Writing or doing
Tuesday, 17 June 2014
“People are either writers, or they are doers. It is not possible to be both.”
I forget who wrote this, but it is something that comes to mind when I have entered a phase of troglodytic existence... temporarily becoming a Morlock in order to beat my website into submission, bash out a Wanderlust article or go cross-eyed as I work and rework my prose so that is becomes effortlessly readable (I wish).
Is it true then?
I consider my talented writer friends who live near me in Cambridge. Few can afford to even aspire to writing full-time. Most of us have day jobs. We have to have day jobs. And we’re also a pretty active outdoory bunch of people, it seems to me.
Surely otherwise the body would seize into a stooped sitting position, fingers petrified over the key-board, spine permanently slouched, shoulders fused into a hunch, lungs no longer capable of even a sharp intake of breath.
Perhaps the wise observer whom I’ve quoted – undoubtedly a writer – is suggesting that only the single-minded and the devoted, obsessed even, can make it as authors – whatever that means.
But if one becomes truly driven? What if you pour out your innermost musings, expose the tenderest most vulnerable parts of your being? What then if a reviewer is cruel about some tiny aspect of the words you’ve struggled and nurtured until they are right to put on the page?
What do we do then? It is enough to stop many authors writing at all, for a while anyway; until the hurt fades. I wonder whether our critics realise what an insecure bunch, most writers are. I guess the antidote, or vaccine even, is to be diverse. To be both a writer and a doer... if you are fortunate enough to be able. Is that me then?
I like to think I’m a doer as well as a writer. Perhaps that is why I thought I should keep at it, and publish my first novel this year. After all I made a kind of contract with myself a couple of years ago that I would try something new at least annually; 2012 I managed to swim across a fjord; 2013 I had a mostly unsuccessful attempt to get up on a surfboard, and 2014? Hmm.... what will my physical challenge be? Maybe publishing a novel should be enough.
I’ll let you know.
Posted:
17/06/2014 10:18:46 by
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