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This week: Edited by: phil1861
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| Writing is not as hard as succeeding. Writing is easy. A page, a word, and a beginning and end is all that is required. You are done and ready for the next story, novel, essay, or article. Good, great, genius, or just acceptable is something much harder to contrive. The harder you work at it the harder it is to achieve. |
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I just completed what has been a five year project. A historical novel started in 1987 and a re-work starting in 2001. I was sitting in a Starbucks when I came upon the last paragraph of the story and decided it was enough. I was struck with the feeling that all those years of off and on writing and struggle to make the time was over. The creative part, the part where most of the time is spent in conjuring and imagining was at an end and I was sad. I was also worried. While I was still struggling to keep the story moving the thoughts of good, bad, or ugly were conveniently held in check. Now however the spirits of gloom and doom hover close by and the advent of a long and arduous rewrite commence yet again. Hours spent reading aloud and changing line after line, re-changing the changes and changing yet again and the feeling that somehow the story is not panning out the way I’d like it to ring hollow in my head.
Would it not be that once it is written it is finished and ready for the publisher is the fancy of the lunatic? I was once that lunatic, so intent on my own peculiar genius that any thought of going back over something seemed to violate the creative process. But, I’ve grown up a bit. It is the life that I am glad I never embarked upon. It is too much for this unsteady soul to tackle the realities of this business. Cold, unforgiving, heartless, money hungry, and the chew-you-up-and-spit-you-out vagaries of the entertainment industry are enough to keep me quietly and comfortably in the hobby-horse writing club. I once wanted to think of myself as more, much more but the world of career and other interests keep me where I am. It is only to accept the realities of my time and temperament and still be able to say that I am comfortable where I am. Sometimes not, sometimes too busy with other creative endeavors to care, and most times only interested in finishing this one thing.
It is done now, finished but for the changes to come in the rewrite and I’ve accomplished what I set out to do almost twenty years ago. That milestone only comes once a project. I recently finished over a years worth of creative work and planning to present a special drama to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 attacks upon the World Trade Center. A year of listening to the music I’d chosen as the back drop and imagining then scripting the story to portray. Then came the month of rehearsing and putting together all of the various parts and people before the two performances on the 10th of this month and then it was over. I was sad then too. The images of the NY street scene acted out before and after the towers fell and the ending of the song calling to hope and it was over. All that time for five minutes of acting only to clean up afterwards and be left all alone upon the stage after the Sunday morning crowd dispersed home. The story was told and like all stories it has to fade into memory both for the participants who will go on to telling other stories and the audience who will some day forget what they saw.
After these five years I am left to wonder is the build up to the creativity going to be worth the hard slogging editing that lies ahead. I would much rather perform and work up to a performance than spend hours upon hours tinkering with each and every line of the one hundred and ten thousand word novel. I had a story I wanted to tell that summer in Georgia fresh from Army boot camp on my two week leave. I picked that story up once again all those years later in 2001 to re-work and finally finish that idea. But, every creative endeavor ends and then we rest and look for the next thing to occupy our minds with. I’m finished creating “They Met at Shiloh” my historical novel but I’m not quite finished molding it. One day it will be completely finished and I’ll feel sad once again when there is no longer anything left to do.
What part of the writing process do you most prefer?
Have you found that once you started writing you discovered your writing talent was best suited to something else and not just print publishing?
phil1861
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I’ve selected a few items on the site related to editing since that is the frame of mind I am currently in. Personally I plan to conduct the initial re-write and edit myself before engaging a paid editor as I want to make sure what I am about to submit and pay out of pocket for is concise and clear given the length of time I’ve spent in writing it.
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Question from my previous NL 8/30/06
How would you describe your “art”?
Have you lost your art to the pursuit of “Art”? What is more important to you: to create or to be a great creator?
Submitted To: For Authors
Submission Time: 09-05-06 @ 11:30pm
Strange Wulf 
Submitted Comment:
Second NL I've gotten about defining art recently. Seems kinda ironic.
Anyway, I use a friend's definition of art: a creative work that sends a message, whether simple or complex, through a medium. Both the message and the medium can be just about anything, so long as they appeal to an audience and mix well. This is why I loathe so-called "modern art". By the defintion I've provided, it is so much static, and utterly useless. Yet the "artists" who make it are paid thousands of dollars... even as true artists, whose pictures actually mean something, barely manage to get by!
Imagine a group of archaeologists 1,000 years in the future, uncovering the remains of an art museum. They find many paintings, but they can't figure out the meaning. Then they find a comic book. By the art alone, they think it to be a tale of good and evil.
True Art carries meaning beyond the years. How else can you explain the success of works written over a century ago?
Submitted To: For Authors
Submission Time: 09-05-06 @ 4:45pm
scribbler
Submitted Comment:
art is expression something, an idea feeling etc in a way that is tangible or solid. at least thats how I feel aha =)
Submitted To: For Authors
Submission Time: 09-05-06 @ 10:10am
ANGEL
Submitted Comment:
I believe that my success is actually writing all my emotions and feelings down that way I can express myself in dealing with everyday life. I have always supported poetry and hope to achieve that I pass my knowledge and experience to others.
