“The Belle Jar:” talks about writing…
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.”
