Happy Friday For years, I didn’t write online. I wrote by hand, on sheets of loose leaf paper. I wrote about the squeegee kids in Toronto and I wrote the recurring nightmare I kept having night after night for years until I didn’t even want to go to bed anymore. Amazingly, when I wrote that stupid thing out in words, it finally stopped.
I expect I'm an outlier on this one. For me, it was a combination of humility and focus. I thought I could manage to learn how to cross oceans on my boat AND write. Not writing leads to some angst for sure. The ocean can be very unforgiving so I decided to focus on preparing the boat....and me. Maybe I'll be a better writer as a result? In the meantime, I read and humbly try to learn from others. The ocean and the keyboard can teach humility I guess.
I find writing to be the most painful thing I do, and yet I am compelled. Must be a form of masochism. I write mainly in my head with perfect sentences, clever wording, impeccable organization...and then I face the keyboard and bleed.
Thank you for a nice article. What makes me struggle to write or throw in the towel? My own shattered dreams and expectations. I write because I love it, because I tried to do without (I stopped writing for about 8 years) and was utterly miserable. I write because it became my need and my passion. Sometimes I write for my own sanity and put it out expecting it to be read by small number of people. Other times, I write for people to learn/understand something important or to share a story I particularly love. In such case, I really do my very best for the readers to get real value out of what I've written. At those time I give the text far more energy than usual. Many times it pays of and the readers react. But if that type of text is then not read, I feel for a while like throwing in the towel. I know one can scarcely predict what will or won't work with readers. But it still feels terrible to give something so much work and energy and then have no reaction. It feels, to me, as if the energy was wasted. I still return to writing in the end. :)
I can SO relate to that, Livia. When I pour myself into a piece and get no response, it feels really crappy. Then I get bitter and grumpy about all the "self help" and "how to make money" junk that does get consistent views. lol. But eventually I crawl back, too. I think you speak for many of us!
Writing. Well, the years have certainly proven that it was not for the money. I cannot argue that it was love either but more a need just to turn flotsam in my head into something concrete. Once on paper you are no longer chasing fireflies on the breeze, your thoughts have form and stability which can be worked with. Much of my writing was(and still to a small degree is) in the form of letters to those close and to associates. Sadly letter writing is nearly a lost art. Technical writing, fiction, poetry have all spilled from my pens and for the most part been sequestered or destroyed once their mission was complete. My writing continues into my eighth decade and while much is yet ink on paper I have been seduced by the computer's editing ease. I turn all notices off for the initial draft. That is the time for creating and the intrusion of editing prompts disturb or destroy that process. The editing is a distinct and separate process and requires a different mindset. I write more now for pleasure than ever and on occasion it seems to please others.
You are so right. Letter writing seems a lost art. When I read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society I was delighted that the entire book was a series of letters. The last sentence was great -- isn't that what we all hope for?
What a delightful little book! One to pull out from year to year and read again. There is a video version, Netflix I believe, though I have not had an opportunity to see it. So often the transformation is disappointing but perhaps not.
Great piece! I certainly don't write for money or I'd have thrown in the towel decades ago. These days, as a poet who finally realized this is what she is - a POET - I write because it's as essential as breathing. Well, almost. You get my point, though. If I go a few days not scribbling something, I get out of sorts. Medium is a godsend because I'm READ, which feels good. But I kept writing even when unread, so...
I can sure relate, Jen. If I go a few days without writing something, I get out of sorts, too. It works the other way around, too. When life puts me out of sorts, I don't write, which makes me more out of sorts. lol.
I definitely write because I feel compelled to..Whether online or not, I just feel like I have to. This month I was surprised by a "bigger" payout of a whopping of almost $20 lol. But better than nothing. I'd like to make more $, but it's why I write. During spells of depression, I either write some of my better stuff, or I don't write much if any.
I can relate. Being stressed, messed or depressed kills any ability to write. I try to keep unpublished drafts so that I have stuff to post when those days (or weeks) show up.
LIFE makes me struggle to write. You know, that “to do” list that seems to grow while I’m sleeping.
