Sure, sometimes writing is a many-splendored thing, but sometimes it sucks. There are always the half-finished manifestos, the botched verbal symphonies, the sleepless nights staring at a computer, more insomniac chump than celebrated scribe. On nights like these, I ask myself the question that hovers in the dark spaces of every author’s mind: “Am I any good at all?”
The jitters really come when I have to keep stringing parts of speech together in the midst of what Holly Golightly calls “the mean reds.” Facing my fears as a writer involves churning out word inventions from a laptop stuffed with proof of my verbal bungles, from the so-so composition to a colony of rejection letters. You gotta love our snazzy, technological times where we find out so much faster how truly mediocre we are.
What makes me go on? Well, there are the victories, those glowing points in my career where a book is completed, or an article accepted in a publication whose pieces I’ve been poring over for years. The knowledge that I have made something I would want to read should never be underestimated. These celebratory intervals are the invisible carrot that is held out in front of this wordsmith, urging me onward.
Strange as it may sound, though, it’s not merely success, or even determination and discipline (although these all play a part in it) that keep me going. It’s that there are certain things that would explode me if I didn’t express them.
These detonators are everywhere. My reactions to these visions make me feel almost skinless, as though there’s nothing between the world and me. I have to do something with this sensation or I’ll burst, so I write about it.
After awhile, I realized that since I had to do this, I might as well try to make a buck or two along the way—and that’s exactly how much I’ve made. Just joking; I’ve made three.