There's part of me that has always had problems accepting compliments, so it took a while for me to catch on that people liked what they were reading, and that I might be good at what I do. But, in the end I had to believe it because enough people from enough places were saying positive things.
Now, show me someone who doesn't enjoy hearing their work complimented? No matter how much we protest to the contrary all of us need ego stroking now and than. It's all very well and good to say that you do something for the sake of doing it, but there is no denying the feeling of satisfaction that comes from knowing somebody else enjoyed it as well.
But there is a fine line that you have to be wary of, well more like a couple of them, but the key one for me is taking myself too seriously. Not that the compliments weren't meant sincerely, or that my work wasn't good, but it’s a matter of how I perceived myself within the context of writing.
Instead of writing because that's what I wanted to do and I loved doing it, I was considering myself a "Writer" and writing for those reasons. I was allowing myself to become more important than what I was doing.
Like I said all the signs were there; wanting to finish writing something and get it published and over with instead of enjoying the actual process of writing being the most obvious; but I was too wrapped up in myself to notice. It took two events last week for me to realize there was something wrong.
I had offered to review a book for a person whose writing I like. She had contributed to a collection of short stories, essays, and poems that an Internet writing group she belonged to had self-published. I started reading the stories and looking at them with a critical eye, when I stopped and listened to myself.
I heard this pedantic voice I didn't recognise making sarcastic remarks in my head. I felt sick. Who was that asshole? What did it matter what I, or anyone else for that matter, thought about what these people had written. This was a labour of love by people who still wrote for the sake of writing. How dare I even think that I had the right to be an asshole and shit on them and their work?
What made me think that I was in anyway superior to them? We were all in the same position, supposedly, writing because we wanted to, for the enjoyment of putting words on paper and trying to make something happen. I very awkwardly sent an email off to the woman who'd sent me the book and tried to explain what I meant and ended up just making things worse, by being too inarticulate and not really understanding what it was I was trying to say.
Article comments
1 - Rohan Venkat
(that was me, btw)
2 - Rohan Venkat
Argh, much maligned comment destroyers.
Here's my misnamed comment that never showed up (thus the earlier comment to identify myself, which proved useless) :
Very sincere article, and Richard, great writing!
It is a scary thought, being known as a writer as opposed to being a writer is both enticing and revolting.
Hope everything's better now...
3 - molly
Hello, Richard Marcus,
Welcome Home
I've never written anything on a blog before, mostly because I wasn't moved to do so. NOW I'm happy and want to tell you so.
I've read a couple of your postings here, visited your website, (thank you for turning me on to Lulu), and that's about it. I cannot possibly claim to know you personally, but there was something about your picture that stayed with me. And it wasn't you, it was the things all around you that stayed with me. The patterns in the fabric of the clothing hanging in the background, general STUFF, the rings on your fingers. The room itelf. The environment you've created around yourself bespoke volumes about who's really in there. More than your recent Blog-dingies have. The backdrop said to me: "He's about so much more than is coming through in the writing he's doing." I wondered if it might be that you were just spending too much expression energy on these blog thingy snippets rather than staying tuned into the Story you're writing or what.
Everyone works differently. I, for example, wouldn't even consider talking about something I'm writing that's important to me, with anyone. Not until it's my first version of "finished". (Do I ever really feel finished? No. I just have to make myself stop at some point.) Until that point, when I have to take a break, I take it away from writing anything at all and get outside, or elsewhere inside, and put my attention on a different path in the old noggin'. Make some room for refreshment. "Empty my head," is how I say it.
OK. I'm going on too long right now! Shot right past the finish line and am seeing I'm in the woods!
Now resisting a temptation to edit this babbling brook of consciousness. I won't do it, fer scuz that's all I intended it to be.
Welcome home, fellow person who again writes just like apples grow from a tree. Stick with your natural self and you will delight the energy that composes you.
Warm regards. See you on the wire, perhaps.
4 - Richard Marcus
First of all yes and no to all you're comments. Yes in that I agree with you that my blogs don't say anything about me, well because they're not about me, and that's very deliberate. Even the ones I use myself as material in are not about me, I'm just an example.
Parts of me are going to slip through depending on the subject matter, like the above post, being the obvious exception to the rule in the first paragraph, but I'm not going to put my heart and soul out on this type of exercise.
I blog for a very specific reason, to hone my craft and improve my skill set. Without proper tools nobody can do anything, without knowing the best clearest way of articulating an idea in print it doesn't matter how open your heart is.
Any and all writing I do I consider having validity from that point of view. Being a writer means being able to write in more than one style and for more than one segment of the population.
I'm not interested in people getting to know me personaly through my writing, that's not what it's for. I write to express ideas, thoughts, and opinions. If you think you are able to glean something of me from that, well careful, and remember appearances can be deceiving.
cheers