Letters to the Editor
-
Some Thoughts on this Painful Subject
First, my family members (wife, two kids -- at least at the time of the First Big Creative Burst) didn't get all up in my business when I was working during that big opening I experienced. Or maybe they did and I was oblivious. Maybe that's why after 23 years I became divorced a second time (it may have become a pattern now). But like Cary I did reject the writer's group idea at first. I still do -- for me. I agree it can probably be very helpful as well as gratifying for a lot of people, but see, I still feel as Cary did early on, that I am destined to do something Great and Terrible with my words. Well, terrible for sure. I'm hoping for great as well. And I don't care if it sees the light of day either.
I've found, though, two things to have been of tremendous utility, at least in my own strange case: first, listen to one's gut and if you feel it strongly, reject writer's groups in favor of the advice of William S. Burroughs and "exterminate all rational thought." Become what you are writing. Let yourself be possessed by it. It's insane. It works.
Second, once you have created that "Monster in a Box", before it crushes you the way it did Spauling Gray, find yourself a very good editor (I can recommend a truly great one) and hand it over to someone who understands what you're doing and is qualified to help you through the process. If it weren't for my having stumbled upon a brilliant editor this thing I've been carving out for years would remain in the box a la the poor schmuck in "Sideways." Instead, it will at last, at least, have a finished form, a cover, a title, a life of its own. Whether it sells, sells well or just becomes a classic after I am long gone doesn't matter. Only the process matters.
It feels good to be coming to the close of this thing, after a long period of being blocked (and that is what, in essence, it is about, after all, anyway) for so long. It feels damned good. And except for that one ex-wife the rest of my then-family remain my family and love me and maybe that's what had to happen, maybe that's how that story actually reads.
Being a writer is not a career -- it is a condition. If you don't accept the conditions of the condition you'll forever feel someone is looking over your shoulder. It just may be you.