“The Belle Jar:” talks about writing…

“The Belle Jar:” talks about writing…

“The Belle Jar.” Riveting. https://twitter.com/traceylien

Be double sure to read her article from Nov. 24, 2015, titled, “I Published a Goddamn Book.” In this piece she talks about writing…

“Writing is just work. Talent is great, but painful truth is that talent can only get you so far. The rest is work – and usually not even particularly interesting work. Mostly it’s the kind of work where you’re stuck dragging a fine-toothed comb over and over through the same sentence, trying to unsnarl those harebrained nouns and verbs and adjectives into something that makes some kind of sense.” Written by the author of the website, “The Belle Jar.” http://bellejar.ca/

Specifically she refers to an “essay that Betty Smith, the author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, wrote while she was attending college classes at the University of Michigan. It’s called ‘I Want to Write!’ …”

Please read her stuff here and here:

“I often think about an essay that Betty Smith, the author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, wrote while she was attending college classes at the University of Michigan. It’s called “I Want to Write!” and sadly I can’t find it anywhere online, so I can’t link you to the full text. To give you an idea of what her situation was like, I should mention that she wasn’t actually enrolled at the university, but rather was auditing classes while her husband was a student in another department. In spite of the fact that Smith hadn’t finished high school and had two small children, she managed to convince several of the professors to let her sit in on their creative writing classes.

“But as much as Betty Smith wanted to write, she struggled with it in a way that is probably deeply recognizable to anyone else who writes:

“[…] I have my doubtful periods. I am ashamed of the things that I have written in the past. I am ashamed of the things I wrote last month. But when I wrote them, I thought that I was inspired. The hardest thing to bear is the sneaking knowledge that in a year or two from now, I shall be heartily ashamed of the things I am writing now. Still —?

The cruelest thing about this desire to write, is the hopeless hope that it engenders. Deep down in my heart, I know that I shall never get anywhere in this writing business. But who can tell? Sometime, tomorrow even, someone may find something marvellous in the things that I write.

[…]

Some years ago, I decided to be sensible and to put all this writing foolishness aside. Other events crowded close; anther life opened for me. I married, had two babies, other interest, other ties. I wrote nothing for eight years.

Eight years? But I am lying. I have forgotten my friend. As a relaxation from the cares of the children and the house, I formed the habit of writing to a mythical friend. I wrote about everything, and wrote and wrote and wrote! Then I mailed the letters in the waste basket.

Now I have come back to my first love. I frankly admit that I am writing again. I hate it and I love it. It is labour. It is travail. But it is the most fascinating thing in the world.”

“When I think of Betty Smith, I think of a writer who was gifted beyond anything I could ever imagine…

“And yet while she was writing it, Smith never felt like a writer. She felt like someone who was wasting her time; someone whose first drafts stunk; someone whose time would have been better employed playing with her children or cleaning her house.”

Read much more here: “The Belle Jar.” http://bellejar.ca/ Find its accompanying Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/TheBelleJar/?fref=ts

“The Belle Jar:” talks about writing… http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-belle-jar-talks-about-writing.html

Labels: #amwriting, Art Library Writers Writing

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