Your Courageous Life

The people who know me the best, the ones who have known me the longest, know that there is one thing–one–that I have wanted every since I was a little girl. There has been one thing that I have loved above all other things, one passion.

Writing.

Before I could write letters, I drew my stories in a fat binder of dot matrix paper that my father brought home from work. I have had this passionate affair with the written word since as long as I could remember. My parents like to tell the story of when I was just two or three, and would plop myself in the aisle of a bookstore with a book from the shelf, “reading” aloud. I was missing words and making up some of the storyline, but apparently it was convincing enough that other customers really thought I was reading word for word. I love books. I love holding them in my hands and turning their pages. The Kindle and other electronic readers make me sad on so very many levels, because I can see how, because it is a cheaper form of producing something, it probably will take over the world and eventually (a long eventually, but still–eventually–) kill printed books the way newspapers have been pushed aside by the internet. This breaks my heart. I think we need books. I want the tactile sensation of books, of turning to a particular page in a bookstore, of smelling paper.

I was seven when I sent my first letters to book publishers, trying to interest them in a book. I took creative writing classes all through school. I was encouraged. In undergrad, I decided to try my hand at writing freelance articles. I was never particularly successful at it, but I was learning a lot about the process of sending my work out. I went to graduate school for creative writing and it was there that something shifted for me. Namely, what shifted is that I was no longer one of the 3 or 4 good writers in a class, as I had been during my undergraduate days. Now, I was walking among many other writers who were really good. It was with some embarrassment that I clearly realized that in fact, I was not even among the best writers in my cohort. In fact, I was probably somewhere near the bottom of the cohort in terms of talent or ability to communicate something that resonated.

Also, I sometimes look back and think to myself that of all the angsty years of my life, those two years in graduate school were tops. There was lots of drama about the creative process (which I was compelled to muse about and write about online, much to the snickering of some of the faculty and students I went to school with) and breakups and friendships and who am I? and all of that going on. Not so much on what I know are the fundamentals of creating good writing: read good writers + write daily.

Yet I knew that nothing quite makes up for lacking skill, like hard work. So, I finished grad school and I worked hard. I sent out my work. And re-sent my work. I did everything the books tell you to do. I identified which literary magazines I most liked to read, and sent my work to them, and then once I received a rejection I simply sent a piece on to the next person. I did not keep rejection slips. And I really did try my very best to improve my writing. I won honorable mention in one novel writing contest and at the awards dinner, I received encouragement that I sorely needed, having been out of the writing world for a little while. “Keep going,” they said at that dinner. “You’re really close.” Then one of the authors suggested an agent, who I of course contacted, and the agent wanted to see my book.

I sent it via next-day airmail.

Thus commenced 2 months of waiting anxiously for some kind of response on the book. To say that I prayed would be an understatement. It was around that time that I was gifted a consult with a psychic as a present, and the psychic told me that I was going to get my book published, so of course I was running around each day high as a kite with glee. “It’s finally happening, it’s finally happening!” I would think every morning, until it became clearer that what I’d written was apparently not such hot shit that anyone wanted to get back to me. Finally, I did the one thing the books tell you never to do–follow up–and received an embarrassed response from the agent, who had not yet looked at the book and who said she’d reply the following week. She did. No dice.

But still–no giving up! Writing is my DREAM I told myself. I continued to write, almost daily.

I attended a writing workshop, which (for me, in my experience) was not helpful in terms of agents or editors because everyone was clamoring for the attention of agents and editors and it was difficult to watch as some of those agents and editors clearly were courting attendees–but it was incredibly helpful to have this entire week really intensively focused on writing. Something shifted for me with that workshop, some synapse connected and I was able to edit my work with a more discerning eye, to see where there were lazy images that spread words across the page but that did not paint a picture or tell a compelling story. I published more writing in the year following that workshop than I had before. Photocopied formletter rejections were replaced by formletters that were on nicer paper, maybe with a nice little handwritten “P.S.” at the bottom from an editor: “This piece wasn’t a fit–but keep submitting!” and things of that nature.

Then came August of 2008. The months leading up to August of 2008 were hard. The economy was–what was it, again? The phrase everyone was using? Oh, yes, here it is–the economy was “going to hell in a handbasket.” I was trying my first stab at letting go of teaching. It was not happening so successfully. I was sending out my writing and getting little trickles and it was fantastic, yet overall, there was this need for reckoning in my life. I was just getting so exhausted with sending out writing, spending all of that money, using all of that paper, and often as not, not hearing back, or getting a generic rejection.

I decided to do the one thing I’d never allowed myself to do–not once, not ever–and that was take a break from writing. No more guilt trips if I didn’t write. No more pushing myself to send out work.

The thing is, writing had gotten too painful. It became too painful because I made it that way, focusing more on the result than on anything else. Also, I was pretty hung up on comparisons. Being in graduate school had been a wonderful experience overall, one that I’m thankful for because much was invested into me. The downside is that I got really into the game of comparisons. Who was succeeding first? Who was the most serious writer? Who did it every day? Who was getting extra office hours consultation time with the department chair? Who was already published?

I stopped doing something that I loved because I wanted it to perform for me in a certain way, and that is just no way to have a relationship.

So I consciously quit.

I knew that I was not “out of the game” of writing, and I still journaled, wrote on the blog, did a few things here or there. But I did not send out any work. I did not take on any projects.

When I came back from Italy last year, the number one thing I was itching to do was write. When I came back from Italy, I was in this headspace that was so freaking clear. I had this clarity about life, this absolute immersion in flow, that I have never had before and have wavered in and out of since (it’s a practice, people). What I knew when I got back from Italy was this: I needed to write. For awhile, I sat down each day and tapped the keys. The writing flowed.

Then, you know. Life. We moved (again). Letting go of the job, getting a new business set up. The holidays.

I sat down yesterday for the first time in months and opened the old files. I re-read everything I’d written during those post-Italy days. The process took several hours. When I was finished, I felt out of my mind, walking out of the library on wobbly legs like I’d just lost and found my mind, like an endorphin rush, like a really good stretch that sends fresh blood flowing.

I realized that I had fallen in love again.

I realized that I am ready.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 15th, 2010 at 11:24 am |