Ten in Ten: Back To Work

• Posted on 27th January 2012
• in Blog, Ten in Ten
• by Erin Blakemore

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Even though I’m regularly asked to speak on my perspectives on writing and literature, I never really feel qualified to do so. As is evidenced by ten blogs in a row about my writing process, it’s a tenuous and delicate and scary thing, so how could I ever master it? Luckily, I doubt I really need to. I just need to keep getting back to work, back to myself.

Rather than depressing me, a workmanlike (workwomanlike?) attitude toward writing keeps me going. It reminds me that I can improve with practice, that I need to plug away. Treating writing like work is not the most glamorous choice in the world (pro tip: neither is any aspect of writing, at least for me), but it results in writing that gets done with the minimum of fuss and emotional trauma. This is not to say that there is not emotional trauma galore in the process…how can you really get to readers if you don’t strip naked and wander around every once in a while? But for me, it always comes back to the work.

Luckily, I am a person who loves to work. I am a hard worker. This could be due to insecurity or incompetence or some other word that starts with “I”. I’m sure it’s safer for me to keep my identity as a worker instead of as an artist, but it works for now.

Might this change as I mature? I guess we’ll see. For now, there’s a big pile of work awaiting me—the work of finding myself and others on pages I create and the work of showing up for my work. That sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it? And yet I relish the rolling up of the sleeves. Who’s with me?

 

 

Tags: ten in ten, work, writing, writing process