REMEMBERING THE JOY

What moments of your writing life stand out in your memory? For me, it's the time a character named Will, intended to be very secondary, leaped off the page, his brown eyes smiling, the lilt in his voice still so real that I smile when I think of him. I discovered Will was Irish, never intending him to be so, and from that moment, it took every ounce of strength I had not to turn that book into Will's story.

And then there's the time I was literally sobbing while writing a scene, tears pouring down my cheeks--but I couldn't stop typing to blow my nose because all that was too secondary to the emotion flooding through me. My poor husband chose that moment to call, only to be greeted by a wife, sobbing, "You're the only thing that matters, you know that, don't you?" The client in his car probably wondered at the expression on his face, but my husband took it like a champ.

Or what about the bittersweet moment of typing "The End"? I'm always both thrilled and deeply saddened at saying goodbye to these people with whom I've lived and breathed and cried and laughed.

Remember those moments. Hold them close to your heart. When the business end of publishing, whatever your level at the moment, threatens to overwhelm you, fall back on them. Taste them, smell them, drink in the pure joy of them. If we let the brutality of this business make us forget why we write, we've lost too much. The price is too high.

Oh, the temptation is real and ever present. All of us, regardless of our point on the spectrum, have hurdles to surmount. It may be that first time when you, a total newbie, first realize just how long the odds are against getting published. It may be the moment when you, a multi-published author hoping to make your first national list, hear that a friend has hit it with her first release. It may be when your editor leaves and you find yourself orphaned, or when your publisher finally throws the support you've prayed for behind you--and now you feel like your career is on the line.

It can be that first rejection letter--or the thirtieth. The book of your heart that doesn't sell through worth a flip after you crawled over broken glass to get it bought. The year you enter three books in the RITA and none of them makes the finals.

Heartbreak is everywhere around us. No matter where we are on the ladder, there's always another rung to climb, another expectation to meet. We are artists, cursed with wanting recognition. We all too often let others define us, work so hard at reaching out for the brass ring that we are often in danger of forgetting why we got on the carousel in the first place.

We are there because we can't NOT write. If that's not true of you, then leave now. If you can walk away easily, do it, because this business requires commitment of a scope that can eat your heart out. It is likely to be one of the biggest gut-checks of your life. There's nothing wrong with writing as a pleasure activity--just don't kid yourself that you'll get published.

But at the same time, the very level of commitment, of death-defying leaps through rings of fire that success in publishing can require, can chip away at your soul if you let it.

Been there, done that. All too often. I think all of us struggle with balance. We have families and lives and loves--and the publishing gods couldn't care less. It's up to us to remember the old saw, "Life is what happens when you're busy making plans." Another one I heard recently that I'm cherishing is "Worrying doesn't take care of tomorrow's problems--it only destroys your ability to enjoy today."

As a championship-caliber worrywart, I can attest to that. The more time I spend on this ladder, the more I realize that caring for yourself is essential. Our souls need nurturing. Our egos need stroking. Sometimes, that's up to each of us. Lacking anyone else to say, "You're talented, you're wonderful, you're the best," we must have the reserves to hang in there until we feel it ourselves. We must be able to define ourselves at many stages of that ladder and not depend upon our agents, our editors, our readers or our fellow writers. Deep inside each one of us, we need to be able to dig down and believe, hanging on by our fingernails, if necessary, to the faith required to keep going.

And that requires remembering why we started writing in the first place. Remembering the day that I discovered Will was Irish and first heard his lilt. Remembering the moment when a scene made you cry. Remembering the pumping of blood, the excited step as we walked away from a good day's work.

Remembering the joy. Remembering the thousand and one emotions this writing world incites, the love of our characters, the challenge of tackling something scary, the thrill of taking a leap off a cliff and finding out you could do something you never dreamed possible.

We are creatures of many moods, we writer types, more sensitive than most. It is our curse and our blessing that the very thing that makes us able to cause other people to laugh and cry is also what makes us struggle to handle the callous business end.

But would you give up any of it for a saner, more stable life? I have to say I wouldn't. I've never been more terrified, but I've never felt more exhilarated, never more alive. The bad moments are horrible, but the joy is sublime. We can let it beat us down or we can let it lift us up.

I can live in either reality.

I choose the joy.

© 2003 Jean Brashear