Being Found Out

I feel like I've talked a lot about this writing book I've been reading: Writing Alone, Writing Together: A Guide for Writers and Writing Groups. No matter, I feel like saying something more.

The author is unafraid to acknowledge—regularly, even—that creative people are insecure. I appreciate that. We are insecure. We deal with rejection all the time (if we're doing our jobs), we have on-again, off-again relationships with the work that sustains us. We bare our hearts to the world and hope they stand up to critique. That's why a passage like this really speaks to me:

Even as much as we want to be part of a writing group, many of us suffer anxiety about joining one. We're afraid of making the commitment, afraid that maybe we're not good enough. We don't want to look foolish or be found out (that we can't write, that we're fakes, that our writing is mediocre or worse).

Reading it in plain text makes it seem okay. Well, if other artists feel this way, even established, successful, and/or respected artists, then it must be acceptable for me to struggle once in a while, too.

The Ebb and Flow of My Desk

You honor your writing and your writing self when you create a special place for your work. Bring to it all that supports and enhances your writing. Keep it clean and free from clutter. You know the old saying, that a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind. With all that mess, how can thoughts emerge without their edges catching on whatever is left lying around?

– Judy Reeves, Writing Alone, Writing Together: A Guide for Writers and Writing Groups

If a cluttered desk means a cluttered mind, then my desk is a perfect representation: always maintaining a calm, clear, productive, inviting space, but the clutter around the edges always threatens to tip the scales into claustrophobic panic.

Writing Together, But Alone First

I recently got a book from the library called Writing Alone, Writing Together: A Guide for Writers and Writing Groups. I have some ideas floating around my head for an urban writers' circle, but I want to do it right. I don't have a particularly vast amount of time to waste on something that's never going to get off the ground.

So far, though, the first portion of the book discusses writing practice for working alone—not unlike Writing Down the Bones, my perennial favorite writing book.

The author, Judy Reeves, points out what many of us know already: the key to become a real and true writer (and one who writes, no less) isn't getting published or writing something great, it's making time to write several times a week. This passage, which draws from prominent psychologists/researchers, gave me a lot to chew on:

The most important talent may be the talent for practice itself...the most important role that innate factors play may be in a person's willingness to engage in sustained training.

 Such a simple concept, but it gives any kind of artist a lot to think about.

Reading.

Yesterday I went to the library to pay my fines (I'd gotten in a bad way post-surgery and neglected to return a big stack of books), enjoy the air conditioning, and pick out a new stack of novels.  Being able to walk four blocks to my local library definitely ranks high on my list of things to love about city life, hence why I was appalled that my convalescence, followed by my late fine issues, contributed to my only finishing four (!) books so far this year.

Mind you, there are others that I've started and not finished, but that hardly counts.  Any artist worth her salt knows you've got to expose yourself to what's out there if you want to succeed.  Even if you're creating work that's wholly original, it still exists in our cultural context and in the larger canon of People Doing Work in Similar Genres.  So even if no one's doing performance art quite like yours, there are still thousands of performance artists out there and you'd damn well better know what a a bunch of them are doing.

To that end, I've been trying to take in a healthy dose of young adult fiction.  Part of me feels very reassured by what I'm reading, in that even though this is published work, I feel I could still mark it up and give plenty of editorial suggestions.  Also, when I work on my own manuscript I feel more and more like it's developing the proper tone for a young adult novel.

The only hang-up is, sometimes I find young adult fiction a bit patronizing or superficial or just plain, well, juvenile.  And that's not what I want for my work—at all.  So I feel I need to walk a fine line between addressing "adult" issues and content in a way that's accessible for younger (i.e. late teen) readers and producing high-caliber writing.

As an aside, remember how I read a 472-page book in one sitting a while back?  I've already finished one book since 3:00 yesterday afternoon and I'm well into another.  This is a genre I tend to plow through like snack food at an all-day conference: after going back a few times I realize I've eaten way more than anyone could consider dignified.  I'm offsetting this by also reading The Tempest and a real and true grown-up novel that kept catching my eye on the library shelves.

While we're on the subject of books, here's an open call: of the young adult fiction I read, much of it has (spoiler alert!) LGBT themes.  If you've got any favorites, especially ones that focus on the 'B' in LGBT (underrepresented, you don't have to tell me), please let me know!

The Death of Print Media?

This is something I would usually share on Twitter, but I thought it was so cute and clever that I'd actually make a post about it.  You have to stick with it to the end -- enjoy!