Bryan Russell (aka Ink) blogs at Alchemy of Writing. He is moderator/sheriff in the Forums and has my vote for Prime Minister of Canada
I had a very clear image, when I was young, of the path I was going to take. The Writer’s Journey. More specifically, the writer’s journey I would take, carefully laid out, 1, 2, 3, 4. It was a neat little trip. Very orderly. Very tidy. In high school, once I knew that yes telling stories is what I wanted to do, I decided to major in Creative Writing at University. Thus, The Plan: 1) Study Creative Writing. 2) Write A Book. 3) Get An Agent. 4) Get Book Published. (Yes, everything on the list was capitalized. This is Important Stuff)
And note the neatness! The tidiness! Note the lack of anything implanting itself between the end of University and the Glories of Publication!
I had a plan. It was very comforting, that plan. So I went to school, got good grades, wrote a few short stories, won some academic awards. 1… check. In fact, number 1 was so fun that I added 1b: Grad School. A Masters Degree and a chance to write a novel! I could squoosh 2 into 1b! Bonus marks for me. So Grad school and a novel.
Yet, somewhere along this path, I learned that writing was hard, getting an agent harder, and getting published even more so. But this was an abstract knowledge. Getting published was very hard, yes. You know, for other people. I had a plan, you see. It was right there on the list, number 4: Get Book Published. See? No problem. Obviously the whole idea of difficulty did not apply to me.
But, just to be safe, just to uphold the proper hardworking image, I got a degree in Education. A job! A career! But it was okay because I had my book. In fact, I had a few books. Peachy! Ahead of schedule. Here I was, just out of school, and I had books!
So I sent one of these books off to an agent and they said yes. This was good, and all according to The Plan. See? Right there, number 3) Get An Agent.
1, 2, 3. Neat and tidy. And then something funny happened, something… messy. We’ll call it 5) Life. And 5, let me tell you, was pushy. It would not stay in line. It had to jump in there ahead of 4.
There were lots of parts to number 5) Life, lots of addendums, provisos and postscripts.
I developed a disease, Colitis. And then my father died suddenly and everything went a little dark. There were shadows I had never noticed before, the weight of light shrugged off and forgotten. In these shadows it seemed hard to find words, to gather them in and set them down in neat little rows, the tidy rows I had always loved so much. And then my agent died, cancer stealing her away just when she was about to start submitting my novel.
5) Life.
Yet I had just gotten married. I bought a house, started a family, left one career and started another, having decided to open a little bookshop. There were lights in the darkness. And I remembered, always, a winter day just after my father died. Snow on the ground, the air sharp as a pine needle on cold skin. And the light, this slanted light coming down and refracting off the snow, a clean glow rising like mist and lingering in the air. So beautiful it ached, a permanent visual echo lodged in my memories… and I knew this was something important. Even here, on the far side of loss, there was beauty and light.
I began to write again, thinking of that halo of light over the snow. I put the old novel away. It wasn’t ready yet, anyway, agent or no agent. I’d rewrite it some day, but now I needed something new.
New books, new family, new store. New life, in a way, though forever tethered to the old. And now the process continues. I’m back at 3) Get An Agent. The list, now, is dirty, wrinkled, old. Well worn. I laugh at the Capitals. I know a little more about 5) Life. And, what’s more, I know a little more about writing. The two are not unconnected.
It’s a different plan, in many ways, a different understanding. Difficulty can apply to me as easily as it does to anyone else. Indeed, some have had it easier… though many have had it far worse. Yet that difficulty is part of my path. Perhaps I’m even better for it.
Still moving forward, full of hope.
And you? What keeps you moving forward on your path… or keeps you moving forward even when you’re off the path? I see clean light on snow. I see it and know there’s something yet to share, to say, to write. To live. And you?
TKAstle says
Thanks, Ink. Beautiful post. It is, for me, a timely point of light.
word verification: ullywoop – This word simply must be used in a children's book somewhere, yes?
Maggie Dana says
What keeps me moving forward? Reading posts such as this. I've bookmarked your site and moved it to the top (well, almost to the top) of the stuff I read every day.
Your talent inspires me.
Melanie Avila says
Beautiful post. I love your voice. 🙂
Seamus says
Writing has chosen an excellent evangelist in you, Ink.
I have had many plans, none of which involved writing. Yet, early in life, my mother instilled in me her love for the language and an affinity for the craft. Only now, at 52, do I realize this form of expression speaks to my heart. I hear her ghost in my voice and and feel her firm hand at my wrist as I do what now seems to be the most natural outlet of my life's engergies. And, yeah, life keeps happening as both an impediment and a fuel for this work.
Sandra G. says
What a beautiful post. Thank you for sharing your ups and downs, and thank you to Nathan for seeing fit to put this one on his blog.
This post is a must read for every aspiring writer, and has made me realize that it's okay to put the old novel and list away if neither speak of who I am now.
