Out of the many testimonials we read from the Writing Life, Muriel Sparks spoke out with the strongest words for me. I enjoyed how she said she couldn't reread her past works because they each captured who she was at the moment she wrote it, someone she is not anymore. The point of her missive was that past all the rejection slips and egregiously painful works, we are storytellers in one form or another, speaking our stories from a demesne within our beings. It is the calling of a writer.
We all fantasize about that perfect job. We all crave that one place we could go day after day and do our work feeling like a little kid about to run into a playground while still getting paid for it. The Writing Life selection for last week seemed to touch on elements of the real tooth-grinding, white knuckled work it takes to clear the cacophony of ideas from the head of a writer onto paper. We scream when a plot won't twist to the music of the dialogue; we bellow in frustration when that setting won't pan out to a beautiful view of the last funeral of a withering family line. Our eyes are on a page, a screen, or a notebook; our hearts are in the words. I didn't ask to become a writer in this life, but the stories have my mind hostage. God bless the ditch-diggers!!!
That is what I liked about his week's reading as well. No filler just - this is how it is - take it or leave it.
ReplyDeleteA lot of people don't realize the grueling demands of writing. Not even deadlines, just sitting down in front of a blank computer screen or piece of paper. It can sometimes straight up suck. Happened to me just the other day. Was supposed to be writing something on a focused topic and I just went blank. Welcome to the Writing Life!!