Writing is how I make sense of the world. It’s how I bring meaning out of the chaos, how I find my own personal treasures in the darkness.
I wrote this in a facebook post this morning to a fellow writer in response to something she wrote. And the more I reflected on it, the more it’s resonated with me.
I’ve been intentionally writing now for about ten years. One of my novels was published last year and although, I’m proud of it, it hasn’t received the attention I dreamed it would. I’ve tried to get pieces published in magazines and online blogs – to no avail. I spent three whole years on one novel and it didn’t get picked up by any publisher, no one wants it. I’ve cried over it and wondered what was wrong with it, what I did wrong. And now it’s sitting in a file on my computer taking up space.
But is it?
I’m not so sure. Each time I’ve written a novel, a blog, an article, or even a journal entry I wrote with the best that was in me. I wrote honestly and from my deepest self. Sometimes people like what I have to say. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes I like what I have to say. Sometimes I don’t.
The question must be asked: How do I know if what I’m doing is worth it? How do I know if it will matter in the end that I wrote An Ordinary Love, or have the beginnings of a memoir sitting in a file on my computer, or that I’ve just spent nine months on a fantasy novel? If no one wanted to buy An Ordinary Love maybe I should not have wasted my time on it, and why even bother with another book? This is important truth about everything we do. How do we define success? Or signficance? Or a job well done? Do I decide my novel matters because it wins an award? Or makes the bestseller list? Or if hundreds of people write up great reviews?
Perhaps…
Or… maybe it matters because it mattered to me. Maybe it’s significant because it was signficant to me. And came from a signficant place inside of me. When I wrote my novels, An Ordinary Love, and As Waters Gone By, I told my truth – and I gave it my absolute best. I brought up something real that was hidden inside of me. When I step back and read it months or years later, I see that my intuition and my sense of justice, my particular take on life and goodness and healing are all there, told as a story. Those books helped me make sense of my world, helped me understand something that was confused and chaotic. Those novels matter, because they matter to me.
One day, I hope others will enjoy what I write, that perhaps as my craft improves, my work will touch people and meet them in their dark places. Perhaps one day my work will help other people make sense of their lives, or speak to them in their confusion and bring meaning. But I can’t hope to ever do that, if I’m not first doing it for myself.
We don’t have control over what’s going to make it big or what will fall flat. We can’t control what others will like or not like. There’s no magic wand we wave as artists. But… we can tell the truth. And tell it in our very own slanted way, hoping that if it meets me, maybe it will meet someone else.
Each of us has gifts. Each of us has light and dark. Each of us has to process and figure out what to do with the pain and heartache and the joy in our lives. I write stories. I pull up thoughts and musings and beliefs and spin them into tales … What do you do?
I hope whatever you do … you do it with honesty, love, and a bit of laughter.
Much Love,
tina
I love this. As you surely know I’ve wrestled with all of these same questions myself over the years. My conclusion has been there’s value to the writing even when it’s not read, though I am also intimately familiar with the sting when it’s not, when we hoped it would be. xoxo
You do understand and I’m thankful you mention the sting, which is there. And yet, we turn even the sting into pages, don’t we?
Much Love,
Tina
Just don’t start deleting things because you don’t see their future, Tina. I have lost a couple of important treasures that way, one a prophetic painting and the other a poem written about me by a young man I loved who died. I have tossed things that mattered to me because my husband or someone else denigrated their value. What you have done now is important now whether or not it meets some literary or other standard because YOU are important now.Trust that God is using your creativity for His purposes. Things that you come back to will teach you about yourself and you may rework them or may simply find them useful to spark other writing.
I have thought of you, glad to know God has met your need for friendship in astonishing ways. That in itself is a beacon of light. And should reflect back into your self-questioning about your writing. I am still in straits that prevent me from ordering your book or I would have read it and could give you feedback. I have been living in the tumultuous wake of our son’s legal and other trials; an epic story that may not be mine to write. But praying through the ordeal with the helps of visions, prophetic scriptures, daily disciplined praying of scripture, and updates with my prayer partner has taken most of my energy, along with a myriad of other issues in this place. I, too, wonder about my published work that seems to me to gain in importance every day. But if God’s timing has not come, all I can do is stay alert with the wick of my lamp trimmed, and wait.
Hi Laurna!
I’m so glad to hear from you. No, I never throw anything I’ve written away. You just never know when you might need it or want to come back to it.
God has provided friends. He’s faithful to set the solitary in homes. When I’m in Seattle I will mail you a copy of my book. Thank you for connecting and for reading.
Much Love my friend,
Tina
I loved this Tina! It’s a question every writer must ask themselves and I love how you’ve processed through it and continue to create.
Deanne,
It’s so good to hear from you. Love all the pictures I get to see of you and your family – your little boy is precious.
Yes, it is a question we all have to wrestle with. I think we are writers because we write.
Much Love,
Tina
I caught the tale end of this interview on Fresh Air last night and it floored me: http://www.npr.org/2014/09/08/346346588/how-gatsby-went-from-a-moldering-flop-to-a-great-american-novel.
Fitzgerald’s last royalty check for ‘The Great Gatsby’ was for only $13.13. He died thinking he was a failure, at least with regard to what’s now considered his greatest work. If that’s how Fitzgerald felt about Gatsby it seems that we mere mortals are in good company when we second guess that value of our own efforts.
Hi Jeremy,
So good to see you here.
And how true your words are. Indeed, we don’t know. We really don’t. We must just keep going and use the talents we have faithfully.
Much love,
T