing that, instead of doing things that might make you money for food and housing, because feeding your spirit is more important. Imagine being judged by ignorant assholes for doing something "frivolous" when you should be working a "real job," and still being told that you aren't a "real writer" by other writers because you can't do it every day. Or most days.
Are those feelings familiar to you already, maybe?
Look at all that common ground, that common love, that common struggle, that common fear, and then look me in the eye and tell me I am not a real writer.
I am a real writer. And goddamn to hell anyone who tries to tell me otherwise and spits on all the effort it took to kick ass and take names and go hungry and sleep scared and endure scorn for being "lazy" and "not working" a "real job" just to be able to do the one thing worth doing - if you're a writer you know what I mean by that. It spits on everything I have managed to accomplish in the face of an illness that has tried to kill me, and might.
If you are a writer, I do not want your fucking pity. I want your fucking respect. I may not be as good as you are line by line, I may not ever have a bestseller, I may have no critical acclaim, I may never publish an actual book, I may swear a lot more than you think is appropriate, I may not look the part, I may not work every day, I may utterly suck at self-promotion, I may be fucking terrible at this in every way, but everything I have to give, I give to this one thing that I love.
In any way that matters, how are we different?
I am every inch as much a writer as you.
X-posted from Dreamwidth. Comment count: