love and good will
George Eliot wrote to a friend afraid to talk about personal issues, “Ah! Say I love you to those you love. The eternal silence is long enough to be silent in.”
I made a suggestion to the president of SFWA that we should construct a phone tree for writers who find themselves in desperate situations of whatever kind, whatever degree. I think this should be a separate thing from the Emergency Medical Fund, which ought not to extend to crash-and-burn situations. There is not enough money in it for spread-spectrum generosity, especially in this grim economic climate, yet who among those administering the monies wants to be responsible for another tragedy for turning down someone who seems cheerful, seems to be in just a little trouble--not that bad--seems to need an exhortation to just pull up their socks and get on with it?
In truth, writers get a lot of that “get on with it” from non-writers, who might be otherwise good, compassionate people, but cannot comprehend the heart-wrench of an extended block, of the misery of a day job that tires one so much that we cannot get the energy for our real work at the time when everyone else is settling in front of the tube to relax for the remainder of the day.
Writers know people. Writers can turn up the damndest sorts of resources. A phone tree might, with that usual six degrees worth of phone calls, turn up a crash pad, a short-term job, a clinic that actually takes in patients without mountains of red tape, a counselor willing to help, a lawyer who does public service.
I don’t know if it’s a good idea, it seems so in the stress of the moment. Yet I believe that a service costing nothing but fellow writers’ time could be of benefit in an organization that means well, but doesn’t actually have much clout in the nutcracker atmosphere of corporate publishing of these days.
I made a suggestion to the president of SFWA that we should construct a phone tree for writers who find themselves in desperate situations of whatever kind, whatever degree. I think this should be a separate thing from the Emergency Medical Fund, which ought not to extend to crash-and-burn situations. There is not enough money in it for spread-spectrum generosity, especially in this grim economic climate, yet who among those administering the monies wants to be responsible for another tragedy for turning down someone who seems cheerful, seems to be in just a little trouble--not that bad--seems to need an exhortation to just pull up their socks and get on with it?
In truth, writers get a lot of that “get on with it” from non-writers, who might be otherwise good, compassionate people, but cannot comprehend the heart-wrench of an extended block, of the misery of a day job that tires one so much that we cannot get the energy for our real work at the time when everyone else is settling in front of the tube to relax for the remainder of the day.
Writers know people. Writers can turn up the damndest sorts of resources. A phone tree might, with that usual six degrees worth of phone calls, turn up a crash pad, a short-term job, a clinic that actually takes in patients without mountains of red tape, a counselor willing to help, a lawyer who does public service.
I don’t know if it’s a good idea, it seems so in the stress of the moment. Yet I believe that a service costing nothing but fellow writers’ time could be of benefit in an organization that means well, but doesn’t actually have much clout in the nutcracker atmosphere of corporate publishing of these days.