Living the literary life?

[Jozanny]

Well, I am cursing my memory. I wanted to recommend an interesting short work of criticism for you. It starts with an analysis of Homer and ends with the famous Macbeth soliloquy. I could swear that its non-fiction title was *The Song of Orpheus*, and I would recognize it if I saw it but haven't come up with it on the book sellers, so I cannot recommend what I cannot remember! But it was an exceedingly interesting book, merging classical respect with pyschoanalytic reassurance.

I missed my show over this, so good night, but if I come across it I'll let you know.

[stlukesguild]

JBI... I'm curious... and perhaps I should ask the same question of Petrarch's Love... just how one comes to specialize as such an age. The critic and the scholar are indeed very specialized fields of writing... yet, as JoZ suggested... fields with virtually no chance of the writer truly gaining recognition as a writer. You speak of the deconstruction... the habit of cutting up one's own work as readily as one tears up/analyzes/deconstructs the work of another. Certainly, such can prove a trap for the creative artist... an excess of self-consciousness or self-criticism can surely destroy any thoughts of originality.

[Etienne]

Certainly, such can prove a trap for the creative artist... an excess of self-consciousness or self-criticism can surely destroy any thoughts of originality.

That's a very good observation.

[JBI]

That's a very good observation.

Who knows - Nietzsche's Apollonian Dionysian seems to suggest something along those lines. Creating anything is still a very difficult thing to do, art especially. One needs to always be conscious of what is going into it, and how it will be received.

I write for my marks, and my marks depend on how well I write. Professors and teacher's assistants aren't stupid - you can't BS them and get away with it very easily. Critics, and audiences are the same.

No body likes rejection, or to be viewed as mediocre, or bellow perfect. Everyone works to achieve, or should work to achieve, the maximum. The problem is there is time, and other things - we cannot perfect anything. That's the problem - when I submit my essays, it is not because I think they are ready, or perfect, or that I have said exactly what I want to say exactly how I want to say it, but out of a time constraint. If everyone had the time to work, we would come up with very little.

That is probably why Yeats was such a good poet - he had time. He wrote two lines a day, and edited extensively. Elizabeth Bishop was the same way, if not even more meticulous. Yet the thing is, they didn't have the fear of being flat-out rejected, or of not having what to put on the table.

Creating anything that isn't generic is always a struggle. Whether critic or artist, though I think the artist has it a little worse since even if they succeed there is still the danger of economic failure, whereas the critic perhaps has more certainty.

[Etienne]

Well in the case of the work of a scholar (as opposed to the work of an artist) of course, the matter is different. I don't think that self-consciousness is bad, nor an excess of it, but that it becomes harder and harder to express one's creativity with it. Perhaps when it does come about the result is better? I don't know.

[JBI]

I guess so - I guess that is why I stopped writing verses a while back. It's a rather depressing feeling knowing that what you're writing is bad, and yet knowing that it will have to do. I just wish I could get a translation of Leopardi's Zibaldone, which is yet to be translated into English. From the clippings I've read that is perhaps the ultimate book on the subject.

[librarius_qui]

In my view, an artist (writer) creates what is important to be created, speak of what is important for humanity to know, think, change.

At least, my creative writing is ... well, I have some "stuff to sell", all right, that I won't, but that I registered, because I wished it to be out of my drawers, but I have some other things that, rather than selling, I'd like humanity to think about, concerning the times we live nowadays.

Creativity? ... It's a way of saying the things you have to say. If the things are important, they'll make a difference. For instance, I write about important (that I consider important) issues of my time, using fiction, and characters ... It's a way of saying something important. At the same time, I'm playing with narrative ... It's the funny part to me. And it's good, because it's important, it's funny, and it's about things I'd like to see happening.

My way of saying things is through narrative. I don't consider myself a poet, because all the "poetic" things I write are about myself, and usually has to do with state of mind, and affective concerns ... So, nobody has anything to do with it!

However, I have friends who ... ahm, try to say important things through poetry, and are somewhat successful. (However, hardly recognized as relevant, at this time ... And time only will tell, no matter I appreciate myself quite a lot the work of one of them.)

& I'm no critic at all!

At the moment, I only finished unimportant works, and have one important writing (the one I'd like humanity to consider ...) at half way ... Maybe I'll finish next Carnival hollidays, which are days I usually manage to stay at home, and do absolutely nothing, so I can write, and work on writing, at least for a few days.

