Why is it that....

we can garden, play sports, exercise, do crafts ... and often do these things with great passion and work hard to excel ... and never feel badly because we are not recognized for our achievement -- but when it comes to our writing, if we don't gain recognition, we feel like a failure?

It is so peculiar -- more than peculiar -- it can be devasting -- that we give away our pleasure and our passion, the great inner journey, the great gift of being a writer, because "someone" (who?????) doesn't recognize our work.

I myself too often fall victim to seeing myself as a failure because my book doesn't sell or there is some other "rejection". Yet I know in my heart, in the deepest, truest part of myself, that being a writer is something I am and that the "outer" world can not give or take away my gift.

The greatest joy of writing, is writing.

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
Eleanor Roosevelt

Let's hear your feelings on this crucial delimna for the writer!


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If At First You Don't Succeed... A Writer's Success Story

This from The Author's Guild Bullettin of the Fall 2004

The way Novelist Karen Joy Fowler, 54, tells it, she went to a rading at a bookstore in Corte Madera, CA, and saw a sign that said, "The Jane Austen Book Club." She is a big Austen fan and was thrilled because she thought there was a book of that title. When it turned out there was no such book, "it occurred to me I could write the book I wanted to buy."

She did, and the book, according to the NY Times, is "one of the season's surprise publishing successes." This fourth novel by Fowler hit the best seller's lists.

Fowler was 30 when she decided she wanted to become a writer so she could be at home with her children. In 1980 she joined a peer writing group.

Her first novel, Sarah Canary, was published in 1991. It was accepted by Henry Holt after 27 rejections. Fowler continues with the writing workshop although her fame has exceeded that of its other members. She said, "I was not the most talented, not the most hard working, not the one to whom writing mattered most."

I succeeded because I was the toughest."

The Gypsy Dances: A Series for the Creative Writer, Last Installment

I was going to post one final installment of The Gypsy Dances, but upon review, I saw that the exercise make no sense out of the context of the book from which it is taken. Sorry! However, if you like this series (starting on Dec. 27) and want to explore your writing process in more detail, please go to The Art of Fiction Writing, by Emily Hanlon. This is a fun, unique and inexpensive way to have a personalized course in fiction writing. The exercises and work of the book is actual work I do with people who come to me in private sessions and in workshops. I wrote the book -- a workbook, actually -- to make it seem as if we were working together. Which is why I have also added two audio tapes that are made up of five different journeys that deepen the work of the book.

The Art of Fiction Writing
http://www.thefictionwritersjourney.com/A_book_on_writing.htm