What I Call Myself.

Image Source: Doctor Hugo (Anton Giulio & Arturo Bragaglia, “Typist,“ 1911)

I used to have this boyfriend who would taunt me for calling myself a writer.

“How,” he asked, “can you call yourself a writer, when you never write?” He then proceeded to extoll the locutionary virtues of one of his best friends, a shady fellow who also aspired to be a writer and who was, in my humble opinion, not very good.

This guy was, to put it bluntly, a pretty shitty boyfriend.

But his criticism haunted me and actually pushed me down further into the Land of Idleness, because every time I thought of sitting down to write, his words would boom through my brain over a loudspeaker, so that all my formerly motivated little neurons stopped, looked up to the sky in dispair, then crumpled to the ground in rows, rocking back and forth in fetal positions, rendered absolutely useless to me creatively.

That was foolish of me, to let one voice of criticism so dramatically dampen my ferver for my art, for my heart’s one passion. I wish I could say that this was the only time I let someone else’s opinion of what or who I am alter my course, but unfortunately for the majority of my life, up until now, I have allowed other people’s opinions and judgements of me to dictate precisely who I am, regardless of my own burning desires or rational deductions.

What is it, to not care what other people think of you? I will never know what that is like, and I envy all those self-assured individuals who rock out neon printed leggings and who go on solo treks through the mountain ranges of Indonesia and who form their own start-up companies beginning with nothing at all. Who are you people, and how did you get to be so fantastic? More importantly, how can I be so wildly unhinged and confident and alive?

I hail from a very critical and condemning background (how a person with so fragile a sense of self-esteem survived film school is truly an as-yet-unsolved mystery), and I admit I still take a few minutes to cry in my car (and slam my fists into the steering wheel) whenever someone stands in judgement of the woman I am or the work that I put forth (or fail to put forth, as in the case with Mr. Oh-So-Wrong). But I’ve learned something valuable, which I will share with you:

The secret to defying the critics is simple. You just don’t stop.

In my case, that meant that I could not, cannot cease writing… Even if I kept receiving pleasantly-worded rejection letter after rejection letter to all of the blogs I submitted pieces to and the fellowships I applied for and the magazine internships I once dreamed of landing, I won just by continuing to obey the cells in my body that vibrated in anticipation of typing one word after another.

If I were to meet that ex now, I would be able to look him in the eye and say:

I write. I am a writer. I have written, I am writing, I will continue to write. I will bleed words from my veins until I am dry, and they may be disastrous, they may be laughable, they may be offensive - but they are, and they could be no other way, just as I can be no other me than the me I am.

The Homeless Reader.

Photo Source: Natalie Albertson

I am very much like everyone’s favorite protagonist, Mr. Holden Caulfield, in that random, simple demonstrations of everyday life have the ability to make me extremely depressed.

To wit: the other night, while walking home from work, I passed a homeless man huddled up underneath a store awning, sheltered against the rain and the cold with nothing more than a stained rag of a blanket and some newspaper. In Los Angeles, homeless people are unfortunately commonplace, so I wasn’t disturbed or even mildly surprised by his presence. Normally, I would have just walked on by without a second thought. What got me, though, was the fact that the man was reading a book.

The sight of this frail, threadbare man, with not much to hold on to in this life except the promise of tomorrow, curled up in a ball, shivering, with a book in his hands, reading by the dim flickering light of a streetlamp on a drizzling November night made me burst into tears.

Like I said; it’s the little things that get me. I can endure the most devastating tragedies with a set jaw and dry eyes (when I was a child I thought I was physically incapable of crying, that’s how stoic I am - my parents were worried about my emotional development), but a tiny detail, such as the appearance of that book, will set me off into a snot-filled, red-eyed sobfest.

While I didn’t quite understand at that moment what it was that made me cry with such devastation, I grasped it better as I continued stomping along the sidewalk on my long journey home in the quiet night. It was the beauty of it, really, that was so depressing - the fact that a story might be able to provide comfort to someone who was probably suffering on a level so profound he probably didn’t even feel it anymore. I thought about the author of whatever book it might have been, and how he or she had devoted hours upon hours to placing one word down after another in order to express a tale that was built up inside of them, begging to be let out, and how he or she probably had no idea at the time that their words might someday be the only thing a soul could hold on to in the quiet hours of the night, long after the rest of the world, so cruel and uncaring, had gone to sleep.

I wondered if my own words might ever do the same.

That’s probably the greatest end goal a writer can aspire to; not accolades or wealth or book tours, but just the assurance that the words one chooses might be another person’s sole companionship as he continues on his vast, stark journey through this life. There are perhaps other, grander, more obvious gifts one can bestow upon the world - there are humanitarians and inventors and environmentalists who can be confident that their life’s work has been for the greater good. But I think perhaps we underestimate the power of the written word to have just as strong of an impact on an individual level.

Who knows what book landed in the hands of that man, or how; I imagine it was probably a reject, perhaps one that was about to be tossed out by the public library because no one else cared to check it out. But that book, no matter how forgotten it may have been by the wider literary world, landed in the hands of someone who needed it, and appreciated it, and hopefully enjoyed it, who accepted the gift that the writer had offered the world with gratitude.