Submitted To: For Authors
Submission Time: 09-04-06 @ 3:06pm
spazmom
Submitted Comment:
This newsletter was right on top of that very dilema my husband posed for me this past week. I paint as well as write, and I was trying to find the perfect frame to enter a painting into the state fair. He wanted to know if I was trying to showcase my talent, or if I was trying to impress the judges. I told him that it was both. He told me that was being hypocritical..(spelling?) and that I needed to focus on one or the other, and that he felt one was related to pride.
It was a sharp reminder that sometimes we do get caught up in what others are thinking, and forget our own art in the process.
Good newsletter.
Submitted To: For Authors
Submission Time: 09-04-06 @ 3:06pm
Breezy-E ~ In College
Submitted Comment:
Perhaps the difference between art and Art is that art is self-expression, and Art is understanding what the artist may have wanted to expres. With Art, it depends on the viewer/reader, and the artist may not have had anything in mind at all, but thought it looked/sounded nice enough, while art is looking from the creator's point of view, at the love and thought that went into creating.
Breezy-E
Submitted To: For Authors
Submission Time: 09-04-06 @ 12:55pm
C. Gibson
Submitted Comment:
The hardest thing I have with writing is reaching a certain point and then having a HUGE case of writer's block hit. I don't particularly care for it and have found a few ways of getting around it. However I'm trying one way that seems to work, and I got the idea from one these newsletters in fact:
OUTLINE YOUR STORY.
It doesn't have to be long and involved. Just jot down what you want to write and then fill in the blanks later. It really works!
Submitted To: For Authors
Submission Time: 09-03-06 @ 9:59pm
writeone
Submitted Comment:
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" To be a creator or a great creator? As writers, we should strive to be the greatest we can be. I mean, that is why we edit - and often. But sometimes just creating is worth the effort. Writing is a craft, a learning craft, if you will. And there is magic there. Margaret Atwood said, "A word after a word after a word is power." I read that and it resonates. My husband reads that and says, "Kind of repetitive, isn't it?" A creation that touches, or impresses a portion of soul, is a great creation. Even if the whole of the universe neglects to bow down to it. It is writing a word after a word after a word ... and then hoping it makes a difference somehow.
Great newsletter! Thanks.
writeone
Submitted To: For Authors
Submission Time: 09-02-06 @ 10:16am
tahubley
Submitted Comment:
To The Pookie:
"What is Art" is an old debate in our house. My spouse and I used to actually fight over this at first. My spouse, it turns out, was rasied in a family that thought art was snobbish, formal and only for "those other people". There was incredible resistance to the idea that photography is a kind of art, based more on this working-class definition. Wirting, on the other hand, is often seen as "work". People seem a bit amazed to find out I do this voiluntarily. I like Robert Fulgrum's comments on art the best. As a former art teacher, he notes that young kids all believe they can do art without question but older kids rarely believe they can. Someowhere in between, they are taught "you have to be special". I agree with Fulgrum that art is how we express and symbolize our expeirnce as humans in many media and anyone can and should pariticpate.
Submitted To: For Authors
Submission Time: 09-01-06 @ 4:38pm
grim
Submitted Comment:
Yes, it's true that art is subjective, but you can't exclude all pop art. There is a reason there are colleges that teach painting, teach writing. If someone can be taught how to make a tree look more like a tree, than there has to be skill involved along with the personal expression. And any skill can be judged for its merits. Look at our own rating system.
All the "fad and marketing" in the world can only take a book so far, because essentially that only asks new readers to commit the cardinal sin of judging the book by its cover. Eventually someone will read the book, and when they do, the skill shown by the author, the artist, will make the book thrive or die. Don't be so quick to dismiss what the "hip crowd" is chasing as inevitable drivel. Hemingway was wildly popular in his heyday, and now he's taught in every college in the country. Most high schools, too.
Not to say that whatever's the best-seller this week is great; just, give it a chance, like everything else.
Submitted To: For Authors
Submission Time: 09-01-06 @ 1:48pm
Turkey DrumStik 
Submitted Comment:
One of the things that made me decide not to pursue writing professionally was I became obsessed with producing high art writing. So, I made the decision to make writing a hobby (and only a hobby). This act of distancing myself from writing has helped me to see, if nothing else, how ameteurs pursue writing, and I think a lot of youngsters get caught up in making art so much they lose sight of the craft. Having noticed a similar perspective among my classmates in literature classes, I've been tempted to change my major to history (instead of it being my minor). I managed to talk myself out of that, though, since I'm getting close to finishing my B.A. and have encountered classmates who show everyone how to keep literature and writing in perspective. I'm glad you tackled this issue, Pookie.
Submitted To: For Authors
Submission Time: 09-01-06 @ 1:08pm
demor
Submitted Comment:
In my opinion, art occurs when a person succeeds in transmitting a deeply felt emotion clearly in words, graphics, sounds or acting. Many of us talk about art, but few of us are able to use our skills to transmit true feelings. |
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For Authors: September 27, 2006 Issue [#1287]
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