After The Storm: Thoughts on a Writing Career
Thank you to everyone who inquired after us, but thankfully, Worcester wasn't hit too badly by the hurricane. We were lucky -- that wasn't the case even elsewhere in the county. Amazing what a difference even a few miles can make. My heart and prayers are with those, particularly in New York and New Jersey, who are still wrestling with Sandy's after-effects.
Monday was an odd day to return to work after a two-week vacation (especially one where I had just spent a few days in NYC.) Jarring to find one's self back in the bustle of the newsroom, even if I wasn't working on anything storm-related. I may be an arts journalist, but a newspaper is an organic whole, and something like that reverberates through the whole place. No matter how you might imagine it, you're not off on your own doing your own thing. It effects you in myriad ways that are invisible to the reader -- what stories you put on a page, having anyone be available to copy edit your stories, even production and printing schedules. Newspaper journalism is still very much an industrial process. Nothing is truly independent from the whole.
In a lot of ways, that process keeps me grounded as a writer. Not that I don't sometimes envy my friends who either spend their time on the road, or are cloistered in academia, but I would find it immensely difficult to be dwelling in my own writing to the exclusion of the world that writing lives in. I hesitate to use the phrase "real world," as who am I to say that world's not as real as mine, but there you are. I enjoy dealing on a professional level with people whose primary concerns aren't poetry and fiction, and I enjoy being part of our readers' daily lives.
I expect I won't be in newspapers (or whatever they become) forever. As rewarding as its been and still is, it's a demanding mistress, and my poems and stories remain my first love. Eventually, it's going to demand my full-attention. I have no idea when that will be. When it does, I'll probably take that road to wherever it goes. But it won't be tomorrow. No, right now is about writing, and about building the infrastructure for a self-sustaining writing life. I can only guess what that entails. Maybe it'll always entail some journalism component. I really can't say. Every day, I feel I'm further down a road for which I have no real frame of reference. It's exciting, and terrifying, and I have no real idea what will happen next.
There's been a snippet of a Jess Klein song stuck in my head these past few days:
A wise man once said '"I'm not an optimist
but I am a prisoner of hope"
You have to think like that to survive
You have to climb in the cage when the day is done.
Because too many people think they're misunderstood
every time somebody disagrees with them
how can you be satisfied safe but bitter
when you can build something better
with enough room left for the sun?
I'm not an optimist, and I don't believe in luck. But hope? Oh, yeah. That one clings at my chest, sometimes -- especially on those nights when I think it would be much easier to just stop writing. Sometimes I'm not entirely sure what I'm hopeful for. Fame and fortune? Eh. More money would be nice, but that's not it. Not exactly. It's more like a desire to do the writing I want to do without distraction, to not be too tired from work to put the entirety of my willpower into a poem or story. Something better with enough room left for the sun. I'm not a bitter person, but sometimes I can see it from where I'm standing. I can see how I could end up that way if I'm not careful.
I've also lately had Ben Folds Five's recent song, "So It Anyway," in my head, particularly the lines:
Call it surrender but you know that that's a joke
And the punchline is you were never actually in control
But still, surrender anyway
Thing is, I'm not entirely sure what I'd be surrendering to. The voice in my head that wants to chuck the day job in favor of my own writing? The voice in my head that can imagine walking away from poetry and fiction and concentrating on my journalism career? I don't think either of them are it. I think the thing that needs surrendering to is the realization that I am both those things. I need to concentrate on what's in front of me, whether it be an article or a poem. I need to surrender to the work, and the entirety of the work. The rest is just a distraction.
Still not entirely sure what that means. I suppose I'll find out.
***
On a side note, I have a draft of my witch story, Baby Detonate For Me , online for Halloween. It'll only be up for a week or so, but I wanted to share it for the holiday. Hope you enjoy!
Monday was an odd day to return to work after a two-week vacation (especially one where I had just spent a few days in NYC.) Jarring to find one's self back in the bustle of the newsroom, even if I wasn't working on anything storm-related. I may be an arts journalist, but a newspaper is an organic whole, and something like that reverberates through the whole place. No matter how you might imagine it, you're not off on your own doing your own thing. It effects you in myriad ways that are invisible to the reader -- what stories you put on a page, having anyone be available to copy edit your stories, even production and printing schedules. Newspaper journalism is still very much an industrial process. Nothing is truly independent from the whole.
In a lot of ways, that process keeps me grounded as a writer. Not that I don't sometimes envy my friends who either spend their time on the road, or are cloistered in academia, but I would find it immensely difficult to be dwelling in my own writing to the exclusion of the world that writing lives in. I hesitate to use the phrase "real world," as who am I to say that world's not as real as mine, but there you are. I enjoy dealing on a professional level with people whose primary concerns aren't poetry and fiction, and I enjoy being part of our readers' daily lives.
I expect I won't be in newspapers (or whatever they become) forever. As rewarding as its been and still is, it's a demanding mistress, and my poems and stories remain my first love. Eventually, it's going to demand my full-attention. I have no idea when that will be. When it does, I'll probably take that road to wherever it goes. But it won't be tomorrow. No, right now is about writing, and about building the infrastructure for a self-sustaining writing life. I can only guess what that entails. Maybe it'll always entail some journalism component. I really can't say. Every day, I feel I'm further down a road for which I have no real frame of reference. It's exciting, and terrifying, and I have no real idea what will happen next.
There's been a snippet of a Jess Klein song stuck in my head these past few days:
A wise man once said '"I'm not an optimist
but I am a prisoner of hope"
You have to think like that to survive
You have to climb in the cage when the day is done.
Because too many people think they're misunderstood
every time somebody disagrees with them
how can you be satisfied safe but bitter
when you can build something better
with enough room left for the sun?
I'm not an optimist, and I don't believe in luck. But hope? Oh, yeah. That one clings at my chest, sometimes -- especially on those nights when I think it would be much easier to just stop writing. Sometimes I'm not entirely sure what I'm hopeful for. Fame and fortune? Eh. More money would be nice, but that's not it. Not exactly. It's more like a desire to do the writing I want to do without distraction, to not be too tired from work to put the entirety of my willpower into a poem or story. Something better with enough room left for the sun. I'm not a bitter person, but sometimes I can see it from where I'm standing. I can see how I could end up that way if I'm not careful.
I've also lately had Ben Folds Five's recent song, "So It Anyway," in my head, particularly the lines:
Call it surrender but you know that that's a joke
And the punchline is you were never actually in control
But still, surrender anyway
Thing is, I'm not entirely sure what I'd be surrendering to. The voice in my head that wants to chuck the day job in favor of my own writing? The voice in my head that can imagine walking away from poetry and fiction and concentrating on my journalism career? I don't think either of them are it. I think the thing that needs surrendering to is the realization that I am both those things. I need to concentrate on what's in front of me, whether it be an article or a poem. I need to surrender to the work, and the entirety of the work. The rest is just a distraction.
Still not entirely sure what that means. I suppose I'll find out.
***
On a side note, I have a draft of my witch story, Baby Detonate For Me , online for Halloween. It'll only be up for a week or so, but I wanted to share it for the holiday. Hope you enjoy!
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