My old fiction writing professor (Judy Troy) once told me that most of writing consists of long showers and walking the dog. She was right.
I have long had a love/hate relationship with writing on demand. There are times it is a boon - creating enough tension to cattle-prod inspiration into striking. There are also times it causes the viscosity of the creative juices to increase proportional to the deadline. Recently, I have discovered another aspect to writing on demand: the properties of it remain the same no matter the "demander" - for as of late I am both demanding and the demandee.
In front of me, in its nice tidy frame, sits my newly-minted diploma, proclaiming my prowess through the achievement of a "Bachelor of Arts (English)." On top of and hanging off of the frame are invisible goblins making faces at me every time I sit down at this computer and don't write. Some are goblins of expectations questioning why I am not midway through a major work. Some are goblins of creativity (3rd cousins to the Muses) who alternately sprinkle my fingers with magic dust of genius and magic dust of dumb. It's impossible to tell the bags apart until I'm settled in and have been sprinkled for the session. Some are goblins of guilt, some goblins of doubt - both closely related to the goblins of expectations. These are the worst, but at least they are kept under control by the goblins of confidence and support.
Credibility - you have to live up to it in order to keep it. Thus the goblins and the goal-setting. I would be writing anyway - I cannot NOT write - but in some ways I feel that my graduation has raised my standards for myself. Not low to begin with, my expectations of myself are now such that it's slightly intimidating. I'm sure other writers have experienced this; if not after getting a degree, then perhaps after their first publication or such. I'll balance out I'm sure - as long as I remember to feed the goblins.
3 comments:
Evan is going through the same thing- he keeps writing, but he's straying from the bigger picture because he is still anxious to put his words down on paper. He wrote a few short horror stories that I think are incredible, as well as one publisher, but I know he feels an incredible burden of expectation from himself and from his audience (though I'm sure it's better to focus on the former).
All I know is that both you and Evan seem to do better when all the little things fall into place- and they usually do.
Demand and creativity, innately opposed but necessarily bound together.. Many props to you for the discipline to keep yourself motivated though, and the ability to keep "demand" in the equation.
I've got my own pile of goblins, always questioning. It's either the new ones around my diploma chiming "Oy, whot ye goin' to do with this, then?" or the old ones around the house murmuring "Eh, when ye going to unpack that last box and finally settle in?"
Oh, the box goblins - don't remind me of those.
The problem with keeping 'demand' in the equation, I'm finding, is that it can be paralyzing. The old river metaphor works well here in regards to what one creative needs to be: bound yet flowing and (albeit slowly sometimes) cutting a new path constantly.
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