Beautifully-written, as always, honest and true. I remember lamenting once to my now dearly-departed friend, the great artist Dustin Shuler, about my lot in life - to be the most unpublished broke ass writer on the planet. I grumbled about the low paying dead end jobs I had to work to cover rent so that I could write at night and on the weekends. His comment? “It’s not a bad way to spend a life, is it? Doing what you love.” Boy that got me😊
I appreciate your thoughts on waxing and waning—that is the truth of all thing, all seasons pass into the next. I want you to keep writing fiction, selfishly. Why does anyone do anything? For my own writing self I am, for better and/or worse, only answerable to myself. If I ever had any ambition it was beaten out of me long ago and I still write. I feel like this post is you seeing yourself in the middle of the path. All any of us can do is to keep walking.
Thank you, Jeannine - I'm not stopping but there are days when I wonder if I should be doing something else (but I don't know what it would be, frankly!)
"Amazing" is my pet peeve! If everything is "amazing," then nothing is "amazing." I tell my students that if they watch one of those dopey shows where celebrities give each other little trophies for being celebrities, down a shot of whiskey every time a winner uses the word "amazing" in their acceptance speech, i.e. "my amazing director/this amazing project/ my amazing cast members/my amazing agent/my amazing family, my amazing etc. etc." Play this drinking game and you'll be dead from alcohol poisoning outside of ten minutes. There are so many more expressive adjectives than all those "amazings." "Amazing" is what I call a "potato chip" word. It amounts to empty calories in your prose. "Amazing" might fill your sentence, but through endless overuse, it's an ineffectual word that says nothing.
Yo, Christine, Enjoy reading your posts, as always. I'm sitting in a hospital waiting for the fog to lift and lamenting, after knee replacement, that the Doc insists I've probably lost any hope of being a professional leg model. But I persist in my dreams, as there is always a need for "before" pictures. Keep an eye out for me in medical journals. My pic will be the one on the left that looks like a camel.
I tend to feel shame more than envy or jealousy. I generally feel happy when people I am close to are successful. I don’t think it’s particularly healthy TBH. It’s really not that great to be disappointed in YOURSELF. Maybe there’s some way to just ‘be disappointed’ but I don’t know what that is. One thing that I have noticed about more successful people is that they are motivated by feelings of competition with other people. I tend to be not very competitive, more perfectionist and it might be worse in some ways for getting stuff done.
Competitive feelings cause a lot of anguish, from what I've observed. Most writers probably are prone to competitiveness, and those who aren't, are fortunate. And it's good to be happy for others! My feelings of jealousy arise mostly when a writer I've witnessed behaving unkindly to others is in the spotlight and reaping big rewards. But life isn't fair. If it were, the world would be a less hostile, happier place, with fewer (or no) assholes in charge.
Life is wildly unfair! Besides being uncomfortable with competition, I also have discomfort with success and I feel bad if I get something another person wants but did not get.
I actually think this may be common. There's also guilt among the successful (not that I am very successful but I have gotten things other people wanted).
The solution to both these problems of envy and guilt is probably to accept the aspect of arbitrariness and unfairness in writing and many endeavors.
You're an empath! A good thing, but as you know, it can make a lot of things harder than they are for other people who are less prone to thinking about others' feelings.
Rita! I'm so sorry about your neck injury (tech-neck a spin instructor I know called it several years ago - it's a scourge) and am so glad you're feeling much better now. And as always, your shares of other writers's books at the end of your post - so characteristically generous.
It is always a slog to be seen. But as I see myself and my work after more than 40 years of creating something...music, journalism, memoir, essay, fiction ... I have finally figured out that the prize is not being seen by others, the prize comes in seeing myself through what I’ve created. The rest is simply gravy.
Oh yeah. I get that. I’m not sure there’s a way to move in the creative world anymore without a second or third job unless you’re a full fledged superstar. But the world would be less without Sneed writing!
Yes - or four or five! It used to be feasible to have a good academic job and write, but most of us have three to five teaching gigs now. Myself included. But I chose this I know - I do wish it were a little less nuts though.
Cool essay, Christine. Am noticing the word "fruition" popping up in these sorts of discussions, I guess as a proxy for a state of success and security that would make one emotionally indifferent to being on the losing side of zero sum scenarios, career-wise, and it would be interesting to know what that state looks like for different individual writers, I mean as they imagine it.
Thank you, Jason! Certainly it depends on the person but I think if we're not earning any or much money at a certain thing - and we set out to do so years ago, it might be time to reconsider - unless the personal reward of the making of the work itself is sustaining enough.
Beautifully-written, as always, honest and true. I remember lamenting once to my now dearly-departed friend, the great artist Dustin Shuler, about my lot in life - to be the most unpublished broke ass writer on the planet. I grumbled about the low paying dead end jobs I had to work to cover rent so that I could write at night and on the weekends. His comment? “It’s not a bad way to spend a life, is it? Doing what you love.” Boy that got me😊
And that is the only sure reward - the art-making itself - which we should remind ourselves as often as needed!