You would think that retirement would release one from “things that need your attention.” Nope.
I wrote a lot, pre-retirement out of necessity. That type of writing, however, was hardly creative (white papers, policy statements, disciplinary memos, letters written for administrative superiors in answer to queries from constituents).
What I write now is mostly poetry, which doesn’t even come close to paying the ‘light bill.’ I write for fun and the sheer love of having the freedom to feel and say out loud what couldn’t be said while employed.
If I am able to inspire at least one person with a poem or even a phrase from an opinion piece/essay, I have succeeded in life (to borrow an idea from Emerson).
Writing in a personal journal is cathartic. I don’t share those cathartic moments with others, however. Never will. In stressful times, I find the time to write in my personal journal. Happily, those stressful times do not occur frequently. I am blessed! 🙏
Well, first, your point was well made! People who don't enjoy writing or who don't want to write--don't. A lovely winnowing process that requires no energy at all. But I think there are a bazillion different types of writers--subsets, it you will--that do it for all sorts of reasons and stop doing it for others.
There are writers who write in bursts, then take breaks, long, months, even, then come back. There are other writers who will write on any surface that will hold ink or graphite. There are those who stick to strict routines to avoid the "dark playground" and the "monkey mind" (from an entertaining TED Talk on procrastinators.)
There are writers who pay tens of thousands of dollars to people who all-but force them to write according to the specific "voice" of the hour, and with hard deadlines. Their reward is a letter grade, extra letters after their name, and belonging to a close group of competitive-cut-throat lifetime connections (not unlike a dysfunctional family?) that operates like an exclusive club. It's a winnowing process that's robbed the world of fresh, unique, and as-yet unheard literary voices, IMO, but all things come full-circle.
There are those who immerse themselves for days, weeks, months, and come out with a book and bed-head, wondering how much time has passed. Then there are those, like you and me, who MUST write. It's not an extrinsic imperative, but an intrinsic pull we can't ignore--and why would we want to? Even if the writing we do ends up in a "work in progress" folder because we've run out of steam, we write.
Much like being in a long-term intimate relationship, literary "foreplay" begins in the mind and must be constantly cultivated so that when it's showtime, everything and one is on board to do the remarkable act of creation through words. It's a flow state I'm quite dependent on to stay sane. But it's a co-mingling of skill sets and consciousness. Then, it becomes automatic, and people accuse you of constantly "using" everything for your writing. Well... yeah.
When I teach writing classes, I tell students there is no such thing as writer's block. I know you avoided the term in your post, but we're talking about what happens when we can't write, when we stop for whatever reason. And you also talk about money.
You asked if we'd rather write for 6-figures or .02 cents.
I would rather write out of love for writing, which is really the question you asked, just in a different way. 'Writers write, but wouldn't you rather make gobs of money at it?'
Well, sure, writers like to eat, too.
However, once something becomes profitable to that extent--meaning money enters the intrinsic parts of why you write, it changes you as a writer--and that's neither good nor bad, for better or worse. Simply put, money is the antithesis of 'neutral.' Money is THE incentive to beat all incentives--except there are some things money cannot do for you as a writer.
It might inspire you to write, but if money's the inspiration, then that won't be the same book you'd have written had money not been the inspiration. Money can motivate you to write, but let's face it, 'motivation' is a silly make-up word used to try and get "lazy" people offa their arses ('lazy'--another fictional human behavior.)
Money also doesn't make you a great writer--like you said, it's a cherry. BUT here's a terrible no-win concept only a writer could conceive of: if you write books that get gobbled up by the masses... then you're writing could be equated to a snack food that's addictive, but also full of fluff. Then again, writers who only write for the very tiny subset of people with PhDs and MFAs in literature typically don't care if the masses read them--and they teach at the local college to make ends meet.
That said, I don't write--I am a writer. It's not helpful to that/my sense of identity and purpose that calling oneself 'a writer' is currently a super-cool persona people adopt to sound sexy or get chicks or whatever (say all that last part in a surfer dude voice lol)
There have been times when I cannot write because I've been too ill. I can't sit upright. There are times I can't write because my own raging beast threatens to consume the page and everything around it. During those times, I let the impetus to create find other creative outlets besides words.
