I’ve been writing for twenty years. I should say I’ve been playing at writing for a long time. The pattern has been to write intensely a week or two or maybe one day or two and give up for months at a time, even quit a couple of times for several years. A few years ago, I went back to school for the MFA in fiction. That would do it, that would make me believe I would be a writer. I worked hard, did well, graduated and stopped writing again after a few months. In school someone was always looking over my shoulder; respected writers were telling me I had what it took to be a writer. There were deadlines and I had always done well in “school.” I’ve come to realize now that I thrive best when I receive constant approval and adulation. You see I’m a “smart” guy with a string of degrees, and my writing must be smart and perfect, and it has been anything but smart and perfect. I have several computers full of incomplete drafts, novels and short stories. None of it was ever good enough for what I believed I could write. In this last year I have come to question why I wanted to be a writer in the first place and why I have failed. I’ve called myself lazy, untalented, and deluded. None of those judgements took me anywhere but failure. The idea of failure breeds failure. I’ve tried to stop writing altogether, but I became depressed, angry at myself for giving up. Also, somewhere down deep still I believed I could write. So I’d head back to the computer and around I’d go, writing and stopping. I never figured out why I wanted to be a writer. I know there are many reasons and they change and merge into one another. Some are selfish, some not, it doesn’t matter if they push you along. But I know why I stopped writing: impacience, lack of confidence, and striving for perfection. Writing became such a burden that it was no longer fun. I never gave the process of learning to write a chance. I never got past first drafts are bad. I never got past what the hell am I writing about. So I’ve decided
to laugh about this whole damned thing, yes, laugh, to sit down, choose an unfinished story and finish it. I don’t care how good it is; I don’t care if it’s silly or makes any sense, not in the first draft. I’ll keep drafting it until I can’t anymore. I’ll keep trying to make it cohere, to bring it together as a story, and I’ll do it with a sense of humor and expiermentation– maybe like I did when I first started writing many years ago? (When writing wasn’t such an earth-shaking, profound task. When I wasn’t searching for the great American novel but just putting one word after another). And if it doesn’t work, maybe something in it worked? Maybe something will work in the next unfinished daft I choose to finish? With so many story lines out there hanging in limbo I have plenty to do with no empty white pages to face! The process is not about one great story but many failed, half-failed and almost stories. Thanks Bryan for your advice and thanks for looking over my shoulderfor a few minuets while I wrote this to me.

Very useful! I agree. As long as you never give up.

I like your philosophy, Melinda.

lol thanks, Bruce!

Congratulations, Rick!

KItto