Once I don't intend ever to live of this, I have a "common office worker life", which doesn't allow me to have more time to write. Sometimes I think with myself that it'd be interesting to have a life that allowed me to live free all the time, so that I could only write, but ... I think I'd never be able to live without working in any kind of business!

Anyway, my writing isn't meant to sell, and the ones I made for such purpose aren't good, in my own view. They're registered, I have a friend who keeps insisting on me, saying "hey, mate, I'd like to publish your stuff" -- however he doesn't wish to do it on his own, but that I pay to publish ... which is how he publishes this own writings, through his small publisher -- but, once I don't (nor want to) depend on this to live, I don't, and won't make it happen. It's registered already, so, it's public. If someone finds it, someday, and thinks "why, it's worth publishing this crazy guy's stuff!", let him do it. I'll be long dead, I believe! haha!

[Drkshadow03]

I don't really think there is such a thing as the "literary life." There is simply just life. Literature happens to be a major part of my life. My writing also happens to be a part of my life (though, not as big a priority as I should make it), but I see it as something between a hobby, passion, and extra I choose my own hours part-time job. I would give up both literature and my writing for other parts of my life in a heartbeat.

Want to write? Then write. Want to publish? Then publish. Learn the markets. Send your stuff out. Prepare to get rejected, and maybe you'll also get published once in awhile too.

When I was selected to attend the Clarion Science Fiction Writing Workshop one piece of advice Nancy Kress gave us was not to have Tolstoy syndrome. Just because you can't write like Tolstoy or Faulkner or whoever doesn't mean you shouldn't be writing or that your work isn't good, that attitude can lead you to be too self-critical. I know this happens to a lot of young writers. The key is to find your voice, and your vision.

As for JBI's comments, I think there is a difference between being a critic and the average well-read person. JBI's conflation of the two in the first couple of posts is strange to me. A critic writes criticism, and presumably does it for a job (but perhaps as a hobby, etc.). The well-read reader with a passion for literature reads without necessarily writing criticism, thus they are not a critic.

As for the critical life, that isn't any more glamorous. What is it you all think critics do most of the time? Write critical analyses and essays and books all the time? Yeah, over your summer break from school and when you take sabbatical. Opine about the merits of literary works? Write op-ed pieces in newspapers about the merits or demerits of Harry Potter? Yeah, maybe if you're an Ivy League Professor you'll have that opportunity.

In reality, Professors spend much of their glamorous life literary lives grading crappy student papers and filling out an endless sea of academic paperwork. Another large chunk of your time is spent in department commitees. Tell me, besides a few seminal literary critics (Harold Bloom, Camille Paglia, Northrop Frye), how many literary critics can most of you seriously name? Keep in mind when answering that question that there are hundreds if not thousands of universities just across America alone (plus all of the world universities) all with English departments (thus multiple critics), how many of you can name a huge chunk of these critics especially once you get outside the Ivy League? In honest truth, the public doesn't really care what literary scholars have to say. Usually only other literary scholars care what other literary scholars have to say. Also, good luck finding a job. The field right now is currently saturated with Ph. D.s in Literature. For any one tenure-track job you generally have anywhere from 300-500 applicants. Of course it depends on how specialized your field is. The general rule of thumb: the more recent the literary period, the more people applying for the job. 20th century has a few hundred more applying than a 19th century, which has more than medieval, etc.

I don't mean to come off as cynical about all this, but rather I haven't heard too much talk in this thread of the practical side of the so-called "literary life."

[kasie]

I don't really think there is such a thing as the "literary life." There is simply just life...... Want to write? Then write. Want to publish? Then publish. Learn the markets. Send your stuff out. Prepare to get rejected, and maybe you'll also get published once in awhile too.... Just because you can't write like Tolstoy or Faulkner or whoever doesn't mean you shouldn't be writing or that your work isn't good, that attitude can lead you to be too self-critical......The key is to find your voice, and your vision.......

