I’ve finished revising Harm’s Way, and this weekend found myself on a bluff overlooking Puget Sound, both dazzled by the spectacular view and overcome by vertigo, an uneasy sensation that at any moment I might plummet into the yawning abyss.
As writers, we carry these dual emotions with us always. Sometimes it’s more intense than others, but as I ferried off to Whidbey Island for my first ever alumni weekend (of the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts MFA in Creative Writing), I felt both high and low. Would I become that much more high? I wondered. That much more low? The answer was: yes, and yes.
Part of the weekend involved the graduation of nine MFA students in the class of 2012, a moment that made me happy for my writing friends, and reflective about whether or not I’d met my own writing goals since I stood up there last year. Afterwards, as we mingled and took photos, Bonny Becker (an author and teacher in the program), asked me what I’d been up to.
“Revising,” I said. “All year.”
“Good,” she said. “Most people don’t realize they need to do that. Good for you for recognizing it, and doing what it takes.”
I was grateful for the encouragement. I could not help feeling as if others were gaining ground while I stood still. Then again, I have yet to meet the writer who doesn’t compare herself to others. We love words after all, which brings about moments of yearning, moments when we admire what someone else has written and think: “I wish I’d written that.” What’s more, the farther I delve into my writing career, the more I figure out writing amounts to only a third of the business. With all the tricky ins and outs of publishing and selling, and the frequent changes in the industry, it can become overwhelming.
So yes, there were lows, but Bonny’s encouragement is an example of the much more frequent highs of the weekend — the chance to listen to some truly amazing writing, to hang out with writer friends and make new ones. As a group, writers know how to tell good stories and share many a belly laugh. We love our characters, and don’t shy away from the hard stuff either, especially when it comes to commiserating about steeling our egos for rejection, a process that in the end (we hope) will make publishing success that much more sweet.
So I’m home again, back in writing mode, holding onto that spectacular view, and feeling good about writing for as long as I can.
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