Lower Your Standards

I recently finished an essay and posted it on WritingFromSpace.  I was relieved to have finished something.  I understand that a blog post is about as likely to be read as a crumpled  hard copy  tossed  in my driveway.  I’m working on that—how to develop followers.  At present,  I’m concentrating on completion, which means I’m paying attention to my writing process.

After posting the piece, “Bambi, Anna Karenina, and Dramatic Irony,” I threw away all the drafts: hand-written pages on lined yellow tablets; typed drafts going back at least three months; notes on an e-mail from my neighbor, a Russian scholar, who parsed a Russian word for me; some freewriitng that led away from the task at hand to concerns for my adult kids and drifted to the memory of an unpleasant incident in my past, which may lead to the start of another piece.

At an earlier time in my writing life, I would have set my standards way too high, wanting my essay to be a brilliant meditation on dramatic irony, Greek tragedy, and why re-reading a great novel is gratifying, but watching a re-run of the Super Bowl isn’t.

It was a paralyzing stance.  How did I get past it?  I’m not sure, but I did.

Interview with a Non-Writer

“So, you never did become a writer.  Why not?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I have time.  Tell me about your failed attempts and missed opportunities.”

“Would you like to browse through my journals?  I’ve been keeping them, off and on, for fifty years.  Think of Samuel Pepys or Anais Nin.  Maybe I’m not approaching this in the right way.”

“Hmm…Looks like fifty years of mindless drivel.”

“I have some poems.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Look.  It’s not too late for me.  Think of Grandma Moses…”

“You’re going to take up painting?”

“No.  Late bloomers.  Frank McCourt.  What about Frank McCourt?”

“Are you Irish?”

“No.”

“Do you have vivid recollections of an impoverished childhood?”

“No.”

“Do you have stories?”

“Of course I have stories, and ideas, and metaphors.  Especially metaphors about not writing.  I have pens.  Do you want to see my pens?”

“No.”

“And yellow pads.  Love ‘em.  Of course I switched from manual to Selectric to IMac and IPad…”

“That’s enough.  I have to go.  I have to interview a famous non-singer about all the songs not sung, and then there’s this  guy who has an unexamined life…”