As I'm still working on my essay, I'm posting a question today for your consideration -- what is the hardest part of the writing process for you? For me, I believe it's getting to the most personal material without flinching. Any ideas?
Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Finally the pain of remaining in a bud becomes greater than blossoming." Anais Nin
Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Thursday! And many good health wishes to my dear Angela and congratualations to the beautiful Jill (Bring Him Glory link) for her recent good news about graduate school!
16 comments:
Michelle,
That, to me, is probably the hardest part, too...wether you're writing non-fiction or a fictional piece that has a part of you in it, reliving things can be painful.The book I'm working on now is full of memories, mostly good, but some of them are hard, like recalling my Grandmothers, both now passed away...you enjoy the memories, but you miss the people. And, for the first time, I find that I miss the simpler times when your biggest worry was if you would get to see King Kong on TV that week, LOL. But, you have to take the good with the bad, as always.
Hope your week has been good so far; I'm hanging in there. Take care!
The hardest part of the writing process is the isolation. There are days where I feel like I'm in a segregation cell wearing a bam-bam suit and drawing with a 24-count box of crayons. I don't know too many folks in my neck of the woods that kill part of their day by writing. Yeah, isolation.
Hum, good question. Isolation isn't my problem. I like isolation. And it's not so much, for me, about recalling bad or negative things, as it is in deciding whether to reveal these or not. Even if it's disguised through the use of characters. How much do I want to still keep hidden.
For me it's correctly conveying the feeling and emotion of a particular moment. Because it can feel and seem one way in my head and sound COMPLETELY different to a reader. I don't want to be misunderstood nor misconstrue my reader by not representing myself correctly.
I'm not a writer, but if I was the hardest part would have to be putting an ending on my story, one which ties everything together and doesn't either drag the story to boredom or end too abruptly.
By the way, if that's a recent picture and the grass is that green in Detroit right now then I'm heading north.
Every bit of writing is personal, The will to face what you are, have become, and the direction you perceive that you are heading, only becomes hard to reveal when you care what others think of you.
Yet it is being intimate with your audience that allows them to be intimate with you and therefore the more you overcome the fear of personal revelation the closer you are able to draw them you want, to you.
When I was 15 or so there was a priest that needed to draw in his audience because they were as teenagers do, slipping away from the purpose of being there.
He did this by revealing to the group of male and female kids that he masturbated, and did so quite frequently. He was not doing so as a way to teach about sex, it was the furthest reason from the purpose of the gathering. BUT after he shared that highly intimate detail, he drew his audience in for the remaining two days of that retreat.
For me, as I have always said Michelle, the hardest part is the first line, the right words to set the tone and pace. I still feel that once the first line is down I can fix anything that comes after wards. Of course then I:
1) Have a very high opinion of my ability to write.
and
2) Really don't care to much about what people think of me personally.
The first I lay the beginning of at your feet and the second *shrug* I am what I am and, was what I was and, will be, what I will be. Assholes never change.
Getting past doubt.
Personal,and my lack of spelling ability. Yes,I agree with Tim,that grass is really green.
Beautiful Michelle! Thanks for the sweet words!
The hardest part of writing for me? Actually sitting down to do it. Once I sit down, I'm good to go. But it's putting stuff down that I think I "should be" doing, so that I can do what I love--write.
Love you!
Chris...this is the other side, we paint our grass that color which right now is buried under snow & ice with more snow coming.
Dr. Brooks:
The hardest part for me is writing what I want to, rather than what will sell.
Regards,
Dave
Hardest part?
Getting over the fear that whatever I put down on the page will suck.
Maybe it is late for an answer to your question, but I might opine a bit.
I think it is the fear that what I might write won't connect to the reader in any way that will move them(whether or not it is well written). If you hang a piece of yourself, your soul, out for others to see and handle you hope they will respond to it. I don't buy when artists in any media claim that they create their art purely for themselves and don't care about others' responses. I think that part of the creative process is for the artist, but I think the other part seeks some validation of the inner process the artist experiences while creating. I think that there is some desire to connect our emotional experience to something more universal, connect to that spiritus mundi. The hope that our emotional experience isn't not that different, or unusual.
Professor...while I agree with most of your statement I think there has to be separation in the mind between the artist and the art.
I don't give a rats ass what people think of me, while I hope they appreciate my being on earth, I won't off myself when some don't.
But the writing for an audience, my art if you will yes! I do want validation for it and hope that the new work generates something to affirm that the effort was not in vain, done from vanity.
While privately I am extremely confident in my ability to write and make the images of that writing appear, I have this little bent in my mind that stops me from seeking approval in a larger world.
It is not the fear of exposing myself on the page but rather the fear of being exposed that is the hardest part for me.
I think the hardest part of the creative process is being judged by the work. I.E.; You write about a rapist & people are going to wonder where your mind is, what kind of person you are. At an art market not long ago, after perusing the paintings I had for sale, one person accused me of being schizophrenic. Regardless of my attempts to explain why I like to paint a wide variety of subjects & styles, they rushed off like I was a rabid dog.
I could never convince myself that the time I spent writing o thinking about was worthwhile. So for, its having confidence enough to do it.
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