Dear Young Writer
I’ve been thinking about your
email since I received it yesterday. I wonder what I must say to you? Perhaps it’s
best if I just ramble around. Then, you can take out of what I say that which
resonates with you, and you can ignore the rest! So here goes:
If you’re feeling you’re
stuck in your writing career, the answer may lie in something as simple as
taking a break to recharge your batteries. Sometimes a day is enough, other
times you need longer.
But, if you're depressed
because you doubt your writing abilities, or you're losing hope and faith in
writing ever being what you want it to be, perhaps you need to look deeper.
Depression is, I think, a
price of being creative. Think of
Hemingway, Sylvia Plath and others – just
look how many creative people (and writers) are on this list!
No 14 is
worth highlighting:
Joseph Conrad: Throughout his life, the
famed author of Heart of
Darkness struggled with depression
grave enough to cause physical illness. Much
of it came from pressing doubts regarding his writing prowess.
Sometimes when depression
hits me — and it does, often, although I dislike talking about it as focusing
on it just makes it worse — I withdraw from the world and from writing. The
world today can sometimes be too much. Too much noise. Too much rushing. Too
much anger and pain and fighting. Just too much of everything … so, I withdraw and try to re-centre myself. I
console myself with the thought that if writers like Joseph Conrad doubted
their writing prowess, well then, for the rest of us mere mortals, doubt will
be our constant companion.
Here’s
a good article on writers and depression I found - it may
help you too. The comments are worth reading as well.
So … why do you write? What
makes you, Young Writer, pick up the pen and start another story when you’ve
had another rejection or another writing disappointment?
I have two quotes that
encapsulate why I write. Here they are:
Artistic
talent is a gift from God, and whoever discovers it in himself has a certain
obligation: to know that he cannot waste this talent, but must develop it. Be faithful to beauty and
be faithful to goodness. (Pope John Paul II, in 2004 to the performers of a Break Dancing exhibition)
and, my
absolute favourite, the one quote that always pushes me to write on through
every bad writing experience:
“Come,” says the Lord. ‘I will make a covenant between me and you. I, I
will not measure you out any more distress than you need to write your books...but
you are to write the books. For it is I who want them written. Not the public,
not by any means the critics, but Me. Me!”
“Can I be certain of that?” asks the young writer Charlie.
“Not always,” says the Lord. (From “The Young Writer with a Carnation” by
Isak Dinesen)
I ask you again WHY do you
write?
I’ve learnt to accept that to
be truly creative — to write from the heart and soul, rather than from the intellect
and ego — there’s a price I have to pay.
That price is depression,
which springs from the doubt and uncertainty that surrounds my writing progress.
I struggle and struggle with my writing and my doubts about my calling as a
writer overwhelm me. Why, I ask? I don’t
know. Why, every time I get a break –
and those breaks are few and far between! – does something happen that takes me away from my writing? How am I ever going to be
heard or read or noticed in the multitude of voices that are now writing their
own stories? Why JK Rowling and not Judy
Croome or a Young Writer from Nigeria? Why
do I write when, for every step I take forward, I’m pushed 100 steps back? Why am I always blocked in
my progression as a writer? Why? Why? WHY?
Why do I even bother to write?
Although my faith is not
conventional, I am a person of faith.
Part of the blueprint of my personal faith is that I believe we've all been
given at least one "soul gift" that is unique to us. We also, I believe, have certain "karmic lessons" to learn.
Spending our time on this earth developing that "soul gift", or talent (remember the parable of the talents that Christ told?) and working to overcome our "karmic lessons" will be accomplished within the reality of our physical life, because it's through that earthly reality that our souls evolve and grow ever closer to the Divine.
Spending our time on this earth developing that "soul gift", or talent (remember the parable of the talents that Christ told?) and working to overcome our "karmic lessons" will be accomplished within the reality of our physical life, because it's through that earthly reality that our souls evolve and grow ever closer to the Divine.
The highly evolved soul
called Christ was a Master Teacher when he lived here on earth. He was so close
to God, to the Divine Spirit that rests beyond time and space as we know it,
that— like Moses, Abraham, Mohammed (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), Buddha
and all the great Spiritual Masters — he (and the other prophets) changed the
world forever.
But even Christ had his
doubts about his destiny. Doubt, after all, is the foundation of faith:
Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that
faith is his twin brother
(Kahlil Gibrain)
Abraham's faith was tested
with the sacrifice of Isaac; Buddha's was tested as he sat under the Bodhi tree
and, on Gethsemane, Christ, too, had to face his doubts. He had to walk into
the arms of the Roman soldiers with nothing but his faith to guide and reassure
him that he was walking the right path.
Have you ever watched Jesus
Christ Superstar, the rock musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice? It is a
BRILLIANT rock opera, and there is one song, GETHSEMANE, which, every time I
hear it, makes me think of my writing and my doubts about my writing.
Here is one of the best
renditions of it ever and as you listen to the words, think about the struggle
Christ had on Gethsemane, the struggle to overcome his doubt and move towards
his destiny…
Destiny.
