Year of the something
I started this over on the Word Pirates blog but moved it over here because it became personal. Please note: I really hate when I have a thought that isn't sunshine and unicorns, and it makes people assume I'm sad. I am pretty happy. And I still think about unicorns.
Anyway ... inspired by an excerpt of an interview in the Paris Review with Ernest Hemingway:
Being a writer beats you up. And in 2007, I didn't much feel like being beat up. I wrote little and published less. 2007, the year of emotional stability. Not very exciting or impressive.
My personal life has been filled with enough rejection that I certainly wasn't up to seeking it out in my professional life. Without really knowing it, I decided to make sure my life was about acceptance this last year. It turns out acceptance is a little boring.
I'm not one for New Year's resolutions (especially since my family used to videotape them and then show them to you the next year to see if you failed) but here's the closest you'll see me come. This year, I will try. I will try to take more smart chances in writing and fewer dumb chances in my personal life.
If I seem beat up, buy me a beer ... or a mojito, they are delicious!
Anyway ... inspired by an excerpt of an interview in the Paris Review with Ernest Hemingway:
INTERVIEWER:I am neither ruthless nor in love. But I am emotionally stable, at a cost.
Is emotional stability necessary to write well? You told me once that you could only write well when you were in love. Could you expound on that a bit more?
HEMINGWAY:
What a question. But full marks for trying. You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or rather you can if you will be ruthless enough about it. But the best writing is certainly when you are in love. If it is all the same to you I would rather not expound on that.
Being a writer beats you up. And in 2007, I didn't much feel like being beat up. I wrote little and published less. 2007, the year of emotional stability. Not very exciting or impressive.
My personal life has been filled with enough rejection that I certainly wasn't up to seeking it out in my professional life. Without really knowing it, I decided to make sure my life was about acceptance this last year. It turns out acceptance is a little boring.
I'm not one for New Year's resolutions (especially since my family used to videotape them and then show them to you the next year to see if you failed) but here's the closest you'll see me come. This year, I will try. I will try to take more smart chances in writing and fewer dumb chances in my personal life.
If I seem beat up, buy me a beer ... or a mojito, they are delicious!
I really, really like this entry. It's absolutely true that we are only as great as the things we try for--not trying makes us mediocre/boring. But damn, rejection sucks, too!
Posted by
Joy |
1/04/2008 8:14 AM
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