Michelle from Full Soul Ahead tagged me to write a meme about my writing. Here goes.
1) I've written (and published) 25 or 26 books and still don't feel like a real writer. My books, on home improvement and home decor, help people. I like that and appreciate my readers but find myself discounting the value of my work, over and over.
2) All these books written and hundreds of thousands of copies sold, and I still get the willies every single time I sit down to work. Last week I spent two and a half days stuck, working and reworking a 315 word introduction to bathroom fixtures. I couldn't--or didn't--get past the snag until the deadline loomed and I had to write the damn thing or miss the deadline.
3) When I hit my stride in my personal writing, the phrases dancing off my fingers surprise the hell out of me. Strange things show up--facts I didn't realize I knew, feelings I've never acknowledged, and lyrical language I couldn't possibly think up on my own.
4)The music of language comes much more easily than the arc of a story. In writing as in life, structure confounds me.
5) A dear friend compared my writing to that of a well-known, successful author this afternoon, and my eyes leaked for 10 minutes. Other than children during my struggles with infertility, I have never wanted anything more than I want to learn to write. To really write.
I'm tagging you, Suzy.
12 comments:
You gotta love Michelle! Now tell me, who was the well-known writer?
BTW, you ARE a real writer that REALLY writes! For sure!
I'm with you - the self-doubt, the consternation at how these words come out of me and where they're coming from...
I say let's not look that gift horse in the mouth and keep going with it, though, because it seems to be working so far ;-).
You are definitely a real writer!
And I am dying to know who the well-known writer was (and the friend)?
DAMN!!!
Used to be, you couldn't even say the word "writer" without blushing.
Now, you is one.
You, dear friend, are one of my favorite writers. It's that yearning to write that trumps all other yearnings, even when the Nasty One is telling us we can't, that links us in this sisterhood.
Ditto, ditto, ditto. You're SO there! You are a writer. You are in the presence of your muse. That's a writer. On knees, with the muse, ears open, eyes open, heart open. You ARE a writer.
YOU ARE A WRITER! IT DON'T GET NO REALER!
Jerri.
How could you doubt? Your writing is fabulous. Every time. You have a great and distinct "voice."
Love.
XO
What a great meme. Thanks for sharing these.
Love your writing...I only know this writing from your blog -which is beautiful BTW, so I can't even imagine you writing about tile, fireplaces, etc!
Yes, you are a writer.
You are a REAL writer if ever there was one! You have spent years walking both sides of the street--writing from the heart and writing to pay the bills--so there's not a writerly conversation out there in which you wouldn't have something to contribute.
Plus, please:
"The seasons are always quick to change in the Ozark Mountains, but the summer of 1964 dropped onto the Missouri hills like a wet wool blanket."
Proof positive!
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