Relief Journal Issue 3 is Out
Relief: A Quarterly Christian Expression Issue #3 is now hitting newstands and mailboxes. If you're not familiar with it yet, then shame on you. It's a fantastic literary journal. This issue features my short story "Sins of the Fathers" (which, I am humbled to note, won this issue's Editor's Choice award) as well as lots of great fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction. I haven't read the whole thing yet, but what I have read of it is very, very good.
I read my story again and I have to admit, I'm not sure I like the way an artist gets to see his own work. When I read that story, I see all the flaws in it and ways that it could be improved. Things that could be made more clear without forcing a second or third reading. I'm still not very comfortable with it, even though others seem to like it.
Something I wrestle with as a writer is being able to judge my own work. I often simply can't tell if it's any good or not. I was re-reading a section of my novel-in-progress the other day and I got a little discouraged. Is this any good, I keep asking myself. I know I should just put off those judgements until the thing is more fully-formed, but I revise as I go, so I'm always having to judge the quality of the writing for the purposes of revision.
Writing is hard, that's all there is to it. That's why so few people do it well. I can, however, take solace in the fact that persistence pays off in this game. If I just keep with it, force the little demons in my head that try to undermine my work to just shut up, then I'm confident that I will have a novel worth a reader's significant investment of money and time. It won't win any awards, but that's not why I do this, anyway.
For me, the process of writing is uphill both ways (in the snow) and a piece of coal for Christmas.
Then: a nap.
Mr. J.,
Take it from an inmate who has been here for a while, your mid-novel paranoia is perfectly normal, given the fact that a person must be nuts to start a novel in the first place. The only people who are any good at this insanity are people who cannot stop believing that they really should be getting better.
It helps if you don’t look down, and keep typing one word after another. Eventually you’ll make it all the way across to the back cover (that thicker bit of paper at the end) which is how you’ll know it’s time to stop. 99.9% of the others, while nuts enough to start a novel, are not so crazy as to finish. So when you do get to the other side you will have sorted yourself out from the mere out-patients.
If you do keep this up long enough, chances are some other inmates claiming to be “agents” and “editors” will be start coming around. Don’t be fooled. You may all be very happy together in your collective paranoia, but they always attract the “sales and marketing people,” with their little white coats and their annoying habit of insisting that there is a real world after all.
As a fellow suffer, I wish you the best of luck. Sounds like you’ve got it bad. Or good. Oh, whatever. Just stop looking down and type, man. Type!