like those eggs i broke a few days ago (which i used to make molten chocolate mini-cakes), i've been feeling a bit fragile, a little insecure in my writing skill. lately, i've been feeling like i totally suck. most people feel like this at some point, i think, but that doesn't make me feel any better about my total crisis in confidence.
i was in self-pity mode driving home from the y the other day (yes, i worked out at the y. it was great, if not surprising. i want to get in shape), when tim reminded me that everyone needs an editor, that even the best writers in the world need editors, which, i suppose, is right (talk about a run-on sentence right there). i bet even gay talese needed an editor, and i completely admire his work.
i don't know if there's a writer who actually enjoys the act of writing: the struggle to find the right words, to shape a sentence into some poetic fashion so that it sounds better than what you're actually thinking. i fear that i'm cliche, that my thoughts, words, sentences, and ideas are unoriginal, derivative, incoherent, or just plain stupid. i'm afraid that i don't know how to write anymore, that i'm not as good as i was a few years ago, that i've gotten lazy, that i don't read enough, that what i write doesn't make sense anymore. these are not fears i want to have. but apparently they're fears that i'll share on this blog.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
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Um, I know I'm commenting a lot on your blog today! (But I just now realized you had a blog!) I wanted to share something I sent to a writer friend who is feeling this way as well...(and that I feel frequently too).
Reading it helped me understand the thoughts that go through the head are normal, but ultimately you have to face them down and believe in the inherent worth of the creative act, no matter its result or outside validation. (Sorry to get so deep, at 9:45 in the morning, no less!)
SING NOW, WORRY LATER: "A lot of artists that I know get really paralyzed in weird self-negation and self-criticism too early in the creative process. And it's a battle for me—it's a battle for everyone—to not censor oneself while one is still in the process of emerging. You just have to take the risk and emerge, and then later on—much later—you can decide whether it's valuable, in your opinion."
GET SOME NERVE: "If you create something and you're really ashamed and embarrassed by it, oftentimes that's a good sign. You're taking a risk, but you're challenging yourself to be more vulnerable or to put yourself out there. In that vulnerability is great strength."
STICK IT TO 'EM: "If you just imagine your criticism, and you put it into a little bundle of sticks and you place that bundle of sticks a foot away from yourself, that space between you and that bundle of sticks is your creative space. How far are you gonna put it from you? You could set it a mile from you, and you could dance all around the countryside. Or you could glue it to your forehead and never be allowed to take a breath."
-Antony (from Antony and the Johnsons)
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