My words may just be a blip in the universe, but I hope that one day they matter that much to someone, even if just one person. Life is so depressingly difficult that sometimes the companionship of another, even if it’s only through the one-way path of communication from writer to reader, is all we can cling to in order to get by. And sometimes it’s enough to carry us to tomorrow.

“Lethe”

Photo by Amy Kristen

—

Feet raw, stained, wilted

Gripping the cliff

There is no light

Not a fall, but glass

Cracking, cascading

Hope a phantom

Skirt rising

A scream, a shudder

Apparitions assault

Eyes tight against the wind

The river floods

Walls of slate

Painted red with love

With blood

Continue rushing

The light is gone.

Accepting That Sometimes There Is No Cure.

Image Source: Video Games Blogger

I know I posted not a word yesterday morning, which is rare.  And it’s been eating away me, this guilt for letting myself down (for not sticking to my self-prescribed writing schedule, for slacking, as it were), and for letting my readers down as well, even though I’m sure the let-down was about as painful as walking across a sandy beach – maybe a little warm and uncomfortable, but nothing to cry about.  I’m trying to let it go, because, after all, my current philosophy is Fuck It.  I was feeling way too creatively drained to pull myself together, sit down, and write, and that’s just the honest truth. 

Sometimes we hit roadblocks.  I attribute it to being like a Mario Kart character who veers off the designated track and drives into one of the fake surrounding landscape forests, but then gets stuck banging against one of the 2D trees, and the person with the controller walks off and the controller gets snatched up by the family dog and hidden inside a pile of shoes in a closet in the basement never to be found again, so my little Princess Peach avatar is left to just keep trying to plow her car into the tree – BONK, BONK, BONK – for the rest of time, without the ability to get back on track.

How’s that for a visual?

Writer’s block is absolutely terrifying because it’s the inability to perform your craft.  If your job depended on you being able to fly a plane, but you woke up one morning and realized you’d completely forgotten what any of the plane controls do or how to even put a helmet on, you’d be fucked.  It’s the same thing with writer’s block, although admittedly far less life threatening.  You sit in front of your computer and feel frustration and fear rise within your soul as you worry that you’ve completely forgotten how to string words together, how to make a point, how to express your thoughts – if you even have those anymore.  Maybe you’re entering a coma?  Your brain has completely stopped working and all that’s left is that weird busy dial tone you still get sometimes when you call a number that doesn’t have a voicemail box to jump to, like a tragic vintage relic.

There’s no real cure for writer’s block, although plenty of people will try to sell you remedies if you let them.  Write for 30 minutes on paper without lifting up your pen!  Go hiking!  Meditate!  Practice something else creative, like painting or playing guitar!  Make lists!  Do some stretches!

It’s a bunch of bullshit, in my opinion.  Some days, you’ll be able to write.  Some days you won’t.  Some days you’ll invent the cure for AIDS.  Some days you’ll spill all the chemicals all over the place and burn off your hand and get fired from your top-secret medical laboratory of employment.  No matter what you’re doing, sometimes you’ll be able to perform at your peak, and you’ll feel like the most brilliant, gifted human being that ever lived, and some days you’ll bang into every table corner you pass and you’ll forget what day it is and you’ll have a pounding headache and everything will just feel hard and you won’t give a fuck about anything, you’ll just want to go back to bed and make it tomorrow already.

Don’t fight the ebbs and flows of creativity.  It’s worthless to try and force something when it’s just not willing to give.  And, as I’ve tried to illustrate in this post with my diverse examples, this advice doesn’t just apply to writing – if something isn’t working, allow yourself to be okay with letting it go.

Most importantly, go save Princess Peach and help her finish that race – whenever you feel compelled, of course.

Young Writers Prize!

To all budding young writers out there, listen up: The Young Writers Prize is a competition you should be entering!

My idol Neil Gaiman (Seriously, “Sandman” is the best graphic novel I’ve ever read) posted this on his Tumblr:

neil-gaiman:

From the questions, I think it’s a safe bet to assume there are a lot of young writers reading this Tumblr. 

If you’re aged 18-25, and you write children’s fiction then you should check out the Hotkey Press (a new publisher, headed by Sarah Odedina, who was my editor, and J. K. Rowling’s, at Bloomsbury, and is AWESOME) Guardian competition.

The Guardian and Hot Key Books are launching a search for the next generation of writers of children’s fiction with the Guardian Hot Key Books Young Writers Prize.

We are looking for new young writers between the ages of 18 and 25, who write in either of two categories: for ages 9-12 or 13-19. Entrants should be unpublished talents new to the literary world that are passionate about writing for children. The winners, one for each age category, will be selected by a panel of judges who will consult with school children. Each winner will be given editorial support and the chance to be published by Hot Key Books.

Check out the Hot Key Books website to find information on how to enter. The deadline is May 31st, so get writing! Good luck!