dagblog - Comments for "How Much Do You Need to Write to Stay Sane?"

Michael: Tony Kushner's on

artappraiser — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 00:14:36 +0000

In reply to I have to be write daily.

Michael:

Tony Kushner's on topic @ The New Yorker; though mebbe just mebbe you might be interested.

Thanks, Mona.

Doctor Cleveland — Fri, 11 Oct 2013 01:57:49 +0000

In reply to Thanks, Doc, I needed that.

Thanks, Mona.

Thanks, Doc, I needed that.

Ramona — Fri, 11 Oct 2013 00:45:11 +0000

In reply to How Much Do You Need to Write to Stay Sane?

Thanks, Doc, I needed that. I'm working on a couple of long projects but I find I can set them aside, no problem, in order to write a blog post which comes more easily and provides, okay, I'll just say it. . .instant gratification.

It's too easy now that I don't have tight deadlines and editors waiting for a piece I promised. When I was writing fiction I had my peers breathing down my neck, egging me on, making me finish because they knew I had started and they weren't going to let me not finish. I don't have that anymore and I've gotten lazy and unmotivated. I don't have time to be lazy and unmotivated. (I could get hit by a truck tomorrow, and then what?)

And I hate rejections.

I love this sentence and think it should be a quotable quote somewhere: "Writing is a public act performed in a private place, something you do alone at your desk for the widest audience you can manage."

But this is golden: "Staying sane enough to write means positioning yourself somewhere between your inner voices and the outside world, where you are able to listen to both clearly, because you need to listen to both, but where neither gets the last word."

Yes. It's a tricky question.

Doctor Cleveland — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 21:04:50 +0000

In reply to I have to be write daily.

Yes. It's a tricky question. You need to make time and space for the longer-form projects. I have it easier, because the feedback schedule is already so slow. But if I fetishized my article-forthcoming and article-making-the-rounds rule so that it kept me from working on the next book, that would be a bad, bad mistake.

I think you need to be working on shorter and longer pieces if you can manage that much juggling. Sometimes, for example, you need to more immediate feedback of giving a short conference paper, or (heavens forbid!) a blog post. But you also need to be able to write something longer and defer the gratification.

I have to be write daily.

Michael Maiello — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 18:09:09 +0000

In reply to How Much Do You Need to Write to Stay Sane?

I have to be write daily. The transition out of professional journalism was tough on me because I lost a dependable outlet. Definitely my inability to let go of that has shown up in my freelancing since. I probably have to curtail my need to be published, though, so that I can devote more attention to longer projects without such immediate payoff.