As you may or may NOT know, I'm a huge fan of Charles Bukowski, and his poem "So you want to be a writer," was something I read in high school and changed me forever. I didn't wanna be, I WAS. And his words, "...there is no other way/ and there never was" rang true. If NOT writing would swallow you whole if it doesn't come bursting out of you--don't do it. Why do it? Ah. The sexy. The money. J.K. Rowling, ladies and gents. She made good AND? She's a darn good writer, IMO.
For those who write because they enjoy it--cheers to them. For those who are good at it naturally and write because they enjoy it AND they're good at making some money with it, cheers x2!
While I don't think there's anything special or romantic about being a writer, despite the current sociocultural zeitgeist, what stops or makes me want to stop writing is the business of writing. The infernal distractions of posting book award announcements on social media, writing articles for publications, tweeting-away my day after all the hard work of immersing myself in a book for a year, it feels like I've got a popcorn stand at a carnival. "Literature, anyone? Hot and fresh..."
But what I've learned about myself as a writer is when I'm not being true to myself, that's a sure-fire way to keep myself 100% uninspired. I happen to know a novelist who recently won an award for literary fiction, and SHE was quoted as saying:
"Know why you’re a writer and make sure it matches what you write."
Which leads us back to "Do you write for love or money?" See, you called it. Dumb question, but on the other hand, if you are a writer and you want to make money at it, then write the kinds of books or articles that pay well. If you're a writer and you write because you must?
Then I'd posit the world is your... cherry on top. (Hi, Linda!! *waving wildly* as usual lol)
Lol on the last sentence. Waving right back! I won't dissect paragraph by paragraph -- I only do that do you in email. lol. But... this part stands out to me...
"Know why you’re a writer and make sure it matches what you write."
That gives me pause. I have no idea why I'm a writer. I don't even call myself a writer. I'm just a person that writes, which I think is different from being a writer. Why I write is a good question. Can't seem to stop, I guess? lol. Sometimes to purge the demon that says I must. Other times, for amusement. And once in a while, I write to teach something I learned the hard way. I suspect that's a very long way to say I haven't really looked at my motivations and if I do, they're a puzzle to me.
Maybe you write because you can? If technology weren't a 'thing,' you'd have reams of filled journ--you have reams of filled journals all over the place don't you? lol
I think you're 'a person who writes' but I think choosing the title of Writer comes with a certain external/personal expectation that you are published or actively seeking to get published and that has nothing to do with money, either. Most paying writer gigs in the past were pay/word. Simply getting published is now about the honor (snork) of being published in their prestigious review or journal. It's all in the paperwork and letters (rejection more than anything else ;)
PPS (Pointless ponder snork): the MOST hoity-toity lit. mags. ran on shoe-string budgets and all-volunteer staff once upon a time. But with the advent of technology, many use Submittable and tack on a $5 submission fee. Sometimes up to $20, and *I think that's fair and a really good start!* The problem? These are a quarter of a century old, well-known magazines and they're still claiming poverty? Asking for monthly contributions to 'keep going' while claiming they have just a tiny group running the show all for the 'LOVE of LITERATURE....' oh please. Twenty volunteers isn't 'tiny.' Or are they that understaffed OR are there too many writers in the world, like how Utah is saturated by plastic surgeons? Needless to say, I'm finding it difficult to buy the whole 'starving poet, love of WORDS is why' routine I hear time and again when they send emails soliciting money from me.
lol, Paragraph four, first sentence. Seven inch stack, and that's just the stuff I kept. This conversation has made me look at how I define "writer." And just saying that makes me laugh at the absurdity of words with flexible definitions.
I mean, a person can't call themselves a doctor/lawyer/mechanic/veterinarian without a certain set of credentials. But anyone can call themselves a runner. Doesn't matter if the person is an Olympic level runner or some old guy that runs around the block at 7 am every morning, they're both "runners" because they run.
