I've spent a lot of time 'getting familiar' with
the whole 'writing' experience. So I have talked to a lot of writers; attended
a fair number of seminars, along with conventions; and of course, read
books; even bought a few, well, more than a few actually. I'd say the
shelf directly above my head in this study is totally dedicated to those
professional whispers created for insecure neophyte writers who unabashedly
need something comforting nearby to encourage continuing effort. Your
Novel proposal; Good Grammar; Writing for Dollars; and one of my all time
favorites by Peter Bowerman The Well-Fed Writer. Then of course
the customary Webster’s and a Writers’ market of 2002 are still sitting
in their chase positions.
OK, so I
don't use my resources; much anyway, but like a quiver filled with arrows,
I gain comfort knowing they are near if I should need them. I have looked
up some amusing names in the greatest baby name book ever; I have
even glimpsed at Dream Symbols. Oh goodness, and look, Guide to
Literary Agents, written in blood I think? Or perhaps I am confused and
that's the theme of the book. But all of that to say I've gleaned a few
pearls out of the din of advice and warnings. Never mind the market, or the
necessary genuflecting that is strongly suggested, but any semblance of
rebelling to such antics is received by shocked looks and scoffs over sincerity
in venturing in to be a (angel choir voices kick in now please) Writer.
No… the
advice was useful to believers, but I had to ferret out truth from a different
pot. You know the old saying that a paradigm is never changed from inside
an institution? It’s those damn outsiders that innovate. That's a reasonable
expectation; outsiders don't have a stake in the game of status quo. Which
comes to the metaphysical, new-age, cosmic secrets (not THE SECRET, the
book, but close enough to the mark to suffice) of how to do what you want (in
writing) aka...be creative and still become rich and famous...without the drug
addictions; or maybe even the total collapse of your emotional support system
of friends and family; usually both. What surfaced to my fevered efforts
to discern the truth was this: It just doesn't matter.
Now I'd
like to attribute my clarity on the topic to Julia Cameron, because I dug her
book THE ARTIST WAY. Yet there are a host of other authors and
deep thinkers who have credentials with letters after their names, and some that
do not, who say pretty much the same thing using different words or examples.
What we perceive we believe. Boy
that says heaps of volumes if ever there was a message to take home.
There are those times when the wheels no longer spit up sparks at my energetic effort.
I feel depleted or exhausted and fear that my fountain has dried up. Gone
for-EV-ah, the youth of my enthusiasm; snuffed out. It's a good thing not
to be an alcoholic who owns shot guns, or there might be a Hemingway sort of accident
before conceding to the cycle imbued in creativity. Ups and downs are the
rhythm of the planet and because I’m here, even if thrown in, I am virtually
unable to prevent getting external influences influencing my conclusions.
I am influenced
as a condition of my exploration. That is an indisputable fact hidden in socialization.
I'd go as far as to say even Tarzan learned the same way in the absence of
social shaping. But then again, he
substituted chimpanzees as his social network now didn’t he? I have been in the desert of concern over the
'lack' as some creative people mutter: The lack of inspiration; the lack of
interest; the lack of funds; so now I wait tables at Sonic; and these skates
are killing my ankles. Where did all those dollars into education take me
anyway? Well, for all the teasing, I am exactly where I need to be; and
if I’m breathing then I am not wasting my time writing as a corpse, I’ve
succeeded in the passage from then into now. Congratulation; welcome to
the view of disillusionment. I remember an amusing bumper sticker, I
think I even purchased it as a matter of recall, then pasted it onto my guitar
case. It read' "Remember you're unique...just like everybody else."
It would take another decade for me to see that I use to think special
and unique were the same thing; which of course they are not. Anyway, at the time, I thought that funny,
that's why I got it, and I like plays on words, well except 'you make love
funny' I don't think you can look at that as anything but a bad mark; probably
will leave a scar...for life even.
I’m going to come back at this tomorrow, So far, so
good.
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