Writing About Writing

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.”
—William Shakespeare

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I have been in San Antonio much of the week and have wanted to write a Literary Texas post on Sandra Cisneros. Though Cisneros originally hailed from Chicago, she lived for many years in San Antonio where she did a stint as writer-in-resident at Our Lady of the Lake University. She did a considerable amount of her writing in San Antonio.Years ago, I read her A House on Mango Street. It is a moving and impressive novel, but I want to do some extensive research before writing about her. So that will come later.

Today I want to write a bit about writing. If “the unexamined life is not worth living” (Thoreau), then neither may the unexamined writing life be. It feels to me as though I have always written in much the same way it feels as if I have always spoken. It may seem the same to you. I think people who love to read often feel the need to write. I sometimes can rattle on aloud a long time to those whom I know well, but I much prefer writing to talking, especially if what I want to communicate is important ( likely important to me more than to the one reading what I’ve written). I like the time writing gives me to think, to organize my thoughts, and to choose my words more carefully.The only drawback to writing over speaking, in my opinion, is the difficulty in conveying tone of voice. If the writer is not terribly careful, she may hear one tone while she is writing and the reader may hear a different one. Still, writing makes me slow down, consider what I’m saying, structure my thoughts, and work on clarity. If I am writing creatively, I get to fashion my own worlds, control my own daydreams, or build a glittering “City of Invention,” as Faye Weldon has written of in her book Letters to Alice on Reading Jane Austin.

Although I have done a ton of academic writing and doing it has taught me a great deal, it is hardly my favorite . Writing academically requires a discipline that transfers to all types of writing, in my opinion. Even creative writing. But the two are different animals. I used to tell my students, who chafed at essay writing, that it would teach them organization, clarity of thought and expression, and organization. I don’t know how convincing I was.

My love, though, as I expect for many of you writers out there, is creative writing—mainly novels, short stories, and poetry, both for adults and children. Over the years, I’ve tried my hand at it now and then, and have had bits of success here and there with competitions and publication in periodicals, but I regret now that I didn’t follow through with opportunities earlier. Life has a way of becoming awfully busy and of throwing roadblocks in your path. But my roadblocks have often been quite lovely ones, so “regret” is likely not the right word. Still, now I have determined to write as long as I can wiggle (and God allows)—even if it hair-lips the governor, as the saying goes. And I am thankful for a supportive spouse who dreams my dreams with me. That means the world.

I have many writing projects in my mind and at my fingertips. I have stories I want to tell, books I want to finish writing and rewriting, poetry I want to learn to write better, and I have a number of posts I want to add to the Literary Texas series in my blog, but the research eats up so much of my time. I have more writing time now than I’ve ever had in my life, and yet it does not feel like nearly enough. I suspect many of you are in this situation. We still, after all, must live in the day-to-day world with its demands and duties. “And so it goes.”

I am excited about my forthcoming children’s chapter book (short novel) being published by Pelican Publishing. It should be out in the next few months. Traditional publishing is an interesting and long process, often taking more than 18 months from accepted manuscript to book. But it is exciting. Publishing in periodicals is much simpler. It is not easy to get a manuscript accepted but is a tremendously simpler process once it is. You send your babies out (written with much love, sweat, and tears), receive a lot of rejections, occasionally get an acceptance, wait a few weeks or months for its publication, and get a check. And that is that. The book process (for traditional rather than self-publishing) is far, far more complicated. Sometime later I may do a post on that—all the things required for a publisher to even look at your work, and then if it is accepted, the preparations and additional writing that requires. Maybe even non-writers would be interested. I don’t know.