Lots of areas that are open to personal interpretation that way, and many are in the creative fields. Writer, designer, artist. Interesting thought. Might need to write about this one. Oh, the irony. lol
I am in awe of people who can write based on personal experiences. I am not made that way. Plus, I have a sibling that would make my life utter misery for the rest of my born days if I did. Sometimes just "what" gets read vs what does not gets to me. I sometimes wonder if you realize how deeply your writing touches people. Me, for sure.
I don't realize it by metrics that's for sure, but when I get the odd comment telling me I feel immense gratitude. It's such a good feeling to know I can reach people.
As for your sibling, that's what pen names are for 😁
I struggle with telling a story that is easy to follow/understand for the reader. My mind has SO much in it and writing with clarity and being concise doesn't come naturally. I want to 'splurt' our the info from my head and heart to my fingers that type out the words.
I keep journals for regular life, growth and healing journeys, courses etc... too many journals. I just want to get my feelings and lessons learned/gifts out to share with others .. it's not a want, it's a need. I really have no choice as a double master #11 (numerology) and a ONE Enneagram . it's in my DNA.
I have stopped working (just bit early) to support my mom in her (early so far) dementia journey, she's 90. Two decades of growth has got me HERE, where i can finally 'talk' too people about how good it feels to get here .. but there's always more lessons along the way - generally easier because of the 'tools' in my growth/healing toolbox.
What most makes me struggle in a way which makes me stop writing is when I sense that something about my writing is off, but I don't know how to fix it. This is even worse during revisions. I can tell myself during a first draft that it's okay for it to be terrible (though I sometimes still get stuck during first drafts) but during revisions I'm supposed to figure out how to make it good and sometimes... I can't.
I expect I'm an outlier on this one. For me, it was a combination of humility and focus. I thought I could manage to learn how to cross oceans on my boat AND write. Not writing leads to some angst for sure. The ocean can be very unforgiving so I decided to focus on preparing the boat....and me. Maybe I'll be a better writer as a result? In the meantime, I read and humbly try to learn from others. The ocean and the keyboard can teach humility I guess.
Last sentence -- yup! You could have said fear, too, and you'd still be right. lol
I find writing to be the most painful thing I do, and yet I am compelled. Must be a form of masochism. I write mainly in my head with perfect sentences, clever wording, impeccable organization...and then I face the keyboard and bleed.
I can relate to that. Visions of masterpieces, but the first draft reads more like drunken monkeys at a keyboard.
Thank you for a nice article. What makes me struggle to write or throw in the towel? My own shattered dreams and expectations. I write because I love it, because I tried to do without (I stopped writing for about 8 years) and was utterly miserable. I write because it became my need and my passion. Sometimes I write for my own sanity and put it out expecting it to be read by small number of people. Other times, I write for people to learn/understand something important or to share a story I particularly love. In such case, I really do my very best for the readers to get real value out of what I've written. At those time I give the text far more energy than usual. Many times it pays of and the readers react. But if that type of text is then not read, I feel for a while like throwing in the towel. I know one can scarcely predict what will or won't work with readers. But it still feels terrible to give something so much work and energy and then have no reaction. It feels, to me, as if the energy was wasted. I still return to writing in the end. :)
I can SO relate to that, Livia. When I pour myself into a piece and get no response, it feels really crappy. Then I get bitter and grumpy about all the "self help" and "how to make money" junk that does get consistent views. lol. But eventually I crawl back, too. I think you speak for many of us!
Writing. Well, the years have certainly proven that it was not for the money. I cannot argue that it was love either but more a need just to turn flotsam in my head into something concrete. Once on paper you are no longer chasing fireflies on the breeze, your thoughts have form and stability which can be worked with. Much of my writing was(and still to a small degree is) in the form of letters to those close and to associates. Sadly letter writing is nearly a lost art. Technical writing, fiction, poetry have all spilled from my pens and for the most part been sequestered or destroyed once their mission was complete. My writing continues into my eighth decade and while much is yet ink on paper I have been seduced by the computer's editing ease. I turn all notices off for the initial draft. That is the time for creating and the intrusion of editing prompts disturb or destroy that process. The editing is a distinct and separate process and requires a different mindset. I write more now for pleasure than ever and on occasion it seems to please others.
