Slogging on Through (A Love Letter)
Are you as tired as I am?
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Hello lovelies,
We’ve made it to March! After a February of a thousand days, this feels like a victory of sorts. Here in the states, we change to Daylight Savings Time next week, and it will be light later and later. And everywhere, trees are budding. On the other hand, rain mixed with snow is pouring down as I write this. My daughter just came in to hide birthday presents from her soon-to-be three-year-old as another shower of rain hit the windows. “Can’t it just be spring?” she asked.
My thoughts exactly. Here’s where I should rally you, my troops, with a pithy thought or quote, maybe the good old classic: “In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.” (Albert Camus)
Yeah, no.
Not feeling it. Not feeling the invincible summer. More like the endless winter. I think this year it is not so much the weather (I generally like the rain) but the endless litany of horrible world events. Such things weigh heavy on the psyche, moreso when it is dark and gloomy. (And do I ever know how lucky I am that I can complain about my delicate psyche from the comfort of a warm, well-lit home.)
No I’m feeling more like this, a quote from agent Kate McKean in an article about why the publishing market is so tough right now: “… everyone, and I mean everyone from the writer to the agent to the editor to the reader is just so damn TIRED. We’re tired and distracted and worn out and just do not have any extra ooomph left in us to focus on long-from tasks. We’re burned out. All of us.” (And it will behoove any of you currently querying and submitting to read her post.)
Yeah, that.
Everyone is tired. Tired of winter. Tired of war. Tired of politics. Tired of friends dying and family members being sick. Tired of the slog.
So what is one to do?
Well, hell. You think I have answers? Okay, okay I’ll offer my opinion. Take a break, for starters. And then get back to the slog. Because, I don’t know about you but slogging is my best defense against the exhaustion. (And by slogging I mean writing, in case you hadn’t guessed.) I know, Pollyanna, rah, rah, rah, but it’s true.
Because if I quit the slog, if I quit writing, then they’ve won. And by they I mean the great amorphous mass of it all that is making us tired and out of sorts and longing for spring. And if we keep at it, one of these days soon the sun is going to be out, the birds will sing, and all the flowers will burst into bloom. Or at least some of them will.
By the way, here’s the rest of the Camus quote, the part that isn’t so well known. “And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there's something stronger -- something better, pushing right back."
That’s us, people. Pushing back. Slogging through. Writing.
Love, light, and good writing,
Charlotte
P.S. How’s your slog going? What are you writing?
Books
Help! I’m still slogging through a reading slump. I don’t even want to consider the number of books I’ve started and not finished. Or even just picked up and set back down again. Please offer suggestions for my desperation in the comments or via email.
Watching
Ditto above. Send help.
Articles and Resources
The writer needs an antagonist, too.
Decoding the hero’s journey. Reminders are always helpful.
There’s so much good in this piece by Dan Blank, in which he talks about disappointing book launches, normalizing talking about what you create, and more.
How to do your writing. My mid-week extra, in which I tell you the one thing you are doing wrong. (Cheeky of me, as my Brit friend Elizabeth would say.)
Events
Creative writing workshops in France and Italy next year. France is almost all booked! See more here. And let me just add: future you is going to be sooooo happy that you committed to a week in Céret, France, or Perugia, Italy to further your writing career and your world travels! Reply to this email if you want to learn more.
Reading recommendations: Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano; the Beartown trilogy by Fredrik Backman (Beartown, Us Against You, The Winners) and also A Man Called Ove. Horse by Geraldine Brooks.
I'm back on my feet after a bout of COVID that left me lots of time to write but feeling too awful to do it. It is so good to feel like doing something (anything!) that it almost seems as if I have a second lease on life (or at least my winter.) Reading your missives always makes me realize it's time to get back out there and keep my head in the game. Thank you for your continued inspiration and wisdom. Your new motto should be "making a difference to writers - one word at a time"