I wonder if Charlotte Bronte used to receive issues of writing magazines in the mail. Or if Jane Austen got email updates sent to her Blackberry (OK, yes, I know I need a new phone) offering discounted–or not–issues, classes, webinars, gifts, kits, tools, books, interviews, articles, etc. etc. etc. I don’t know about Bronte or Austen, but all my ‘boxes’ are certainly blowin’ up with it all.
See though, those two ladies were intrinsic writers. It doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out where I’m going with this. I’ve got a new issue of a reputable writing magazine sitting on my kitchen table. If my BB buzzes ten times, six will be writing sources, either asking me to purchase something or offering me advice on crafting indelible characters. So, here’s the question: Should I read these texts, or should I well, I don’t know, write?
Charlotte Bronte didn’t have a choice in the matter. She wrote. Emily Dickinson–damn, talk about ‘intrinsic,’ she barely left her house–just simply wrote, wrote, wrote. She did have issues with publication though, too bad she wasn’t force-fed advice through tweets and FB posts on how to snag an agent.
Do I sound bitter? I’m not. It’s the business. It just gets confusing for us intrinsic types. My inner-inkling is to write fiction, or creative non-fiction–stories. But I’m learning that there is a lot more involved than just that. There’s conferences to attend, platforms to build, relationships to make, and so forth. And sometimes, well, all that stimulation can cause me to look in eighty different directions at once when I should really only be looking in one direction: my novel, my stories, my writing.
But hey, I want to do it write, (oh wow, no pun intended, look at that! Told ya, it’s intrinsic) and it makes sense in this world why it is the way it is. The writing aspect, I am discovering, is only one part of it. The sitting, the typing, the blocking-out-the-whole-world-and-creating a new one-phenomena is only a certain percentage. The best percentage, any intrinsic will tell you that, but a percentage no less.
The advice is good. It’s needed. In some ways, I still have no clue what I’m doing. I just need to figure out how to filter out the junk.
Happy writing.
theintrinsicwriter 