You are so right. Letter writing seems a lost art. When I read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society I was delighted that the entire book was a series of letters. The last sentence was great -- isn't that what we all hope for?
What a delightful little book! One to pull out from year to year and read again. There is a video version, Netflix I believe, though I have not had an opportunity to see it. So often the transformation is disappointing but perhaps not.
Great piece! I certainly don't write for money or I'd have thrown in the towel decades ago. These days, as a poet who finally realized this is what she is - a POET - I write because it's as essential as breathing. Well, almost. You get my point, though. If I go a few days not scribbling something, I get out of sorts. Medium is a godsend because I'm READ, which feels good. But I kept writing even when unread, so...
I can sure relate, Jen. If I go a few days without writing something, I get out of sorts, too. It works the other way around, too. When life puts me out of sorts, I don't write, which makes me more out of sorts. lol.
I definitely write because I feel compelled to..Whether online or not, I just feel like I have to. This month I was surprised by a "bigger" payout of a whopping of almost $20 lol. But better than nothing. I'd like to make more $, but it's why I write. During spells of depression, I either write some of my better stuff, or I don't write much if any.
I can relate. Being stressed, messed or depressed kills any ability to write. I try to keep unpublished drafts so that I have stuff to post when those days (or weeks) show up.
:). I have plenty of drafts for a rainy day. 💓 Stressed, messed or depressed... I like that!
I meant it's NOT why I write. Lol is there an edit button I'm not seeing?!
I knew what you meant -- but yeah, it's frustrating that there's no edit.
I love the quote at the end
Right? Me, too.
LIFE makes me struggle to write. You know, that “to do” list that seems to grow while I’m sleeping.
You would think that retirement would release one from “things that need your attention.” Nope.
I wrote a lot, pre-retirement out of necessity. That type of writing, however, was hardly creative (white papers, policy statements, disciplinary memos, letters written for administrative superiors in answer to queries from constituents).
What I write now is mostly poetry, which doesn’t even come close to paying the ‘light bill.’ I write for fun and the sheer love of having the freedom to feel and say out loud what couldn’t be said while employed.
If I am able to inspire at least one person with a poem or even a phrase from an opinion piece/essay, I have succeeded in life (to borrow an idea from Emerson).
Writing in a personal journal is cathartic. I don’t share those cathartic moments with others, however. Never will. In stressful times, I find the time to write in my personal journal. Happily, those stressful times do not occur frequently. I am blessed! 🙏
Linda.... who gave you my to-do list. I thought only mine grew while I was sleeping. :)
Well, first, your point was well made! People who don't enjoy writing or who don't want to write--don't. A lovely winnowing process that requires no energy at all. But I think there are a bazillion different types of writers--subsets, it you will--that do it for all sorts of reasons and stop doing it for others.
There are writers who write in bursts, then take breaks, long, months, even, then come back. There are other writers who will write on any surface that will hold ink or graphite. There are those who stick to strict routines to avoid the "dark playground" and the "monkey mind" (from an entertaining TED Talk on procrastinators.)
There are writers who pay tens of thousands of dollars to people who all-but force them to write according to the specific "voice" of the hour, and with hard deadlines. Their reward is a letter grade, extra letters after their name, and belonging to a close group of competitive-cut-throat lifetime connections (not unlike a dysfunctional family?) that operates like an exclusive club. It's a winnowing process that's robbed the world of fresh, unique, and as-yet unheard literary voices, IMO, but all things come full-circle.
There are those who immerse themselves for days, weeks, months, and come out with a book and bed-head, wondering how much time has passed. Then there are those, like you and me, who MUST write. It's not an extrinsic imperative, but an intrinsic pull we can't ignore--and why would we want to? Even if the writing we do ends up in a "work in progress" folder because we've run out of steam, we write.
