When we are young, the images we get of the writing life are somewhat peculiar--the image is of the writer who toils in isolation most of the time, who, almost by magic, has an editor and is then transported into the world of publishing. We are so busy studying style and so forth that we aren't taught about the process that got the book from a bunch of typed pages to a bound first edition. And, the excessive study of guys like J.D. Salinger only seem to enforce to us that writing should be solitary, done for oneself, and that someone will magically find us and publish us...oh, bullshit...
Reading Jennifer Finney Boylan's essay on J.D. Salinger, attitudes about writing, and how a writer's life isn't one of isolation at all-- that the P.R. machine helps writers to be read. Boylan's seen what I have: how the study of literature doesn't prepare one for the realities of book promotion--what she sees as a necessity in today's downward-trending publishing industry.
Boylan also considers readers "an unbelievable gift." And, indeed, she's right. It's something that so many bloggers, esp. personal bloggers, yearn for. Stories want to be told, and the telling doesn't exist in a vacuum--writing isn't just about exorcising one's soul. It's also about being read.
In being read, we are heard. Being heard is sometimes the one thing that we've yearn for our whole lives. Some of us took to blogging simply to be heard--not particularly as a form of shameless self-promotion.
Yet in the world of blogging, I'm finding that, for me, being heard just isn't enough. I have been writing most of my life as a form of self-expression, with a desire that, someday, it might be heard by others. Self-publishing has helped, but after a time it gets to be a lot of work for little return. It's not that I don't appreciate those who are reading (and yes, you know who you are) it's that, after a lifetime of writing, I want more...
Over the years, I've taken several writing classes and seminars. In those classes and seminars, it was always pointed out how editors wanted to see perfection before publication. Being well aware of my imperfections--my lack of knowledge of AP Style, my spelling problems-- I felt for the longest time that I could never find an editor who would be there for me.
So, for me, blogging was almost a way of giving up on the idea of ever making money from anything I wrote in exchange for being heard.
I've always wondered what I would need to do to be perfect enough for editors: Do I need a Master's degree? Or do I just need a bit more confidence and a lot more luck? Yet it always seemed that there was no way I'd ever be able to reach that level of perfection that would enable me to get in front of an editor....
Lately, I have been lucky enough to work with editors--and to receive pay for my writing. I am grateful for this opportunity in a way that I've never felt before. It as if I'm really being heard now. The changes to my work have not damaged my voice--rather, they've made clearer the information I've wanted to get out to others. The writing I've done hasn't been about self-expression. I have a lot of that. It's been about information--the way of getting that out to people in a way that's understandable...
Because when one spends a great deal of time writing just for oneself, the head becomes an echo chamber. Everything makes sense because one knows deeply about what is being written. But do others understand what's being written? To me, the editorial process is a way that someone else helps bring forth what's in my head so others can better understand it.
Many of us who write--well, we're not literary giants. We're also not going to be literary giants. Even then, literary giants have editors. If an editor pays attention to what I'm trying to say, and is willing to help me say it better (not change me or my expression or anything like that) then, at this point in my writing life, I couldn't have asked for a more wonderful gift.
And as much as I have gratitude for those who read, I have gratitude for those who edit. At this point in time, it's those editors that are going to help me the most...
No comments:
Post a Comment