But boy, do we suffer sometimes...
I appreciate your thoughts on waxing and waning—that is the truth of all thing, all seasons pass into the next. I want you to keep writing fiction, selfishly. Why does anyone do anything? For my own writing self I am, for better and/or worse, only answerable to myself. If I ever had any ambition it was beaten out of me long ago and I still write. I feel like this post is you seeing yourself in the middle of the path. All any of us can do is to keep walking.
Thank you, Jeannine - I'm not stopping but there are days when I wonder if I should be doing something else (but I don't know what it would be, frankly!)
"Amazing" is my pet peeve! If everything is "amazing," then nothing is "amazing." I tell my students that if they watch one of those dopey shows where celebrities give each other little trophies for being celebrities, down a shot of whiskey every time a winner uses the word "amazing" in their acceptance speech, i.e. "my amazing director/this amazing project/ my amazing cast members/my amazing agent/my amazing family, my amazing etc. etc." Play this drinking game and you'll be dead from alcohol poisoning outside of ten minutes. There are so many more expressive adjectives than all those "amazings." "Amazing" is what I call a "potato chip" word. It amounts to empty calories in your prose. "Amazing" might fill your sentence, but through endless overuse, it's an ineffectual word that says nothing.
I had a grad school professor who called these words verbal styrofoam—potato chip word is spot on too!!
Yo, Christine, Enjoy reading your posts, as always. I'm sitting in a hospital waiting for the fog to lift and lamenting, after knee replacement, that the Doc insists I've probably lost any hope of being a professional leg model. But I persist in my dreams, as there is always a need for "before" pictures. Keep an eye out for me in medical journals. My pic will be the one on the left that looks like a camel.
This made me laugh, Richard! Hope you are back on both feet soon & I wouldn't give up your leg-modeling dreams yet!
I tend to feel shame more than envy or jealousy. I generally feel happy when people I am close to are successful. I don’t think it’s particularly healthy TBH. It’s really not that great to be disappointed in YOURSELF. Maybe there’s some way to just ‘be disappointed’ but I don’t know what that is. One thing that I have noticed about more successful people is that they are motivated by feelings of competition with other people. I tend to be not very competitive, more perfectionist and it might be worse in some ways for getting stuff done.
Competitive feelings cause a lot of anguish, from what I've observed. Most writers probably are prone to competitiveness, and those who aren't, are fortunate. And it's good to be happy for others! My feelings of jealousy arise mostly when a writer I've witnessed behaving unkindly to others is in the spotlight and reaping big rewards. But life isn't fair. If it were, the world would be a less hostile, happier place, with fewer (or no) assholes in charge.
Life is wildly unfair! Besides being uncomfortable with competition, I also have discomfort with success and I feel bad if I get something another person wants but did not get.
I actually think this may be common. There's also guilt among the successful (not that I am very successful but I have gotten things other people wanted).
The solution to both these problems of envy and guilt is probably to accept the aspect of arbitrariness and unfairness in writing and many endeavors.
You're an empath! A good thing, but as you know, it can make a lot of things harder than they are for other people who are less prone to thinking about others' feelings.
I’m SO with you. Read the post I sent out yesterday
Rita! I'm so sorry about your neck injury (tech-neck a spin instructor I know called it several years ago - it's a scourge) and am so glad you're feeling much better now. And as always, your shares of other writers's books at the end of your post - so characteristically generous.
I will soon!
Enjoy your honesty and can relate!
I am always ready to share the misery! ;)
I loved Elizabeth McKenzie's Dog of the South, too! Did you read The Portable Veblen? Wonderful stuff!
Yes! I love that novel too!
It is always a slog to be seen. But as I see myself and my work after more than 40 years of creating something...music, journalism, memoir, essay, fiction ... I have finally figured out that the prize is not being seen by others, the prize comes in seeing myself through what I’ve created. The rest is simply gravy.
That’s a very good way to look at it!
My situation is tied to income insecurity too, so it’s thorny.
Oh yeah. I get that. I’m not sure there’s a way to move in the creative world anymore without a second or third job unless you’re a full fledged superstar. But the world would be less without Sneed writing!
Yes - or four or five! It used to be feasible to have a good academic job and write, but most of us have three to five teaching gigs now. Myself included. But I chose this I know - I do wish it were a little less nuts though.
Cool essay, Christine. Am noticing the word "fruition" popping up in these sorts of discussions, I guess as a proxy for a state of success and security that would make one emotionally indifferent to being on the losing side of zero sum scenarios, career-wise, and it would be interesting to know what that state looks like for different individual writers, I mean as they imagine it.
Thank you, Jason! Certainly it depends on the person but I think if we're not earning any or much money at a certain thing - and we set out to do so years ago, it might be time to reconsider - unless the personal reward of the making of the work itself is sustaining enough.
:)