Current mood:

tired

Writer's Rant
Tonight I went to see a panel of editors from local literary magazines talk about the joys and woes of editing, distributing, managing submissions, etc. It was fun; they were so full of personality, and each of them had different reasons for doing what they do. I think you have to be slightly insane and obsessed to operate a small press literary magazine; it takes so much time and effort and gives little to no financial compensation. There were some big names in the writer community present: the editor of Zyzzyva and McSweeny's and Instant City among others. My favorite was the old dude from Zyzzava; he said that the whole idea behind writing and making a magazine is "if what you've written connects with just one other person, that is enough." I agree with this completely. He also said "Don't bother reading the magazine you're about to submit to; they're all the same," which was funny because it contradicted everyone else on the panel. He got some looks across the table after that!

Listening to these veteran editors and writers reminded me how wonderful the writing community is here in SF. It also made me realize that I need to wait years before I ever submit anything to be published anywhere. My writing is still so amorphous and unfocused. Craft of Fiction helped give me the tools I need to write, but I am only just discovering the sort of things I like to write about.


Wait. That's a blatant lie. I've always been interested in strange and bizarre things happening in realistic settings; in those moments that entrap you because they are so intense or extraordinary. I love writing about fairy tales and mythological characters and themes. And about people who intrigue me; those voices in my head, the others who never sit still.
But they escape me when I actually write. All this time at State I've been writing to please my classmates, my teacher, and sometimes myself. I remember feeling physical pain when I had to sit down and do an imitation of another writer's style, copying his structure Mad-Libs style. I remember crying because my writing was so bad compared to my classmates; feeling burning shame at the fact that they had to read an inadequate portrayal of what was in my head.(Professor Davison always says that asking other people for feedback on your own writing is like standing naked in front of them and asking "What's wrong with my body?")
For quite a time I laid away all of the feedback my fellow students gave me and never read it; never revisited those pieces. After they were out and written, they were dead. They had ceased to belong to me after I turned them in. I hated them. And most of what I wrote during my first two years at State, I still hate.

I hate my writing less now. That's a great accomplishment for me. Actually, that's another lie, I foolishly fall in love with my writing the first time around like everyone else. Then I poke it, watch my balloon go pop, and weep childish tears. I want so badly to write well that it makes it damn near impossible to write anything at all.

I tried very hard to write last semester, and because I tried so hard, my efforts are hard to read. The trying taught me a lot; material that I would've never imagined came forth. But what to do with it? I still don't know. I chose the most difficult and fearful story to tell because it had the most real human emotion associated with it. My grandfather's death. And it depressed me to write about, even as I saw it improve my writing bit by bit. One inch of good writing. One sentence that isn't pure contrived crap. I got some jagged fragments mixed in with all the mush.

Another thing I've gained is permission to write. Anyone who knows me knows that I hate asking for things, even when I really need them (especially then). Once I start to think about writing; it's over, nothing good will come out, only pain and effort of trying and failing. The worst advice ever for a writer: "Try harder." God; we value that advice so much we think it will solve everything. It's like saying "You mean she doesn't love you? Try harder." The rule does not apply here, hard work will not pay off.
What pays off for me is fooling myself. Only took me about three years to figure this out: in order to write, I must not think about writing. I need to be sitting here looking at something else, a book, a picture, my e-mail, or have music playing. (This amazes me now because I was never able to write with distractions before; it broke my "concentration." This "concentration" was nothing more than mental constipation.)

Only when my brain isn't conscious of what it's doing can writing come out. And it must come out sly, I just "happen" to have a blank Word document open or a notebook in front of me while Rammstein is playing. Then, a sentence; an accident. Oops, something word shaped just fell onto the page. Wonder where it came from. Then a few more sentences. Keep going, no thoughts just words, impressions, like how Rorschach speaks in "Watchmen," no pesky pronouns or articles to get in the way of the good stuff; fragments. The hardest part, recently, has been keeping the momentum up. Because no sooner do the words appear than that perverse part of me wants to guillotine the effort; to remind me of what a bad writer I am. The hardest part then is to keep going despite the rusty saw-edged voice that protests my efforts. The FEAR (which deserves to be written in all caps at least once because of how it permeates my heart and body and mind. More on fear later).

I am not fooling myself by thinking I can write. I am writing by fooling myself and not thinking anything at all; just listening to the voices that give me goosebumps and make me twitch in my seat and mutter. I find forms to latch onto; all those stories and figures I love, and I write into their gaps. And it is good, better than anything I've done before, not because of the quality of the writing, but because it is closer to my heart.