How's Your Writer Morale? (David Intro) | The Weekly Atticus (05/04/2019)

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On his blog several years ago, Neil Gaiman wrote the following: "I'm writing. The pages are starting to stack up. My morale is improving the more I feel like a writer."I get what he's saying here. The stacking-up of pages can be a good feeling to have. It can go a long way to making one feel like a writer. But it's more than that, isn't it? It's not just the stacking-up that does it. It's the shape and substance of the stacking-up that contributes to an improved writerly morale, right? I've noticed this to be the case for me. Because look, I can certainly stack up a bunch of pages, if I want to. I really can. And I have. But that doesn't on its own, make me feel like a writer. And so, why not? My first instinct would be to say it's likely because they are incomplete pages. But I know that isn't entirely it because there have been times where I've produced pages and turned them into "a work" and a few people have even told me that work was "good," and yet—I have still not felt any more like a writer and my morale has not improved as a result. So what is it? If it isn't the stacking up and if it isn't the completing and if it isn’t in the outside validation, then what?I'm wrestling with this because, like Neil Gaiman wrote in that 2012 blog post, I'm writing again. Moreover, the writing feels like writing. And my morale as a writer has been improving as a result. And I came to this letter intending to tell you that. And that got me wondering, what has changed?  Why does now feel like writing when for much of the last few years it hasn't? I think what it comes down to is that when I feel like I'm writing it's due to some sense that I'm engaged in a process of successful assemblage. What does that mean? For me, writing essays is really an exercise in piecing together ideas. I agree with the camp that believes there are no new ideas. But there are new ways to fit them together so that they build some larger grand idea. To do that, you have to always be on the lookout for the idea puzzle pieces that are out there, laying around. You find them under couch cushions or hanging from shower heads or plastic diner booths and you pick them up and they seem like they might go together. So you store them in your velvet idea puzzle-piece bag and you bring them home back to your puzzle board and you try to put them together using all the words you can think of and sometimes they just won't snap together. So then you re-examine each piece and you think, Surely these must go together! Look how they are shaped, look how that curve seems to fit with that one! But no matter how many words you pull out of your head you can't get those suckers to snap into place without clumsy brute force and that never feels very good.Successful assemblage, however, is that OCD sense of fulfillment you get when you take idea puzzle piece A and snap it into idea puzzle piece B and it just fits. Ahhh, yes. And you feel good because you not only recognized the pieces would fit, but you lent your voice and rhythm to the fitting so that it became your own signature thing. Even if sometimes it felt like it was only the puzzle gods singing through you, at least you did a bang up job scribbling it down. In that blog post by Neil Gaiman, he republishes something else he had written previously where he says, "There are hundreds of thousands of good writers in the world, and there are a handful of great writers." The real question is not between  "good writers or great writers," he says. “What I'm really wondering is what makes some writers special." The special ones know when they've found good puzzle pieces. And they make those puzzle pieces fit and sing. And when the puzzle pieces don't fit, they wait and they keep looking.Thanks for reading. We're glad you're here.David OlimpioPublisher & Editor-in-Chief 

ATTICUS NEWS

Hey CNF writers! We're happy to announce our 2nd Annual CNF contest.Deadline is July 21st. First prize is $400!Final judge is Ira Sukrungruang.

THIS WEEK AT ATTICUS

Don't worry, your reputation is impeccable because you readFeral Town by Adam Gustavson:MARV

BOOK REVIEWFINDING COMFORT IN BRIEF, POETIC MOMENTSA Review of ALL THE WILD HUNGERS: A SEASON OF COOKING AND CANCERby Karen Babine from Milkweed Editions.Review by Donna Steiner"Babine has a deft touch with language and the ability to convey complex feelings with clarity."READ ON

FICTIONMEAT-EATERby Gary Fincke"It goes by 'Delicatessen,' 'Deli' for short and for obvious reasons. The girls refuse to call it anything but creepy."READ ON

POETRYMY STEPDADDIES DIDN'T KILL MEby George Drew"...my Southern stepdaddywith his Remington 16-gauge shotgunleveled directly at my heart, the only timeanyone ever threatened me with a weapon."READ ON

NONFICTIONTHE LAST ASSASSINby BK Marcus"To win, to be the last assassin standing, meant more than eliminating your targets; it meant staying alive while you did so."READ ON

FILM REVIEWENDGAME AND AMERICAN MYTH-MAKINGby Alison Lanier"That’s the nature of a phenomenon: it’s everywhere. It’s a story we’ve made sacred. Even if you’ve never seen one of the movies, you’re part of the world where this story is happening."READ ON

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