I also agree with other comments in that #3 and #4 are likely in your future.
Anita Saxena says
Thank you for sharing such a personal story. You never know what life has in store you. But I truly believe it has number four in store for you.
Ainsley MacQueen says
An image of ghostly waves of mist walking through driving rain, completely oblivious to the torrent trying to turn them from their path.
…nearly twenty years ago.
By the way, LOVED shrugging off the weight of light.
Anne-Marie says
Beautiful piece of writing.
What keeps me going is the yearning to write, despite all the great and sometimes not so great things life throws up at me.
Prime Minister Bryan. We had one of those once, and I could even see myself voting for this one.
Leslie Garrett says
I used to feel like a phony. Though I had published books to my credit (non-fiction, children's), I didn't think I could be a "real" writer because I hadn't suffered enough. I clearly spent too much time studying long-suffering poets/authors.
Now that I've 5) Lived and 6) Suffered I might have something more to say…but less time and energy to say it. Ah, the irony.
Kaitlyne says
This was a beautiful post. Just beautiful.
WhiteOpal says
Thank you Ink
That was an inspirational post and I have a few writer friends that are feeling a tad low with another rejection in the mail, so I will be forwarding this.
Life is something to be lived fully. The dark times only increase our appreciation of the good so we rise to meet those challenges head on. Experience shows us life can be even better after the dark.
Your post made me smile as it reiterated that as writers we are not alone when we sit at our desks creating our dreams.
Cheers
Shaista says
Shall I echo everyone and say this is a beautiful piece of writing? It is, it is. And the more I live, the less words I need to write. The beauty is all in the living 🙂
Patrice says
Oh my, Mr. Bryan Russell. 4) is coming your way. Right on schedule.
Steve says
I'm getting older, and someday I won'y be here. I don't want to go without leaving something worthwhile behind.
-Steve
Other Lisa says
Lovely post, Ink.
Me…I write in the dark times because unlike #5, I can control my writing.
JD Spikes says
Ink, if this post is any indication, you've found your calling. You touch writers' hearts AND the Universal heart with your words – they are both visual and emotional. Thanks for sharing. Nathan scores again with a guest.
Linguista says
Damned number 5! It gets you every time!
Great post!
Julie Henry says
I love this.
Linnea says
Thanks for the post. I almost packed it in last December. I'd accumulated tons of research material for a new historical novel, written the first couple of chapters and was well into my stride. Then our house burned down. Everything was lost and I was crushed. Much of my research couldn't be replaced, some of it found in hundred year old books that were no longer available. But I think we writers are a resilient bunch. I can't really say what keeps me going. My husband says I'm relentless. I prefer tenacious thank you very much.
Prime Minister? Maybe. What's your position on the HST?
Ink says
Linnea,
If I'm Prime Sinister, I get to keep the extra HST money, right? If so, I'm for it.
And I'm sorry to hear about your home. Maybe the solace is in the words, though. And I have a deep knowledge of, um, basketball history. In case that was your topic. I hear Regency is out and 60's basketball is in. I swear I heard that. No, really.
emery says
thank you.
Linda says
I needed your words today. Thank you… writing gets me through life, and life gets me through writing. Peace, Linda
therese says
Very tidy plan. 🙂
Mine has been 1,2,5,1,2, 2,5,1,2,1,2,5,1,2,5,2,2
It's possible I'll 1,2,4,3,4.
Of course there is more 5 on the horizon…
Lori Benton says
I chuckled at your plan. It was so like mine. 5 interrupted me at age 30, with cancer, right when the editors began to phone. I'm back though, with a few new perspectives, hopefully more wisdom, and a lot more patience. I wasn't ready then anyway. God knew.
kdrausin says
My life has been as messy as my high school Trapper Keeper. Writing was something I always did but never thought to pursue as a career until three years ago.
Your question-What keeps you going. I've been thinking about that. Determination and passion to have the freedom to do something I love as a career. Yes, that's it.
Beautiful post.
Rachel says
Love it.
God and Ponytails says
I'll be honest- often it is simply the weight of having something to say. Many days I don't want to say it- I don't even want to have something to say.
God and Ponytails says
I'll be honest- often it is simply the weight of having something to say. Many days I don't want to say it- I don't even want to have something to say. Thanks!
G says
Kewlness.
What keeps me going are two things:
1) prove everyone who doesn't like me wrong.
2) the enjoyment that other people that do like me or don't even know me get out of my writing on a daily/weekly basis.
annerallen says
Stark truths. Elegantly written.