That’s a big word.
I believe my personal destiny
is to be A Writer. That's it: A Writer. Not A Rich Writer. Not A Famous Writer. Just ... A Writer.
And so I'm very serious about writing the truth that lies in my
heart and soul. My writing was vilified; I've had verbal stones cast at me. At
times, my sensitive writer's soul felt crucified.
Christ discovered on
Gethsemane that he had two choices: to die, or not to die. I had to learn to approach my writing almost
as Christ approached Gethsemane: with
the knowledge that the only thing I can control is my choice to write or not to
write.
What happens after that lies
in my destiny.
I have no way of knowing what
that is. I could become the next writing
sensation. I could die in obscurity and, in two hundred years, someone will
discover that, like van Gogh and William Blake, my artistic voice was ahead of
its time. Or — and reality tells me this is the most likely option — I'll just
die, my voice unheard, my books unread, except by a few like-minded souls.
If I accept that the ultimate
result of all the effort I put into my writing is out of my hands, can I now sit
down and write easily, fired up by faith?
Oh no. My ego, or dark side, is still there, as large
as ever, feeding my doubts, stroking my despair at the never-ending uphill
battle that is WRITING and telling me to stop dreaming, to stop hoping … to just
stop writing!
But still I write.
Will you choose to write?
14 comments:
Beautiful, beautiful post. Very inspiring and something that I needed to see. Thank you!
well said, and so true, I didn't know about Conrad, so my thanks for the information.
Wow. Powerful and inspiring. I'm in awe, Judy. Truly.
What more can i say, Judy? What - other than thanks - can i bring myself to utter? This post is one of the most inspirational posts ever. Very realistic. Very practical. I am awed. Thank you!
MELISSA: So glad the post came at the right time for you! :) Hope you're writing and writig!
Rebecca E.: Thanks! I was also surprised at some of the names of that list of depressives - I mean, Winston Churchill!!
Kiru: What can I say to that, except...THANK YOU! (And thank you for the RT's of the post as well!!) :)
CREATIVE WRITING NEWS: Only a pleasure...continue to write from your heart and never let others define you as a writer. :)
This is very open and sincere, you write from the heart. I am not a writer and so I always relate to blogging. Sometimes we need a break to recharge and sometimes we need to push forward even without energy, to regain back the energy. I guess like everything else in life. I really like your quote about doubt and faith. Sometimes even faith we cannot take for granted, we must pray for continued faith. I wish Young Writer the best and success in her writing.
Hi Judy - a word we don't want to catch .. but a word we know can be caught. Life hasn't been easy recently for you ... but your book Dancing in the Shadows of Love - is brilliant ... I loved it. Then your new story in The Fall ... I'd love to read that and will be doing so soon ..
Young Writer in Nigeria .. so many experiences that we need to hear - I hope they keep going ...
Write, write, write and never ever give up ...
That's always the advice and look how often people take years and years before they're remotely successful ....
Good luck to the young writer .. and to you - I hope you're back amongst us .. many thoughts - Hilary
Lovely inspiring post, Judy, and an important reminder that we are not travelling alone on this journey. Having company to hold my hand in the dark is the one thing that always pulls me through.
LISA: You're so correct in saying that we need to take a break. Sometimes we get so focused on achieving self-imposed goals that we forget that faith cannot be found in doing, but in being.
HILARY: Years and years is about right! So we may as well try to enjoy the journey.
CLAIRE: I agree it's those hands that pull us through the dark times that make me keep on writing!
Such a poignant reflection and wise, albeit haunting words, Judy. Though such honesty does not surprise me knowing how much is included in your story in The Fall. I hope you're able to share something of a reply by the writer, if it comes to you. It is so hard for voices to be heard, much less to make sense of the words that they speak. But I'm pleased to see yours and that you encourage others to raise their voices as well.
Awesome. Awesome Judy! Awesome! Thank you for this inspiring piece. It speaks to me in many Special ways. I love your quote on Discovering and developing our gifts. That's a great reason to write, and I think that more than anything else, what one really needs is just that one compelling reason to sit down again and perform that masochistic task of writing each day! Thanks for reminding us and giving us one more reason to write...
~A Young Nigerian Writer~
MATT: I's so important that people find their voice... the young writer answered in a lovely positive way, by doing a blog post calling for others to share why they write. You can read it here Why Do We Write?
THE EMERGE REVIEW: so glad you enjoyed the post and found it inspirational! Writing is, as you say, an at-times masochistic experience and we need all the inspiration we can get! :)
Great post. I always remind myself that I write because it's what I love to do. If it's not as good as I would like then I study the work of other writers, buy books on writing, talk to other writers and join critique groups. I believe we all need to be involved with other writers who understand our frustrations/doubts and can encourage because writing is something we do alone and it's easy to begin on a downward spiral.
Ann
ANN: The downward spiral is so easy to slip into and I agree with you that it's often our connection with other writers, either through their books or through writers groups (on-line or face to face) that help stop the rot of writer's despair! :)
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