Letter 32: August 11, 2008
You can hardly have failed to notice that the last letter was days late and that even then it consisted mostly of other people's words. It was that kind of a weekend. Several different family problems reared on the same day (mostly now resolved, thank you for asking); after dining twice with a friend we were called by his doctor with news of his acute food poisoning - we were fine, but we certainly had a fun day waiting to find that out; and then when I finally wrote the darn thing, two separate servers on opposite sides of the continent let me down.
Believe it or not.
And why tell you all this? Well, my not writing in the context of these challenges fits some people's definition of writer's block. So I thought this week we might square up to talking about block.
Last week, one of the few things I did personally write was a promise that this week we'd have more quotes. And here's the one I was thinking of. It's a response to Letter 28, from four weeks ago.
I keep coming back to this letter, and each time I almost shiver because of the similarity of my personal experience to those you describe here. It's all so sad to me... But still, it makes me think. And I must say, this is your best letter I've received!
Now, to answer your question why does that "fever to write" becomes such a pain in the ass sometimes. Why the passion turns into something like another day J.O.B.? In my case, I think it's because I have this strive towards finishing stuff that I write. And that strive grows with the time I invest in writing, and then makes me completely paralyzed. It doesn't make much sense. It would sure be great if I could just turn it on, that thinking about the finished product, the result, and just keep that innocent happiness that the process gives me.
Now, why do I think that letter has anything to do with writer's block?
Because week 28 was one of my less inspired weeks. A week when I had little to say. When what I did say was a polish of something I'd written previously. When even that had been about someone else's ideas. And yet in the opinion of a regular reader of these letters it was the best of them.
So I find that very encouraging. It's a demonstration of what Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cunningham said in 2006: When I was younger, I became obsessed with trying to chart my good days and my bad. Here’s the funny thing — a month or so later, I can’t tell what I wrote on the ecstatic days from what I wrote on the wrenching ones. The lines that seemed so good when I wrote them turn out, later on, to be neither better nor worse.
In other words... well, you don't need me to tell you what Cunningham just told you. But here's my take anyway:
Something you can try today: just keep writing. On the worst of days, keep writing. Not only will nobody else know the difference - you may not even know it yourself!
David
David Jung McGarva
+1 (818) 707 1871
Write me: david at todayiwrite dot com
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