Monday, June 7, 2010

Talking to F. Scott Fitzgerald (and praying he won't answer back)

I had a bad night last night. It was one of those nights where I suddenly began doubting my abilities as a writer. I was reading these F. Scott quotes online, and he was talking about writing and how it should be done and who should do it. It really upset me, actually, and I reread the story I was working on extremely critically and considered just giving up on it. I remember at one point I rolled my eyes towards the heavens (and F. Scott, I assumed) and said quietly, "What do you know? I know you were a great writer, and that as a result you obviously know quite a lot about your craft, but what right do you have to define my career, or even my state of mind concerning my career?" After that I rolled over and read my book until I fell asleep.

The lesson here? Well, there are a few.
1. Talking out loud at 1 a.m. to long dead authors is probably the first sign of madness.
2. No one (dead or alive) should be able to make you feel a certain way about yourself and your abilities. It's perfectly natural to have influences, but in the end it should just be you and your talent standing alone and confidant.

There's my nightly revelation. Let's move on to some morning talk. Early, early morning talk, that is.
Tomorrow Tim and I are driving down to Morris to help incoming freshman register for classes. We're doing it as part of our OGL (orientation group leader) duties.
I'm excited for this. Not only will it be nice to see Tim again, but it will be extremely nice to be back in Morris. I miss it there. I really, really do.
What aren't I excited for? Waking up at 3:40 a.m. in order to be at the school where we're meeting at 5:20 a.m. in order to be in Morris at 9:00 a.m. But it'll all be worth it, I think.

Do you know why you shouldn't assume?
Because it makes an ass out of you and me (look at the word).
Excuse the profanity (my first in this blog, perhaps?), but I recently figured out this saying, and I wanted to clarify for anyone else who's missed the boat on it. Clever, isn't it?

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