by Naomi K

Created on: April 24, 2008

Lately I pretty much never attempt to write prose anymore, aside from the odd blog here and there.

Mostly it's either from lack of inspiration, insecurity about my ability to write something worth having other people read, or both.

Thankfully I have some people who are kind enough to poke and prod me on occasion to get the hell over it. Others are wise and have a large enough sense of self-preservation to let it well enough alone and let me do my thing once I'm done wallowing. Both approaches are blessings to me in their own ways.

The process of creative writing is that of figuring out what the heck is really going on in your head (which is trying enough for most already), making it into something roughly coherent, and then accessing your internal thesaurus to make it read as both translatable and appealing enough to keep people interested.

It essentially boils down to taking bits and pieces of your psyche and attempting to arrange them as prettily as one can on a plate for the consumption of others while still making it have substance so you (and hopefully the reader) can feel as if it will also sustain.

Any writer who's ever dreamed of composing The Novel of the Century is essentially trying to build a supermodel with the brain of Carl Sagan, the charm of Audrey Hepburn, and the enduring iconic quality of Elvis.

An admirable goal to be sure. If you're gonna aim, aim high. If you're gonna try to ride the horse, by all means pick the craziest, most hyperactive, seemingly-homicidal one behind the fence if you can muster up the guts.

But never ever forget the reality of the process. Writing from the soul with everything you've got hurts. It leaves you mentally sore and battered sometimes. It can fill you with dread and self-doubt that you never dreamed possible. It can feel like spilling your viscera onto the desk in front of you.

Because we are usually our own worst critics.

And yet when we get those rejection slips or those awful reviews by professional critics (the closest modern equivalent to a guillotine operator, but with far more potential glee than remorse or even detachment in the mix), we are crushed. We are stunned, hurt, pissed, indignant, discouraged.

Even though mere months or years before, we may have been doing a way harsher number on ourselves during the laborious process.

When Ernest Hemingway got a bad review, or so the lore goes, he used to travel to the critic's home and beat him up.

But then he was a drunken wife-abusing crybaby.

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