The Doldrums (Jillian)

This winter has been hard, I’ll not lie. You might have sensed it in the gaps between my posts, hovering there like some solemn, unspoken word. Michelle and I decided long ago that Daedalus Notes was a place to talk about writing, not to spill out the minutia of our private lives. But there are a few things, more personal than the norm, of which I’d like to share here today, because they are relevant to the writer’s life. Painfully relevant.

Long story short, this was my second time applying for MFA (that is, Master of Fine Arts) programs in Creative Writing. For years now, I thought the best way I could use my writing would be in academia, as a teacher of creative writing, as part of a creative think-tank alongside other writers. This is also my second time weathering the unpleasantness of rejections from the list of those universities: dismissals in the form of one-page form-letters, some more sympathetic and truthful than others. It is the same bitter taste of rejections from publishers, from potential employers. Not only is it a rejection of me, but of my life’s work. And in this case, indifference makes a deeper impression than outright dislike of my writing.

I write about this today because this is a reality for writers and artists. We write and bleed our souls out onto paper, poke and prod, knead and sculpt, and nip and tuck away at it for years until we have a manuscript or a substantial writing sample, a finished product. And when we send it off, we may be brimming with hope, but it is very rare that publishers or fellowship committees will snap it up with wild enthusiasm, offering a book deal with splashy cover art and an advance on our next endeavor, or an opportunity to dive into a writing community teeming with the world’s freshest wordsmiths – all by the time we’ve reached twenty-five. It almost never happens. And it hurts like utter hell. Like a door slamming shut in our face.

Last year, the MFA affected me in the most perverse way imaginable: I didn’t work on my novel very seriously for four months. I say perverse, because not writing is unnatural, paralysis for a creative being. Yes, I filled three legal pads with journal musings and anecdotes, but it was not my heart’s desire. There was a sort of transparent but rigid layer of shame around my will to work on my novel, to approach by beloved characters. It would take well into the summer before I began to trust myself again. During that time, my novel sat idle, and I had no energy. It was the Writing Diaspora. I called it doldrums. Or, as it is better known, writer’s block.

This year, having been through these waters once before, I am determined to take another course, and steer around the placid-but-dangerous doldrums. I do so by diving into writing, instead of struggling away from it.

Novel. Blog. Journal of seasonal musings. My collection of words. My emails. Little seedlings of stories and proto-novels. Write, write, write until the calluses on my pen-hand ache, until my eyes strain from squinting at the computer screen, until I collapse of hunger! WRITE! And don’t look back!

This is one thing that cannot be stripped from me: my identity as a writer. The MFA is not a license to write. I am not one who happened to catch the eye of a top creative writing program; I am one who earns a quiet living as a receptionist and retreats home to her creations. That is my little story. After all, we cannot all have glamorous beginnings. Nor must we. Our calling is to write, whether or not the world can see us.

I write knowing that sometimes I must create my own wind to fill my limp and lifeless sails, stir up lively waves to pull me back onto the open sea. And there I go.

So there it is, friends. Write out the doldrums. Make them your blank canvas. Fill it with life!