Writer's Conference Today!

Writing Life

“And it was at that age...Poetry arrived

in search of me. I don't know. I don't know where

it came from, from winter or a river.

I don't know how or when,

no,they were not voices, they were not

words, nor silence

but from a street I was summoned,

from the branches of night,

abruptly from others,

among violent fires

or returning alone,

there I was without a face

and it touched me...”

                                 Excerpt from “Poetry” by Pablo Neruda

I'm going to spend today in a writer's conference here in Birmingham. I will listen to other writers talk about their process and read from their most recent work. I will be inspired to work harder on my own book, and will feel less put-upon when they say how long it took them to get published and how many rejection letters they received in trying. They will say it takes five to ten years to go through all the revisions, and that you want to give up and throw your work into the fire, or pull all your hair out and scream before anyone takes you seriously. I've heard it all before, but I want to hear it again. Somehow other people's failures make my own easier to take.

One old writer who read my early manuscript—first draft, very rough—told me essentially not to quit my day job. Most writers don't—they work at a regular job that provides food and a roof and such, while they write. She also questioned why I wanted to write about such “trashy old people” and not aristocrats like herself. The reason to me was clear—those “trashy old folks” are my peeps—the ones I grew up with and who speak their own sort of wisdom. I don't know aristocratic from nothin', and you write about what you know.

Like Pablo Neruda, most people write because they have to; writing finds them and holds them by the throat until they surrender. Why would anyone go through such torture otherwise. I mean, I could be dancing the light-fantastic down on the boulevard with the highfalutin upper-crust if I wasn't stuck here writing this blog! So, today I will draw inspiration from other tortured souls, and I will strive to pass it along to you. (Not the tortured part, just the inspiration.)

I hope your day is full of contentment.

                                                 In the spirit,

                                                      Jane