This is my talented husband playing a Native American style flute on stage with Nino Reyos at the Moab Arts and Recreation center, for a flute festival which took place over President's Day weekend. I've been trying to have some kind of predictability to my posting, usually timing them to hit on either Sunday or Monday every week, but I dropped the ball this weekend. I was making new friends and renewing some old friendships, basking in the music and talent and positive energy of the people who make flutes and the beautiful music of those who play them. And I was blissfully off the grid, only checking the computer once to see if we should be trying to cross Soldier Summit in a snowstorm at 2 in the morning (we didn't--it turned out to be a wise choice).
When I write, I agonize over every word. I edit and re-edit and often end up completely scrapping things I'd spent a good deal of time on. In other words, my process is pretty slow and I'm hard on myself. There are times I'll go back and re-read some of these posts and think, "jeez, everybody knows this. Why do I bother?" There are times I feel like taking down everything I've ever written online and crawling back into my cave of relative anonymity.
Especially when I read something like this. It's Neil Gaiman's praise for Jonathan Carroll and other writers who inspire him, put so eloquently that it makes me want to bury my own keyboard and never write again.
Here's a snippet, but I encourage you to go and read the entire post:
There are millions of competent writers out there. There are hundreds of thousands of good writers in the world, and there are a handful of great writers. And this is me, late at night, trying to figure out the difference for myself. That indefinable you-either-got-it-or-you-ain't spark that makes someone a great writer.
And then I realise that I'm asking myself the wrong question, because it's not good writers or great writers. What I'm really wondering is what makes some writers special. Like when I was a kid on the London Underground, I'd stare at the people around me. And every now and again I'd notice someone who had been drawn - a William Morris beauty, an Berni Wrightson grotesque - or someone who had been written - there are lots of Dickens characters in London, even today. It wasn't those writers who accurately recorded life: the special ones were the ones who drew it or wrote it so personally that, in some sense it seemed as if they were creating life, or creating the world and bringing it back to you. And once you 'd seen it through their eyes you could never un-see it, not ever again.
There are a few writers who are special. They make the world in their books; or rather, they open a window or a door or a magic casement, and they show you the world in which they live.
As much as being in the presence of talented and loving people inspires me, it also brings all my insecurities to the surface. The comfort zone isn't very interesting, but it is safe.
Sorry for the personal wangst. I'll be back to my critical analytical wordnerdy self next post.
