On Hanging in There

I get a lot of writing advice.  Workshop, for example, is nothing but writing advice.  This works, this doesn't, I like this image, this line makes me roll my eyes, etc.  At least once in every class a professor will mention a writing trick we should try.  When my classmates and I ask each other how the writing is going or how our first thesis summer went, what we are really saying is, "were you successful? what's your secret?"  We are always looking for the best way to get the right words down in the right order.  And, if this wasn't enough, I troll the internet for it.  The internet is awash in writing advice, and though of course much of it is crap, there are also real gems.  Recently Junot Diaz wrote a piece for O Magazine that I read and prompty placed on top of my list of Best Writing Advice Ever.  At some point I will probably re-read it and then scribble down my favorite lines to hang on the wall near my desk.  This is typical.

Still.  There is one simple and practical element that almost all writing advice boils down to.  The foundation that the rest of advice is built on.  Keep writing.  Hang in there.  Put your butt in the chair.  The rest of it can be brilliant and helpful, but all of it useless without that first bit.  I'm starting to work on revising and I've been collecting tips on how to go about it.  Read your work out loud, is a common suggestion.  It's the only way you'll hear where something falls flat or interest is lost.  Change the font of your work, so that you see it with new eyes.  Alternatively, write it out by hand or delete the original file and re-type it from hard copy.  This will make you feel less attached to poor sentences.  I might try one or all of these.  But each will require me to begin, again, by just sitting down, putting my fingers on the keyboard and starting.

This is not exactly what John Irving is saying in the video I posted yesterday.  Because young writers can do all of that, they can tie themselves to their desks and sacrifice every free hour they have to their writing, but they will be able to do nothing to control that other part of writing: publishing.  I'm at the very beginning of the publishing game.  I'm still learning to sit down at my desk every day and write.  I'm still learning how not to take these early literary magazine rejections rather personally.  And there are days when I want to metaphorically shoot myself.  Both because I think my writing isn't good enough, but also because I feel like I'll never be able to learn how to play the game when the rules are constantly changing.

The world of publishing is nothing if not in a state of upheavel and change at the moment.

There are a lot of opinions about this, out there.  I troll the internet for that advice, too.  And yes, I have a lot of thoughts about that, and it probably all deserves a post of its own.  But I think it is not hard to guess what it boils down to.  Hang in there.  Keep trying. 

On my optimistic days, this is sort of comforting.  I don't really think literarture or the book are going anywhere, even if they do change.  In the introduction to Six Memos for the Next Millennium, Italo Calvino writes, "My confidence in the future of literature consists in the knowledge that there are things that only literatre can give us, by means specific to it."  I think he is pretty much right on the money with that one, and I figure that publishing will somehow have to stay true to this.  (Even if along the way it prints up every funny wise-cracking blog in an attempt to make a quick buck.)

When I'm not feeling optimistic, I feel angry that this is the best advice out there, no matter how beautifully Jonot Diaz articluates the misery of it.  When I was young and my hopeful grade school teachers promised I could be anything I wanted to be, if only I tried really hard, they left out the and if your lucky part.  It is easy to resent them for it.  At least John Irving will admit it.  He was lucky to be publishing when he was, and now?  Just don't shoot yourself.  Hang in there.  Great, thanks, and in the meantime?  Groceries aren't free and I don't want to spend my whole life just hanging.

Still, good days or bad, I guess there's only one choice, as simple or condescending as it feels.  It is the same advice my dad offers, when I write to say that I am frustrated.  "Sometimes a big slugger strikes out twice, pops out to short and hits a three run homer in the ninth to win the game. Never give up, never, never, never!"  Ok, ok.  I guess if John, Junot and my dad all say so.  But I reserve the right to hate it, somedays.