Well, here we are.
The new job is in full swing and I miss being able to incorporate my creative endeavors during the workday. What I mean to say is I miss all of you, and what you have to say.
I was reading an article recently that said that blogs were out, twitter was in and if you expected anyone to read you, you better write in short, snappy, digestible snippets. Now, I digress more than most but I couldn’t help but wonder what type of dialogue could really be created if everyone has the attention span of a gnat.
I can see the fun that could be had with Twitter, a few pithy individuals and most of us being let in on their secret conversations, secret among their 20,000 closest followers. I get that. I quick banter with people who share a common sense of humor.
What I don’t understand is how that has anything to do with the essays most of you write, moments in time, a little of this, a little of that, a bit of you spread over the ether.
I didn’t start writing online in order to create a presence, or build a brand. I just wanted to meet some like-minded folks, ones who perhaps like me, weren’t surrounded by a culture who read and got excited by an author’s writing space, people who geeked out over author interviews in The Paris Review. How else could I have met so many people who I now depend on for what’s going on in writing, publishing, the life of a creative mind?
I cherish that. And I miss that. I wonder, in the big scheme of things, if perhaps I underrated how important being able to touch base on all things artistic is for me. Before I had it, I didn’t know to miss it. Now though, I feel like I’m going through withdrawal. I’m out of touch and not happy about it.
Working full-time, being a mom, being a wife, being a sister and a daughter, all of those things is better having in my head that I am also a writer. But see? It’s secretly in my head. The only time it comes out is when the information is in this space, the one with all of you.
I went to see Moonrise Kingdom this weekend, and through the whole movie all I could think was how one day Wes Anderson got an idea for a type of storytelling, one that anyone in their right mind would tell him would not, could not sell. It’s bizarre and although there is a plot sometimes you don’t know what it’s really about until the credits are rolling. Sometimes not even then. The characters are strange and dynamic and many times talk in monotone. I don’t know of anyone else who did what he did before he did it.
I imagine him sitting down with Owen Wilson and after a few drinks saying, “I have this idea…” and Owen (who co-wrote the first three of his movies) listening while his brain is exploding until Wes is done and suddenly they are writing this quirky film because they are just there, in that moment in time, when all the stars are lining up.
I think we are that to each other. We aren’t bouncing our story ideas, but we are out there creating. So, if you had any doubt, let me tell you that whatever your craziest idea is? Go with that one. Make something new out of something old. All the stories may have been told but not in the way you can tell them.
Tell the story the way only you can.
It isn’t about publishing. It’s about creating art.
Go create art.
Beautifully stated.
Word.
Thanks, Karen and Duchess.
I also think twitter is rather gnat-like, and so clique-y it almost reminds me of high school. I can see the benefit if you want to share immediate info about events, but I also prefer the expanded and much more personalised forum of the blog. I’ve met so many writing friends out there, in a way twitter can’t supply. I say stick with blogging. It takes time but it is an enriching and secret world for us hassled mothers! Plus the writing training is valuable – twitter is just too smug and pithy.
And I think we can all agree, one time through high school is plenty.
I wonder if I compared my writing before blogging and after blogging, if I’d be able to see an improvement. That’s the difficulty with writing. It’s hard to tell when it’s your own.
Without blogs, I wouldn’t have met so many terrific people who encourage each other to get out there and do what we’ve dreamed of doing—the support (and gentle nagging) has been priceless.
Do you mind if I quote you to my children?
“See? I’m a gentle nagger!” Nah, I don’t think they’d believe it.
I’m with Sarah–blogging has brought me to you all so whatever the fate of blogs, my blogging experience has been good to me for that reason and I’m grateful to it–and to you all.
There is a certain kismet involved, no doubt.
And by the way, I was so excited to see that The Mermaid Collector has a cover!
The Mermaid Collector
Woohoo!! Cannot wait to read it!
Oh dear lord. Yes. Blogging has connected me with my people. You people. Thank goodness for all of you.
