Side Trail
LETTER TO A WRITER
John Duncklee
Behind the light in your eyes I saw the anxiety and urge to spill forth your deepness and ideas. I saw that well-known fear as well. Fear that diverts and stifles. Fear that turns creative instinct into nervous procrastination that pushes your mind to wander through anything but molding words together.
I know it well, dear friend; the panic of the pencil lying dead on a pad of paper, waiting for fingers to grasp and move it to preserve the syntax of a thought, waiting for a mind to release its energy to form a symphony, a ballet of words for another to speculate about.
Pick up the pencil, dammit! Care not that you are not Huxley, Joyce, Terkel, or Saint Luke. You are great in yourself, forget the style and jargon of the others. They did. They could not have been great by plagerizing another's style. Your own style, if you care enough to be original, will reach its own greatness if you give it the freedom to flow at will. I know for I have read you!
Pick up the pencil, dammit! It's been a long time, that's true. But think of all the thoughts you've had since you last put the pencil to rest on top of the pad. Don't think about the importance of what thoughts you return with for the importance is in the return; the return to yourself.
Pick up the pencil, dammit! Do not muffle and suffocate your mind with questioning you own talent for that is not the right of anyone, not even an editor. An editor has his or her own talent, and you can look forward to your editor's talent to polish the spots you were too close to.
Pick up the pencil, dammit! If you must collect reject slips, paste them on the walls and to every one you can say, "Poor soul, what a shame that you didn't make room for my ideas. I am not the loser, you are. I am the winner always because I have my ideas and can express them. Your reject slip is really quite sterile." Think of the chained editorial mind that must attempt to anticipate the sale of printed matter selected under the stare of George Washinton. Then send the piece again, even if the postage seems outrageous and you have to revert to beans again. Savor the taste of stamp glue. Somewhere there's an editor for your stuff.
Pick up the pencil, dammit! You are fortunate that you only bleed over endings. My blood flows over introductions so I save them for last or somewhere in between. Perhaps you would lose less blood if you did the ending first, and as you proceed whittle at it occasionally, mold it until it fits. I think O'Henry must have done something like that, but you and I are not O'Henry, thank god.
Pick up the pencil, dammit! I have! It feels great to have it in my hand again. It feels great to cry and laugh. Go ahead, pick it up and feel it in your hand. The tears will flow with ideas. The laughter will flow with ideas. The words will flow with ideas. Enjoy the "loneliness" of writing, it's good for you, because what non-writers think as loneliness is not what writers think as loneliness. Loneliness to a writer is being without the pencil, so pick it up, dammit!
|
|
