It is wonderful to be in a group, feel part of something bigger, know that there are others wanting the same thing, striving, working hard. It’s warm it’s fuzzy cuddly comfort. But writing is not that, it’s solitude and solipsism, it’s feeling like the planet Jupiter knowing that from outside you look like a speck and will for some time. Writing is continuous chatter not on facebook or twitter, it’s continuous chatter inside your own thick, thoughtful head. But even the hermit is part of a group of hermits, outcasts and eccentrics defined by their being borderline and beyond. There may not be any escaping from group in the end – even if it’s the group of failed writers. (Though as long as you’re writing you will not be a failed writer. Doing what you love constitutes success, not failure.)
(Taken from the missing metazen photo journal titled “people that time forgot”) Metazen editors working as a team to save body and soul of an author after rejection by another literary magazine. Notice how seamlessly they collaborate to guarantee publication of the finest storytelling and poetry. Later at camp, they will feed the writer warm drinks and good food, patch him up and send him back into the battle of wills and writing wonders where no man’s an island entire of itself.
(photo/caption reposted from metazen blog)
Beautifully put. I read this about an hour after getting a rejection that they spent all of 4 seconds (yes, I could tell) viewing. This made me smile because there really are some great editors out there and metazen has their fill.
As a reader, I appreciate lots of different writing. I am thrilled with Metazen for it’s diversity, it’s quirkiness and it’s wit….it’s like chicken noodle soup when you are needing a hug.. It always hits the spot! THANK YOU Metazen!
Thank you Flawnt. This is just so nice. To take writing seriously is to take a kind of madness seriously. Hard and burdensome injections amidst total aloneness. You never even know if you’re striking the page right.
Oooh, how lovely – virtual hugs while we hook our minds onto very long lines and cast them into the realm of the fruitcake. But we aren’t alone; even the hermit’s thought and breath will leak and sneak out to join the airy community above us, from which ideas rain. It’s inevitable that we will mingle. Out there, s’all carbon soup. In here, silicon soup. Thoughts swimming rivers, thoughts surfing waves. Specky e-hugs right back atcha.
(Frank – you are. The page, I mean).
‘…it’s continuous chatter inside your own thick, thoughtful head.’ Well said, FF.
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Even the hermit is a part of a group of hermits — I like that.
Thanks FF for this great post. It made me laugh