Tuesday, August 29, 2006

More on Writing

Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for the love of it, then you do it for a few friends, and finally you do it for the money.
- Moliere

So, I was happily surprised yesterday to receive a $10 check in the mail as payment for a poem. It was accepted into Thema Literary Society's issue "A Perfect Cup of Coffee" for 2007. This is my first literary journal acceptance. I'm also excited because this brings my total literary earnings LTD (Life to Date) to $30.00.

It's even more ironic because two blogs ago I was wishing for a poetry acceptance (remember the ego boost I needed?). Now, I am wondering if making public wishes mean they will be granted. Were we all misled by believing wishes must be secrets?

Anyway, what I wish for now is help at work. An assistant. A smart person to help me with my workload. I have too much going on and not enough help and it's affecting my work-life balance. If only I could get my literary earnings up so I could quit my day job!

By the way, I also got a rejection today from a South Asian anthology, which is a downer. However, now that I've been keeping track of my submissions, I see there might be problems with the specific piece that I'm peddling. I need to work on that.

However, I'm taking work home these days so it's cutting into my writing time. I need to write so I don't have to work, but I can't write because I have to work.

The quote that drives me the most in my writing endeavors is this one:

There's nobody out there waiting for it, and nobody's going to scold you if you don't do it. - Lynne Sharon Schwartz

I know I am the only one waiting for it and I am the only one to scold myself.

7 comments:

Lotus Reads said...

I'm not a writer but I've been around enough writers to know just how frustrating making a living out of writing can be.

As for me, I've always believed that "what you put out is what you attract", in other words, make your desires known, the louder the better and you will attract a favorable result.

Wishing you a productive day!

MyView said...

I hope you get the assistant that you need. By the way, your avid readers probaly are "waiting for it" but definately will not scold you for not doing it.

In another vien, I recently read your review of "An Equal Music" from way back when. I enjoyed it especially because I enjoyed the book also. It spurred me on to get back to listening to classical music, which I had ignored for many years. I actually went looking for the different pieces mentioned in the book and found that some were hard to find. It became a sort of game.

Back to writing... I probably am not as busy as you are at work and the nature of what I do does not allow me to bring it home... But life still intrudes and it is very hard to find time to write.

Congrats on your $10.00 and the acceptance of your work!

Ashini said...

Lotus - thanks for your encouraging words! Yeah, making a living out of writing is hard.. but I think more frustrating is being a writer with limited time. You have so many thoughts and ideas in your head, but can barely get to jot them down. (I have poems on slips of paper, back of notebooks, programs, whatever!)
BTW, I liked your site a lot too! Got you bookmarked for later.

MyView: thanks so much for your comments too! No assistant yet.. just giving a lot of dirty looks to the managers (one of them is avoiding eye contact with me now).

As for "Equal Music", you've turned it into "The Da Vinci Code"! After reading DVC, I was scouring the net looking for pictures of Madonna of the Rocks and The Last Supper. You're the first person I've heard of that looked for the music of EM. We used EM for a book club and had a diverse group and some people got bored by the music references. But, I felt the key wasn't the music, but the passion for music these people had. People could be equally passionate about computers or cars.

BTW, I don't know if you like Seth, but check out his book "Two Lives." Nonfiction memoir, so it's different that way - very honest story.

Anonymous said...

Congrats on the check. Don't spend it all in one place! ha ha ha. To my untrained in literature mind your writing is great. Keep it up.
I also hope you get the assistant at work.

Anonymous said...

if writing is like prostitution, you definitely don't want to make it your profession. or do you?

*food for thought*

Ashini said...

Rangeela,
Not to get into a whole thing about prosititution, don't we all sell our services without selling our souls?

I like my career and it's something I do well (it's challenging, I like problem solving, organizing processes, etc.). However, I'm not 100% passionate about it. If I found a writing job that paid as well, I'd drop it in a heartbeat. I've often considered my computer/management skills to be "prostituted." I'm there, but I have passion, life and interests outside of it. I have friends who are passionate about their careers -- medical professions, technology. You can see their free time consumed by their passion. Therefore, they do this not for the money, but the love.

As for losing my soul for writing, I'm not there yet, so I don't know ;-)

What do you think?

Tracker said...
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