Much like being in a long-term intimate relationship, literary "foreplay" begins in the mind and must be constantly cultivated so that when it's showtime, everything and one is on board to do the remarkable act of creation through words. It's a flow state I'm quite dependent on to stay sane. But it's a co-mingling of skill sets and consciousness. Then, it becomes automatic, and people accuse you of constantly "using" everything for your writing. Well... yeah.
When I teach writing classes, I tell students there is no such thing as writer's block. I know you avoided the term in your post, but we're talking about what happens when we can't write, when we stop for whatever reason. And you also talk about money.
You asked if we'd rather write for 6-figures or .02 cents.
I would rather write out of love for writing, which is really the question you asked, just in a different way. 'Writers write, but wouldn't you rather make gobs of money at it?'
Well, sure, writers like to eat, too.
However, once something becomes profitable to that extent--meaning money enters the intrinsic parts of why you write, it changes you as a writer--and that's neither good nor bad, for better or worse. Simply put, money is the antithesis of 'neutral.' Money is THE incentive to beat all incentives--except there are some things money cannot do for you as a writer.
It might inspire you to write, but if money's the inspiration, then that won't be the same book you'd have written had money not been the inspiration. Money can motivate you to write, but let's face it, 'motivation' is a silly make-up word used to try and get "lazy" people offa their arses ('lazy'--another fictional human behavior.)
Money also doesn't make you a great writer--like you said, it's a cherry. BUT here's a terrible no-win concept only a writer could conceive of: if you write books that get gobbled up by the masses... then you're writing could be equated to a snack food that's addictive, but also full of fluff. Then again, writers who only write for the very tiny subset of people with PhDs and MFAs in literature typically don't care if the masses read them--and they teach at the local college to make ends meet.
That said, I don't write--I am a writer. It's not helpful to that/my sense of identity and purpose that calling oneself 'a writer' is currently a super-cool persona people adopt to sound sexy or get chicks or whatever (say all that last part in a surfer dude voice lol)
There have been times when I cannot write because I've been too ill. I can't sit upright. There are times I can't write because my own raging beast threatens to consume the page and everything around it. During those times, I let the impetus to create find other creative outlets besides words.
As you may or may NOT know, I'm a huge fan of Charles Bukowski, and his poem "So you want to be a writer," was something I read in high school and changed me forever. I didn't wanna be, I WAS. And his words, "...there is no other way/ and there never was" rang true. If NOT writing would swallow you whole if it doesn't come bursting out of you--don't do it. Why do it? Ah. The sexy. The money. J.K. Rowling, ladies and gents. She made good AND? She's a darn good writer, IMO.
For those who write because they enjoy it--cheers to them. For those who are good at it naturally and write because they enjoy it AND they're good at making some money with it, cheers x2!
While I don't think there's anything special or romantic about being a writer, despite the current sociocultural zeitgeist, what stops or makes me want to stop writing is the business of writing. The infernal distractions of posting book award announcements on social media, writing articles for publications, tweeting-away my day after all the hard work of immersing myself in a book for a year, it feels like I've got a popcorn stand at a carnival. "Literature, anyone? Hot and fresh..."
But what I've learned about myself as a writer is when I'm not being true to myself, that's a sure-fire way to keep myself 100% uninspired. I happen to know a novelist who recently won an award for literary fiction, and SHE was quoted as saying:
"Know why you’re a writer and make sure it matches what you write."
Which leads us back to "Do you write for love or money?" See, you called it. Dumb question, but on the other hand, if you are a writer and you want to make money at it, then write the kinds of books or articles that pay well. If you're a writer and you write because you must?
Then I'd posit the world is your... cherry on top. (Hi, Linda!! *waving wildly* as usual lol)
Lol on the last sentence. Waving right back! I won't dissect paragraph by paragraph -- I only do that do you in email. lol. But... this part stands out to me...
"Know why you’re a writer and make sure it matches what you write."
