Yearn. Dignify It.
Here's what Louise
Glück has to say about being a writer. The fundamental experience “is helplessness...most writers spend much of their time in various kinds of torment: wanting to write, being unable to write, wanting to write differently, not being able to write differently. It is a life dignified. . .by yearning, not made serene by sensations of achievement.”
8 comments:
Ever notice how a lot of female poets are really thin? Maybe all that yearning helps burn calories too. It could also be that when you're fat you think everyone around you is a toothpick.
Today I got an email rejection where the misspelled my first name. They ended it with "ie" instead of "ey." The normal version ends in "y," so maybe my irregular spelling inspired them to create one of their own.
Totally agree with this. Only in recent years have I come to terms with the fact that my immense guilt (my version of the yearning) over not writing well enough or often enough is standard issue for many writers. Knowing it's normal and that I should just get over it doesn't seem to help much, though.
I heard a talk by Eavan Boland a few years back, and she had this whole riff about the books that we wouldn't write. The way life would get in the way. Children. Work. Mishaps and strokes of bad luck. But the thing that makes us writers is still down in there, perceiving, loving language and story. It was all very inspiring, as though permission to fail was somehow permission to really write.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkTqYZtgxxo
ok. so all writers YEARN. *sigh*
CAPS Off, nut job. We hear you loud and clear. Go spew your paranoia and delusions on another blog--this one ain't your audience.
Ummm, that's a bot. No need to reprint spam.
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