A real writer?

I'm indebted to elisem for the pointer to Neil Gaiman's on-line journal. Neil is the author of the Sandman comic books, which I am ashamed to say I haven't read yet, although many of my friends rave about them, and a series of fine novels (his latest is American Gods, one on my ever burgeoning heap of must-read-this-soon books). A very interesting example of an online journal for a working author.

Apropos of nothing, I still think they should consider casting him as Sirus Black when they film the Prisoner of Azkaban movie. (Note the black leather; I believe he rides a motorcycle, too.)

Listened to an interesting NPR story on the way home from work, about the song "Swimming to the Other Side" by folk singer Pat Humphries. I was particularly interested in what Humphries said about the creation of the song. It just "came out of her," she said. A little business about creation being like "taking dictation." There was an quote (I didn't catch it all) about being "downstream" from the force of creation that offers up songs to the composer's imagination; I think there was some joke about being downstream from Bob Dylan. Didn't catch it all.

Anyway, it prompted that old welling up of bitterness again at how difficult writing has become for me. I have had that sensation of divine inspiration in the past, that the perfect words are effortlessly pouring out, but in the past four years, whatever force drives my fiction writing has dried up. (I remember Megan Lindholm's narrator's remark in her short story "The Silver Lady and the Fortyish Man": "My muse was always a fickle bitch. . . ") I envy those who seem to have a continual well-spring of ideas, of creation. I don't. I rarely have.

I've brooded over the problem for a long time, trying to understand why, and I've examined and discarded a variety of different explanations. I'm lazy. I've lost it: the gods of creation have withdrawn their divine gift from me for some unfathomable reason. Maybe because I've sinned (was I too proud of my books, or something, and my pride erected an overly strong internal critic that damaged the creative well-spring?) Maybe the effort of trying to hold down a full-time job and raise kids has short-circuited the creative process somehow. I need rest (not that I'm likely to get any). I need to re-stock my creative well. I need to do morning pages, like in The Artist's Way. I need more faith. I need to Try Harder. I need to Relax and Let it Flow. I need to Try Less Hard.

I've tried all sorts of tricks to get around whatever is causing the block. I've tried reading books on writing, I've tried writing exercises, I've tried brute force, I've tried . . . well, never mind. I've tried it.

All these mental twists and turns, all this creative agony, and I have damned little to show for it.

I imagine that it sounds quite odd (perhaps even irritatingly self-indulgent) that someone who has had two books published wonders whether she can really call herself a writer anymore. But I have been seriously wondering.

Well . . . ahem . . . on second thought . . .if I can bare my soul by admitting this, perhaps I am still a writer after all.

Perhaps. (Or am I just kidding myself?)



Peg, still wondering.