desoyunoencama linked to a thoughtful essay by Matt Cheney, who looks back at the hopes and disappointments of wanting to be a writer--and be published--from a young age
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Hey, I could have written every word of that in the mid-seventies, only add waitressing six days a week to pay for grad school in.
My writing wasn't half as good as yours (judging from your posts, but there's going to be something related over at the community, soon's I get the dogs walked, etc) so I hold out hopes that you'll reach critical mass sooner than I did.
Re having yet to find anything you're good at that isn't writing, that is so familiar. I've had so many dayjobs end badly that no one wants to hire me.
I think the biggest problem for me is that I simply don't get along in situations where I'm expected to be a widget, where there's no room for me as an individual. So I end up butting heads with those in charge, and pretty soon they decide there's plenty more where I came from and out the door I go.
And as one economic crisis after another erodes our ability to make ends meet on my spouse's income alone, the pressure for me to pick up the slack increases.
"The gift that isn't big enough to make a mark, but is too big to leave the possessor in peace. And so they can't be content to be Sunday painters, or poets who write for a few friends, or composers whose handful of delicate little settings of Emily Dickinson can't find a singer. It's a special sort of hell."
I read a novel when I was about fifteen, a writers' group full of these kind of people, and it hit me harder than any horror novel. Not only were they not successes, but they squabbled among themselves so much....but at fifteen, one thinks one will sail above all such pitfalls.
but one doesn't--at least, *I* haven't, though I pray for grace, pray for it, the grace to accept my small gift and be satisfied with it.
On some listserv or other, a long time ago, some reader said that she was trying to get thru Sunbird but after a third of the book was "bored, bored, bored" (she called the prose "tortuous"). It is probably the most debilitating comment anyone has ever made either to my face or behind my back. With every sentence I have written since then I think, "My god, why am I bothering? This is just MORE of teh boring boring boring
( ... )
There are two things about writing, for me. One is that it lets me catch worlds I want to exist in--when I write about them, they're that much more solid--it's not just me who knows about them; now other people know about them too. And that's the second part--the desire to *share* these worlds. I want them to be as real as possible for my own sake, but then I also want them to be real for others. I want to exist in these worlds, and I want other people to believe in these worlds.
I have no delusions about my chances for success, though. I'll continue to be wandering into these worlds, and I'll just share with whoever I can, however I can. The world doesn't particularly need my stories, and many/most people may not particularly want them, so it's a matter of finding people who do--because I want an audience... but I want an audience that's interested in the kinds of stories I have to tell. (Meanwhile, I can keep on working on improving how I tell them, but I can't change the basic type of thing I'm going to write.)
And if I can have **you** as a reader, that just makes me so happy. I love your worlds so much--in fact, this morning, not sure what I was reading--oh yeah, the recent entries over at Athanarel--it was making me feel that way very intensely.
That pretty much sums it up for me as well. I can't write about things other than the things I already write about, which feels to me such a limited scope that my chances of scoring anything other than extremely spotty success are slim to none.
yes to the battling of WHY BOTHER and WHO CARES. I am only intermittantly successful at doing this, but I think it's mostly about defining success in one's own way. Unlike so many other professions, writing is not about traditional success. You can do everything right and have great talent and still have to have a day job, be out of style and thus go unread, stay undiscovered, whatever. That's very hard for us goal oriented people in a goal oriented society to accept.
I love writing and I hope I never stop even if I never again make my living at it. Thanks for the reminder.
Yes--there are two separate drives here, the drive to write, and the drive to be read. I've experienced both, and so perceive the difference, and often meditate on what the differences mean. Have done all my life.
"The drive to be published by the current publishing industry is only one way of being read."
YES, so very much so.
What is a little bit disheartening --although, in a way, not surprising-- is how little crossing that threshold into the Published World seems to mean. On this side of the gate I imagine kittens and cookies and puppies. On that side of the gate, reports seem to be they're still serving dry cake and weak lemonade.
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My writing wasn't half as good as yours (judging from your posts, but there's going to be something related over at the community, soon's I get the dogs walked, etc) so I hold out hopes that you'll reach critical mass sooner than I did.
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I think the biggest problem for me is that I simply don't get along in situations where I'm expected to be a widget, where there's no room for me as an individual. So I end up butting heads with those in charge, and pretty soon they decide there's plenty more where I came from and out the door I go.
And as one economic crisis after another erodes our ability to make ends meet on my spouse's income alone, the pressure for me to pick up the slack increases.
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--Robertson Davies, The Cunning Man
grumble.
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On some listserv or other, a long time ago, some reader said that she was trying to get thru Sunbird but after a third of the book was "bored, bored, bored" (she called the prose "tortuous"). It is probably the most debilitating comment anyone has ever made either to my face or behind my back. With every sentence I have written since then I think, "My god, why am I bothering? This is just MORE of teh boring boring boring ( ... )
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I have no delusions about my chances for success, though. I'll continue to be wandering into these worlds, and I'll just share with whoever I can, however I can. The world doesn't particularly need my stories, and many/most people may not particularly want them, so it's a matter of finding people who do--because I want an audience... but I want an audience that's interested in the kinds of stories I have to tell. (Meanwhile, I can keep on working on improving how I tell them, but I can't change the basic type of thing I'm going to write.)
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Your worlds are lovely, btw. definitely worth sharing.
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At least we know we're not alone.
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I love writing and I hope I never stop even if I never again make my living at it. Thanks for the reminder.
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Conflating the two things has caused me much heartache in my life. I too reflect on it, less now than I used to.
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YES, so very much so.
What is a little bit disheartening --although, in a way, not surprising-- is how little crossing that threshold into the Published World seems to mean. On this side of the gate I imagine kittens and cookies and puppies. On that side of the gate, reports seem to be they're still serving dry cake and weak lemonade.
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