{"id":284,"date":"2010-12-08T22:29:43","date_gmt":"2010-12-08T17:29:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.katrinakenison.com\/2010\/12\/08\/getting-naked\/"},"modified":"2010-12-08T22:29:43","modified_gmt":"2010-12-08T17:29:43","slug":"getting-naked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/getting-naked\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Naked"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span><\/span>Writing is so hard.\u00a0 I am always convinced that it must be harder for me than it is for everyone else.\u00a0 That I am slower, less creative, less deep than the writers I admire.\u00a0 That while I am sitting here laboring over a paragraph, my more talented friends are cheerfully tapping away, fully certain of what they want to say, knowing how to get it said — brilliantly — and get on with their day.\u00a0 As I type these words, I look up and see that it\u2019s already dark outside, the oatmeal box from breakfast is still on the kitchen counter, I haven\u2019t vacuumed the crumbs off the floor.\u00a0 The post I\u2019ve been working on for most of the day isn\u2019t in any shape to publish, and now I\u2019m out of time.\u00a0 There is dinner to make, house-straightening to do.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, I\u2019ve been conversing with a gifted younger writer friend who is struggling with her own manuscript, a memoir.\u00a0 She is floundering, not sure how to proceed.\u00a0 I read her pages over the weekend and found myself hungry for more than she had been willing to offer, yet at times a bit impatient with what was actually on the page.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t honestly tell her that her book is a book yet; it isn\u2019t.\u00a0 But such feedback is as painful to give as it is to receive.\u00a0 I\u2019d much rather be her cheerleader, jumping up and down and waving pom-poms, than her critic, searching for words to explain what isn\u2019t working.\u00a0 And yet, most of us need both — support and honesty; not to mention the encouragement to keep going even when the road ahead seems anything but clear.<\/p>\n

How much easier it would be if someone could tell us exactly what to do, the way I was once taught, back in my editing days, to create a profit and loss statement for the books I wanted to acquire. If only it were as simple as:\u00a0 fix it like this, write about that, change this around, and you\u2019ll have it.<\/p>\n

Writing isn\u2019t rocket science.\u00a0 There is no right way, no wrong way; we writers are allowed to break all the rules, to make it up as we go along, to have things our way.\u00a0 But the alchemy by which words on a screen or printed page become greater than the sum of their parts,\u00a0 missives aimed right at the heart of some unknown reader, is not easily understood.\u00a0 If there were a manual that explained how to do this — how to craft a compelling story, how to grab a perfect stranger\u2019s attention and hold it, how to take the stuff of our own everyday lives and make it interesting to the rest of the world, well, a lot more of us would be doing it.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure if I wasted the the last four hours, or if the post that I\u2019m not posting will ever see the light.\u00a0 But it\u2019s time now to go see what\u2019s in the refrigerator, to let the day\u2019s work be what it was (at least the e-mails got answered!), and to take some comfort in the fact that, although writing is hard for me, it\u2019s probably almost as hard for everybody else, too.\u00a0 And it\u2019s worth it.\u00a0 There is no manual, but in lieu of the how-to book, I go back again and again to the words of May Sarton. \u00a0She can\u2019t tell me how to be a writer, but she sure does tell me what\u2019s required.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe one has to stop holding back for fear of\u00a0alienating some imaginary reader or real relative or friend, and come out with our personal truth. If we are to understand the human condition, and if we are to accept ourselves in all the complexity, self-doubt, extravagance of feeling, guilt, joy, the slow freeing of the self to its\u00a0full capacity for action and creation, both as human beings and as artists, we have to know all we can about each other and we have to be willing to go naked.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Writing is so hard.\u00a0 I am always convinced that it must be harder for me than it is for everyone else.\u00a0 That I am slower, less creative, less deep than the writers I admire.\u00a0 That while I am sitting here laboring over a paragraph, my more talented friends are cheerfully tapping away, fully certain of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,14,49,15],"tags":[286,477],"class_list":{"0":"post-284","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-courage","8":"category-soul-work","9":"category-writing","10":"category-writing-and-reading","11":"tag-may-sarton","12":"tag-writing-2","13":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/600x600.png?fit=600%2C600","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}