Lisa R says
This is so beautiful and it really resonated with me on so many levels! I too had the same plan! I'm stuck on get an agent and LIFE keeps happening all around me and the dream I have of getting to the end–getting published–it comes and goes, waxes and wanes, ebbs and flows. I never expected to have a bunch of agents love my work but not want to sign me. I never expected to be in literary agent purgatory for 3 1/2 years but here I am. Meanwhile I met the love of my life, started a family, changed careers, bought a house and many, many loved ones have passed and there have been other dramas and stresses. At the end of the day it's very simple. Plan or no plan, I keep writing because it feels like breathing.
Ishta Mercurio says
Wonderful, wonderful post. #4 is definitely coming your way.
For me, I don't feel like writing is even a choice. It's who I am, and I can't help doing it any more than I can help breathing. I write every day, be it in front of my laptop or as part of my sons' bedtime ritual.
It's the "getting published" part that sometimes feels daunting, that life gets in the way of. But the writing is always there.
Dominique says
In a way, I feel I have 5) Life on a different list, a list all of its own with Life as the title. 1-4) are all on one list with Writing on the top. They're different plans happening at once.
Chumplet - Sandra Cormier says
I see the stars.
I know what it's like to be hip-checked off course by unexpected loss – maybe not to the same extent, but enough to make me pause and rethink where I want to be.
Donna Hole says
Way to go Bryan. I'm glad this one won, it was one of my favorites.
…….dhole
word verif: mushi. Well, it wasn't that mooshi, but heartwarming all the same.
Vacuum Queen says
Ink,
I had the Same Damn List!
Including the same 1b and the teaching degree. And number 5 snuck in there just like your number 5…not colitis, but LIFE issues including a sick child and soon after, a freakin' fire.
But now I'm retreating all the way back to just plain old writing again. Some things for purpose, but many things for none at all. Just telling stories.
I'm 40 which is apparently older than a first time publisher's age, but life is good now and so I feel much younger and fresh and new.
Maybe we'll both get through our list on our own terms this time, eh?
D. G. Hudson says
Great Post, INK. It happened to me too. Life gets in the way, but we find our way back if we want it bad enough.
mkcbunny says
Thank you for the beautiful, affecting post.
Life gets in the way, in both good and bad ways, but living life is what informs the writing and makes us better at communicating to others.
Claude Forthomme says
What a beautiful image, that halo of light on the snow…so full of promise…It echoes with another image I love – a famous song too – which calls for walking on the "sunny side" of the street…
Yes, writing is all about LIFE!
And congratulations for a wonderful piece of writing as I'm sure you know by now, having read all those comments! And all best luck to find a good agent (because that is what it is: a question of LUCK!)
TheUndertaker says
What a beautiful post. You should be a writer… : )
It would possibly be better than Prime Minister of Canada, with a 'voice' like yours. I LOVE the orderly, with capitalization. I just had dreams, as young (but I now at age 9 that I was definitely going to be a writer). I am finding my way back there now, slowly. I hate for the dream to die!
Anonymous says
I spent three years of my twenties taking care of my elderly father while he died of cancer. Somehow I also managed to start a wonderful career and marriage during that same time. Whenever things get dark, I remember holding his hands during his last hours of life, and I realize that nothing could ever be as terrible or as wonderful as that moment.
Thank you for a great post.
Shannon says
Really nice post, Ink. Whatever path gets you to your dream is the right path, because it's your path. You're right about Life and writing being intricately connected. To consider them mutually exclusive deprives both the writing and yourself. Best of luck to you!
jongibbs says
A mobving and thought provoking post.
Thanks for sharing 🙂
GhostFolk.com says
The perfect blog post, Ink.
Basil Zyllion says
Just what I needed to remind me what I need to do. I just had a swift kick in pants from life. But this helped me focus. Thanks Nathan, whoever you are!
Kathryn Magendie says
This is lovely lovely lovely . . .
I could talk about how life gets in the way, how the dark sludges over the light thick and old and nasty, until . . . well until it doesn't because sometimes you just get lucky or maybe you just take some action, or both. And you think: never too late, never too late…and you alter your plans just a little bit – maybe not exactly as you thought, but kind of cool and great all the same….so, I'm smiling as I write this and that's good.
Anonymous says
my list went something like this:
1. art/ study art /make art/ share it / make sense of life
2. fall in love / marry / have children/ a dog / a house
3. write a novel / write another novel / write write write /
4. dance and travel
5. laugh and be merry
6. dream / dream out loud
whoops, I forgot money. yikes.
7. money!!!! too! fitting in with all of the above.
Anonymous says
I thought your post was lovely too.
Michael Pickett says
Wow. Great post. I think I somehow got my hands on that same list when I was a kid. While getting my degree, I told people that I would need a day job until my writing career took off, but I held on to the secret wish that I would get published before graduating and never have to get a real job. Then, I graduated. No published books. No employable skills. Life is looming over me and now I'm in the process of climbing it.
L. T. Host says
Ink, you're one of my favorite writers. Nathan, represent this man and solve #3 for him already!
I didn't know you'd been through all this… how awful.