The author Cheryl Strayed says in a recent essay you must be a “warrior and a motherfucker” when it comes to being brave and resilient in your writing. I don’t believe this is enough. You must become a mental strip artist, an artisan for the broken, a pub singer of the damned, a babysitter of lost ideas, a window cleaner in a shit storm, a pole dancer in a literary hurricane, a taxi driver for the faintest of whims, a rambler through cemeteries, a curdler of fermented ideas, a rodeo clown at a funeral and a parade street sweeper of bullshit.
A writer must be able to ask the question: if in Alexandria in 275 BC, a 180 foot long gold-plated phallus was paraded through the streets of the city, flanked by elephants, a giraffe, a rhinoceros and decorated with ribbons and a gold star (according to Athenaeus,) where did they put the damned star?
You must become who you are meant to be.
Absolutely. For some of us that requires the fight of one’s life.
Oh yes! I was fiddling with my son’s Rubik’s Cube last night and it reminded me that to line up all those little colored squares you have to first stand back and look at the big picture, then throw caution to the wind and start twisting and turning, throwing yourself out of your comfort zone, until as if by magic, the squares align and your job is done. Very much like writing.
Yes! I love it, Melissa. I can get intimidated by things I think are “too hard” and this is exactly the right approach.
they shoulda used a blue ribbon, as in Bryan Bowers’ The Scotsman……
Aye, laddie!