On writing well
"Are you so critical about everything you write?"
"Yeah, pretty much. I look on it as a festering pile of shit."
"I look at it and think, 'I wish I could write like that.' "
I am a writer. I mean, that's what I get paid for, and even my business cards confirm it.
But it is writer, small w.
I have a desire to be a Writer.
It is a strange and scary place where I now find myself.
Others who tell me I have oodles of talent for it. Nagging self-doubt says I'm not quite good enough.
And just a small body of fictional works to draw upon (but shitloads of true stories, a body of work that spans 22 years, and doesn't quite mean dick).
So I plot. I plan. I promise.
First Sister persisted, made me cross my heart and hope to die even, to look into the University of Iowa's Writing University.
Its two-year residency program for creative writing is the best in the country. Competition for slots is tough. Then, there's folding up your life and moving to Iowa for two years.
I'm considering it (before I'm 50).
I need to submit my three best short stories.
(I need to work on that.)
The university also offers its Iowa Summer Writing Festival, which included weekend and week-long writing seminars taught by published authors (most of whom are U of I Writing University grads).
I think this is as good a place to start, but I can't make any of the sessions this summer, what with work and vacation time already burned.
So, with the world's indulgence, I'm going to start writing down all the bits and pieces floating around in my head, start forming them into short fiction, and posting them here. I am going to make the public promise to attend next year's Iowa Summer Writing Festival.
All to satisfy a growing hunger inside of me to unleash what's inside. That singular voice that is me. Not for fame or money, either. I feel blessed that I have been given a gift to tell stories; it is the only thing I've ever wanted to do in my whole damn life. And I do it. And get a check for it, too.
But I want more than that. I want to be a novelist (and no, the guidebook doesn't count).
In "Stranger Than Fiction," Chuck Palahniuk's collection of true stories, he writes in the introduction:
"The one drawback to writing is being alone. the writing part. the lonely-garret part. In people's imagination, that's the difference between being a writer and being a journalist. The journalist, the newspaper reporter, is always rushing, hunting, meeting people, digging up facts. Cooking a story. The journalist writes surrounded by people, and always on deadline. Crowded and hurried. Exciting and fun.
"The journalist writes to connect you to the larger world. A conduit.
"But a writer writer is different. Anybody who writes fiction is - people imagine - alone. Maybe because fiction seems to connect you to only the voice of one other person. Maybe because reading is something we do alone. It's a pastime that seems to split us away from others.
"The journalist researches a story. The novelist imagines it."
That is the best explanation anyone - I mean anyone - has ever come up with to explain the difference in what I do vs. what I want to do.
And now it is time to start imagining my future. Find my voice. Step out of the comfort and chaotic energy of the newsroom for the loneliness of the writer's life.
(But all of you still get to come along.)
"Yeah, pretty much. I look on it as a festering pile of shit."
"I look at it and think, 'I wish I could write like that.' "
I am a writer. I mean, that's what I get paid for, and even my business cards confirm it.
But it is writer, small w.
I have a desire to be a Writer.
It is a strange and scary place where I now find myself.
Others who tell me I have oodles of talent for it. Nagging self-doubt says I'm not quite good enough.
And just a small body of fictional works to draw upon (but shitloads of true stories, a body of work that spans 22 years, and doesn't quite mean dick).
So I plot. I plan. I promise.
First Sister persisted, made me cross my heart and hope to die even, to look into the University of Iowa's Writing University.
Its two-year residency program for creative writing is the best in the country. Competition for slots is tough. Then, there's folding up your life and moving to Iowa for two years.
I'm considering it (before I'm 50).
I need to submit my three best short stories.
(I need to work on that.)
The university also offers its Iowa Summer Writing Festival, which included weekend and week-long writing seminars taught by published authors (most of whom are U of I Writing University grads).
I think this is as good a place to start, but I can't make any of the sessions this summer, what with work and vacation time already burned.
So, with the world's indulgence, I'm going to start writing down all the bits and pieces floating around in my head, start forming them into short fiction, and posting them here. I am going to make the public promise to attend next year's Iowa Summer Writing Festival.
All to satisfy a growing hunger inside of me to unleash what's inside. That singular voice that is me. Not for fame or money, either. I feel blessed that I have been given a gift to tell stories; it is the only thing I've ever wanted to do in my whole damn life. And I do it. And get a check for it, too.
But I want more than that. I want to be a novelist (and no, the guidebook doesn't count).
In "Stranger Than Fiction," Chuck Palahniuk's collection of true stories, he writes in the introduction:
"The one drawback to writing is being alone. the writing part. the lonely-garret part. In people's imagination, that's the difference between being a writer and being a journalist. The journalist, the newspaper reporter, is always rushing, hunting, meeting people, digging up facts. Cooking a story. The journalist writes surrounded by people, and always on deadline. Crowded and hurried. Exciting and fun.
"The journalist writes to connect you to the larger world. A conduit.
"But a writer writer is different. Anybody who writes fiction is - people imagine - alone. Maybe because fiction seems to connect you to only the voice of one other person. Maybe because reading is something we do alone. It's a pastime that seems to split us away from others.
"The journalist researches a story. The novelist imagines it."
That is the best explanation anyone - I mean anyone - has ever come up with to explain the difference in what I do vs. what I want to do.
And now it is time to start imagining my future. Find my voice. Step out of the comfort and chaotic energy of the newsroom for the loneliness of the writer's life.
(But all of you still get to come along.)
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