That gives me pause. I have no idea why I'm a writer. I don't even call myself a writer. I'm just a person that writes, which I think is different from being a writer. Why I write is a good question. Can't seem to stop, I guess? lol. Sometimes to purge the demon that says I must. Other times, for amusement. And once in a while, I write to teach something I learned the hard way. I suspect that's a very long way to say I haven't really looked at my motivations and if I do, they're a puzzle to me.
Maybe you write because you can? If technology weren't a 'thing,' you'd have reams of filled journ--you have reams of filled journals all over the place don't you? lol
I think you're 'a person who writes' but I think choosing the title of Writer comes with a certain external/personal expectation that you are published or actively seeking to get published and that has nothing to do with money, either. Most paying writer gigs in the past were pay/word. Simply getting published is now about the honor (snork) of being published in their prestigious review or journal. It's all in the paperwork and letters (rejection more than anything else ;)
PPS (Pointless ponder snork): the MOST hoity-toity lit. mags. ran on shoe-string budgets and all-volunteer staff once upon a time. But with the advent of technology, many use Submittable and tack on a $5 submission fee. Sometimes up to $20, and *I think that's fair and a really good start!* The problem? These are a quarter of a century old, well-known magazines and they're still claiming poverty? Asking for monthly contributions to 'keep going' while claiming they have just a tiny group running the show all for the 'LOVE of LITERATURE....' oh please. Twenty volunteers isn't 'tiny.' Or are they that understaffed OR are there too many writers in the world, like how Utah is saturated by plastic surgeons? Needless to say, I'm finding it difficult to buy the whole 'starving poet, love of WORDS is why' routine I hear time and again when they send emails soliciting money from me.
/ppsrant :)
lol, Paragraph four, first sentence. Seven inch stack, and that's just the stuff I kept. This conversation has made me look at how I define "writer." And just saying that makes me laugh at the absurdity of words with flexible definitions.
I mean, a person can't call themselves a doctor/lawyer/mechanic/veterinarian without a certain set of credentials. But anyone can call themselves a runner. Doesn't matter if the person is an Olympic level runner or some old guy that runs around the block at 7 am every morning, they're both "runners" because they run.
Lots of areas that are open to personal interpretation that way, and many are in the creative fields. Writer, designer, artist. Interesting thought. Might need to write about this one. Oh, the irony. lol
Writing is like free therapy to me. I always write based on personal experiences and the gravy is when someone reads it and resonates.
What makes me want to throw in the towel sometimes is either when people don't read it or a massive slump of being uninspired.
I am in awe of people who can write based on personal experiences. I am not made that way. Plus, I have a sibling that would make my life utter misery for the rest of my born days if I did. Sometimes just "what" gets read vs what does not gets to me. I sometimes wonder if you realize how deeply your writing touches people. Me, for sure.
I don't realize it by metrics that's for sure, but when I get the odd comment telling me I feel immense gratitude. It's such a good feeling to know I can reach people.
As for your sibling, that's what pen names are for 😁
I struggle with telling a story that is easy to follow/understand for the reader. My mind has SO much in it and writing with clarity and being concise doesn't come naturally. I want to 'splurt' our the info from my head and heart to my fingers that type out the words.
I keep journals for regular life, growth and healing journeys, courses etc... too many journals. I just want to get my feelings and lessons learned/gifts out to share with others .. it's not a want, it's a need. I really have no choice as a double master #11 (numerology) and a ONE Enneagram . it's in my DNA.
I have stopped working (just bit early) to support my mom in her (early so far) dementia journey, she's 90. Two decades of growth has got me HERE, where i can finally 'talk' too people about how good it feels to get here .. but there's always more lessons along the way - generally easier because of the 'tools' in my growth/healing toolbox.
Take care !
What most makes me struggle in a way which makes me stop writing is when I sense that something about my writing is off, but I don't know how to fix it. This is even worse during revisions. I can tell myself during a first draft that it's okay for it to be terrible (though I sometimes still get stuck during first drafts) but during revisions I'm supposed to figure out how to make it good and sometimes... I can't.
I love the insights I get from comments, too. Good to see you, Holly. Hope you're well -- it's kind of nuts out there.