Thanks, Drkshadow, for a common sense, feet-on-the-ground reply - I can't help feeling there has been a lot of ivory tower, Romantic (with a capital R) response to the OP's question. I'd like to think I've led a kind of Literary Life - I didn't give up reading when I left full-time education, neither did I cease to use my critical faculties; I even wrote a little and had a few pieces published. It went on as part of the rest of my life, working for a living, getting married, making a home, etc, etc, so that when and if I am defined in retrospect, I hope my obituary will include the words - '....and she loved books and was unstinting in sharing that love with all who knew her...'

[JBI]

Drkshadow - I trust the naming of literary critics is rhetorical? I could name perhaps 100 off the top of my head, most still living.

[mortalterror]

Mortal - I trust the naming of literary critics is rhetorical? I could name perhaps 100 off the top of my head, most still living.

I think you mean Drkshadow03. I don't believe I've commented on this thread yet.

I'm not a hardcore academic like Drkshadow or Petrarch, and I don't have a lot of stuff published like Jozanny. However, when I do get together with my friends who have English degrees we play frisbee. We play frisbee, and video games. We talk about movies, and how we all ought to be writing more. No Hemingway I.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Aghh, there’s always someone to come along and spoil illusion and fantasy, for me the world of the imagination is so much more attractive than harsh reality – if I had wanted harsh reality I would have joined a traffic warden forum or something equally tedious. We all know the realities of the literary life, it is just that some of us care not to voice them.

(Edit: in reply to DShadow)

[stlukesguild]

I'm not a hardcore academic like Drkshadow or Petrarch, and I don't have a lot of stuff published like Jozanny. However, when I do get together with my friends who have English degrees we play frisbee. We play frisbee, and video games. We talk about movies, and how we all ought to be writing more. No Hemingway I.

"When art critics get together they talk about Form and Structure and Meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine." - Pablo Picasso

Yes when my fellow artist friends and I get together we talk about women... and our wives... and politics... and our jobs... and art, art, art. Seriously, I think I do quite well at keeping my efforts as an artist moving forward... but I probably should give credit where it's due: having a large rent due each month for a studio space that I share with 3 other artists I find it quite impossible to justify that expense without making every possible effort to put it to its proper use.

[Jozanny]

I don't really think there is such a thing as the "literary life." There is simply just life. Literature happens to be a major part of my life. My writing also happens to be a part of my life (though, not as big a priority as I should make it), but I see it as something between a hobby, passion, and extra I choose my own hours part-time job. I would give up both literature and my writing for other parts of my life in a heartbeat.

Want to write? Then write. Want to publish? Then publish. Learn the markets. Send your stuff out. Prepare to get rejected, and maybe you'll also get published once in awhile too.

When I was selected to attend the Clarion Science Fiction Writing Workshop one piece of advice Nancy Kress gave us was not to have Tolstoy syndrome. Just because you can't write like Tolstoy or Faulkner or whoever doesn't mean you shouldn't be writing or that your work isn't good, that attitude can lead you to be too self-critical. I know this happens to a lot of young writers. The key is to find your voice, and your vision.

Despite the ongoing dismal implosion of my middle age, even though I know whatcha mean Drk, I disagree to the extent that there are events, episodes, that draw writers and artistic persons together, like the Bloomsbury group, aside and apart from the business of freelancing itself.

I don't know how many of this episodes truly did anything for me in a spiritual-imprint sort of way, other than my obsession with the Irish Shakespearean. There was Alexandra, who did me a lot of promotional favors in terms of getting me noticed as a creative force in Philadelphia, but she's dead. There was my click @ Poets & Writers, but that's dead, even if I stop taking it personally and blindly start giving the organization money again, sometimes what you had can't be rebuilt.

I don't know how much work I will physically be able to do between now and February, since my Quickie is dead too, and it is going to be quite a piss in the pot until I have the evaluation done and the new model in, and with all this I don't know how much I trust my uncle and his pull with Mainline Medical if I chose to give him the bid. But the service coordinator who gave me a loan power chair that I can barely use made my day when she blithely dropped the news that my former co-worker died this week. Quite a shock, as she was the nice one who truly offered me the only empathy I was going to get when her boss who was my ex-boss did a classic number on me.

This wasn't news I needed this afternoon, which is why I hate service coordinators.

I am no longer sure how to have faith in my own strength for renewal. I am getting too old for this.

[JBI]

I think you mean Drkshadow03. I don't believe I've commented on this thread yet.

Yeah, was confused by the identical post-count.