In the last few months, I’ve cut down considerably on the blogs I read, and also on the amount of news I read on-line each day. I just don’t have the mental space, or ability, or need, anymore, to read so many tiny snippets of … of …. of what?? It’s almost shocking how much better I feel and how much more I’m getting done.
Here’s to connecting where it means something. And to wasting less time.
“…connecting where it means something”. How I adore that turn of phrase, and cheers to cleared mental space and getting it done, sister.
did you love it? moonrise kingdom? my favorite scene was jason schwartzman marrying the two. i’ve already declared my love for wes on here, so i wont go on and on again. i will say that on the way to work/taking daughter to summer camp, she wanted to hear the soundtrack to fantastic mr. fox and we both sat in silence smiling, humming along to ballad of davy crocket and then Kristofferson’s Theme song…one of the few tunes that makes me tear up whenever i hear the notes. (the theme song to ROCKY is another.)
you’re right. it’s the act of creating that serves us–probably more than the finished creation. i need to remember that. over and over and over again.
i apparently can’t spell my name…Josephine.
(Although, Josephinene has a nice ring to it. like panini. the josephinene panini…a BLT w/ ranch dressing instead of mayo on artisan bread, grilled.)
I’d love to have a Josephinene Panini. The perfect sandwich.
Loved it. Favorite scene, well one of many, when the boy is in the lightening storm and sticks his arm up in the air, “I shall run no more!”. Then his shoes catch fire, fast forward…”I’m fine. I’m fine.”
Ha! So bizarrely funny. Love.
I keep things fairly bottled-up too, in my ‘real’ life. Blogging helps me release some of those frustrations and join in the conversation; without it, who would I talk to about writing?
I’m trying to get into Twitter because that’s what writers do, but to be honest it’s a mystery what anyone gets out of it. I can’t even figure out how it works. (Tiny URL? Anyone?)
“…Hold me closer tiny URL, Count the headlights on the highway…”
Sarah is your go-to, I think, for Twitter. She is the Mothership into the information age. Plus, she’s so damn funny that I think she gets the whole wackiness of it. She may have even done a post if I remember…
You want to talk fountain pens? I’m your girl.
(I love the way it sounds like Tiny Earl. He’d be a five-year old dressed in a Victorian suit with a green accountant’s visor.)
I get what you’re saying. I’m not looking for branding or presence or self promotion or any of that with my blog. I wasn’t sure for a long time what I was after, but now I know: fellowship. I want to be part of a group with shared interests. Not for the “help” or the “criticism” or the “suggestions” or the “advice” but merely (merely?) for the fellowship. Just as you’ve said in this post.
Well said, too.
I’m so much like you in that regard, Paul. The fellowship of writers does me so much more good than the help or criticism. It’s not that I think I’m above those things, it’s just that it is in being around writers living their lives and the dialogues that we touch upon, that I see where I am going awry in my work. Maybe that’ll change in the future, but for now, it’s enough to have something to say, and people to hear it saying, “Here, here!”
Thank you for this beautiful piece of encouragement, which never could have been expressed as well in a tweet.
I am wary of these tech-savvy so-called experts going around saying “xxx social media platform is dead, now it’s all about xxxx2.0!” Bite me. Also, I can’t get into Twitter. Just can’t. I can see the value of it and sometimes will learn new things about the publishing industry by scrolling through my twitter feed, but overall it’s just so much chatter and my head can’t take it. I certainly have heard from many sources that blogging is “so over” but whatever, that just makes me love it more. People have been saying fiction is dead for decades now, too.
My heart is not in my twitter account, and frankly I think that’s for the best.
Maybe that’s it. For those of us whose brains have been twitter before Twitter ever existed, don’t need more. It becomes overwhelming. Twitter is that language version of the ticker tape spewing stock symbols and prices. If you try and follow all of them, your entire attention is sucked up and you become useless for anything else.