Perhaps to Dream

 

“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien  

This month, as we continue to explore the meaning of sacrifice, we contemplate what we sacrifice to find time for our writing.  Sacrifice, by definition, means the slaughtering of an animal, or a person, or surrendering a precious possession to the divine.

However, allow me to offer a different perspective. As Mary Karr (The Liar’s Club)  offers, 

“I write to dream; to connect with other human beings; to record; to clarify; to visit the dead. I have a kind of primitive need to leave a mark on the world.”

I tend to think that the sacrifice moves in the other direction. We sacrifice our writing in order to pay the bills, to raise a family, to be with friends, to live in a world that tends to downplay the arts. And worse, too often we define ourselves not by our writing, but by what others think of our writing.  

In other words, we tend to sacrifice the divine – our writing – for something more mundane.

As William Kenover, in his book Fearless Writing (Writers Digest Books, 2017) reminds us, self-doubt runs rampant in creative work because of the nature of the creative. The reality is, if one has any aspirations to be a published writer, they need the validation of others. This validation comes in the form of good reviews, awards, contracts.  It also comes from friends and family. But – allow my honesty – relationships are complex even in the best of times. Family may not always understand this need to connect, to use Mary Karr’s word.  However well-meaning, families can make one feel guilty for taking the time to write. They may not understand the sting of rejection, and therefore minimize your feelings. Friends can be just as demanding, and just as minimizing. Julia Cameron (The Artist’s Way, 1990) calls them the crazymakers, persons who ultimately have no respect for your work.

But too often writers do their own worse crazymaking. Writers need to write for the reader, taking into account how the reader approaches the text. Which means, by implication, writers need to write for others, not themselves. But writing, as a process, often stems from a very personal, even emotional understanding of the narrative.  It's the oxymoron of writing. And when it doesn't work, when a writer doesn't get the validation, it becomes an exercise in self-flagellation.

The reality is, the business of writing is the most impersonal place, more so that other businesses. It's exceptionally transitory: editors are constantly leaving, publishing houses are merging and collapsing. New houses rise out of the ashes. Agents quit. The internet, and the popularity of self-publishing, complicates the business all the more.

Working in the creative is challenging because, unlike science and other industries, there are no rules to follow.  Writers dwell in the abstract.  Market analysis reveals some things that work effectively: understanding tropes that define each genre, understanding the targeted audience, and so on. But even then, there are exceptions. And trends are always shifting. Some writers do everything right, and never get published. Others break every rule and get a six-figure deal.

Ultimately, it becomes a matter of faith. Sometimes you can't predict the outcome, but you need to have faith in your story. Sometimes you need to be reminded to keep the faith. Perhaps the sacrifices that need to be made are less about the metaphorical slaughter, and more about keeping the dream. You have to pay the bills, but you don’t need to play along with the crazymaking. Sometimes, letting go is not the end of anything, but just the beginning of a great adventure.

Take hope, states Christopher Vogler (The Writer’s Journey, 1992), 

“... for writing is magic. Even the simplest act of writing is almost supernatural…We can make a few abstract marks on a piece of paper in a certain order and someone a world away and a thousand years from now can know our deepest thoughts. The boundaries of space and time and even the limitations of death can be transcended.”

 

--Bobbi Miller