Someone reached out to me today via LinkedIn seeking advice and constructive feedback on getting started as a writer, specifically as a Catholic writer. I imagine they came across one of my published articles on-line and were wondering where to get published, where to connect with other writers, and how to obtain feedback on their own work. This is not the first time someone has reached out in this way.
I haven't responded, though I thought it would be a good opportunity to kill a few birds with one stone with a blog post on the topic in the form of a letter to said inquirer.
Dear _______,
Thank you for reaching out. No need for academic salutations; I am not a Professor, and am not an instructor. To be honest, I don't even consider myself a proper writer. I've never learned the discipline in a formal sense, aside from high school English and a couple of Creative Writing classes in college. As I find myself saying often, I'm just a guy who writes some things every now and then.
I may or may not be of any help to you when it comes to your inquiry. Though I have a few published articles, essays, and poetry floating out there on-line, it is for the most part incidental that they exist. I have been writing for as long as I can remember, try as I might to hang it up for good. Every attempt to do so invokes the deep, resigned sighs of Jeremiah the Prophet, "But if I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot" (Jer 20:9)
For novice writers (as you describe yourself), having your work published (whether in periodicals, books, or other mediums) seems at first to be the pen-ultimate validation. No one says, "I want to wander in the desert for forty years." They say, "I want to reach the Promised Land."
But wandering in the desert in search of something for years, decades on end, even, is more in line with the vocation of a writer. There is no Promised Land, no resting ground where one can say "I've made it." There is only the mirage of oasis after pit-stop oasis.
The Israelites would frequently erect altars of remembrance to remember what Yahweh had done for them as a people (see Genesis 28, 33, 35; Exodus 17, 24; Joshua 4). Writing is not unlike this. Because my short and long-term memory is so poor, writing is a way for me (and anyone really) to remember. It is also a way to find out who we were, who we are, and who we are to become. People often journal for this reason.
But journaling is not what you are seeking advice on, if I can speculate. A person who journals writes for themselves and themselves alone; a writer is, alas, burdened with the compulsive need to have his words read by someone other than himself. Whereas a journaler would be aghast were someone sneak into their room and read their diary, a writer would not put it past himself to leave such written accounts out in the plain sight of day in the hopes that someone, somewhere, will discover it.
It's curious, isn't it. Is this vain-glory, exhibitionism? I have wrestled with this over the years, the need to be acknowledged. I have even prayed novenas to Our Lady petitioning for the grace to be untethered from "the praise and adulation of men." My blog is a diary of sorts, but if I were the only one able to view it, I would have shut it down years ago. It's an outlet of sorts, yes. But the burning need for it to be given over to someone (anyone) somewhere (anywhere!) accompanies it.
I gave up coffee for Lent. In a sense, being published is like that first sip of coffee after a month and a half of tea. You'd been anticipating the day when you can have it. And then you do. And then it's done. You are still yourself; it's now just a little harder to hide.
I joke with my wife (half joking, quarter joking, not really joking) that our kids can be whatever they want when they grow up. They just can't be writers. In thirty years of writing, I could probably pay for a month's worth of groceries from Aldi with what I've been paid for my "labor." And that's ok; I'm not a writer anyway. But if I were, as I say to my wife, "it's a cruel fate indeed."
I like to garden; but I wouldn't want to be a landscaper. I like to monkey on bikes in my garage, but I would never want to be a professional mechanic. I love my Catholic faith, but the day I pay my mortgage with YouTube apologetic videos or podcast musings would be the death knell of zeal.
Writing is like this. My father, pragmatic as he was and is, was right: hobbies are good, and writing for me really is a hobby, and maybe a little more. It's a way to live--to make sense of life--but it's no way to make a living. I'm not sure if that is/was your intention in reaching out (I'm speculating), to see about how to make a living or side-income from writing and/or publishing. Forgive me for assumptions. But I can think of no other endeavor that bleeds so much out of you for so little given in restitution.
Which brings me to my next point. In meditating on Christ writhing in agony on the Cross, it can sometimes cross one's mind to ask, "Why would anyone endure such a thing?" Why would anyone literally bleed out, crushed by the weight of unrequited love, poured out as an unbibed drink offering, abandoned and alone in his final hour with the echoes of "Hosanna!" ringing in his ear? Only a fool would give himself over to such a fate. Only a fool would die for love.
And yet we are fools following Christ, the God of redeemed folly. "God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe" (1 Cor 1:21)."
Think of publishing as your Palm Sunday, while remitting your true opus as a writer to the cross. Because if you want to be a Catholic writer with anything to offer the world, this is where you nail up your work. Naked and uncovered, on full frontal display, with only your mother and a close friend as your final faithful audience. Those palm-laying masses? They are retiring in their home. Your disciples and friends? Denying they even knew you. You're not even sure your own Father is there to acknowledge your offering.
But here's the difference: when you give freely of what you've been given, the gift multiplies. When charity has been perfected, it is no longer self-seeking (1 Cor 13:5). It gives, and it gives. If I can say anything truthfully, this is what I have always tried to do as a "writer." Sure it starts out like a freshman nursing student who enters into the profession because she wants to "help people." Over time, that naivite becomes calloused over with the scars of rejection after rejection, the seeming pointlessness of tapping away on a keyboard at 3am ("for what?"), the slight-of-hand critical remarks on your syntax that you take to heart and die over. But it becomes a burning ember, not a flickering flame. If you can retain the heat of pure intention--to write in order that you might give--you can continue in your vocation.
Speaking of vocation, I have tried not to curse what God has given me, though not always successfully. "Do not call unclean what God has called clean" (Acts 11:9). It's not easy. Writers are minor prophets--warning, admonishing, lamenting, praising. To be good you have to know your place and your calling, where it is you fill in the cracks with the mortar of your spilled ink.
Do you want to write for yourself? Buy a diary. Do you want to be recognized? Start a TikTok channel. Do you want to coax depressives off a ledge, inspire the young, give fortitude to the weak, console the heartbroken, speak the Truth, fill the hopeless with hope, the faithless with faith? Then do that, with the tools God has entrusted you with--the pen (or keyboard, as it were). You may never get paid for it and may never be recognized on the street. But consider those the upsides rather than drawbacks. If God has given you a gift, He expects it to be used, not buried (Mt 25:14-30). The safest place for your talents is with the banker, not in the ground.
Do I have any closing advice for you with regards to writing? I'll give you the advice that was given to me: just write. And I'll add my own: make yourself and your words a gift to the world, given freely and without charge. If you do that, I suspect you'll never be disappointed. Because in the end, you may die a fool...but you'll die hanging on a tree with the best of them.
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