Coffee in the morning. No cream. No sugar. Just the white mug and the black liquid inside. Another day without the desired success, what would be considered superfluous to some, to them marks the boundary of a life. The writer has not yet gained the privilege of bad verse. They have not been blessed with the time for cleverness. All there is to do is to continue writing, and hope that discovery will not be long. Discovery is not guaranteed. Even after it, there is still the risk of a disintegration where, as soon as they achieve that desired success, they are picked apart and the boundaries of a life once again disappear.
Immerse the dream.
Drench the kiss.
Dip the song in the stream.
from 'Lethe' by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Here's what we can say is true. If you are writing with any sort of artistic imperative, there will be a time at the beginning of this pursuit where you will be heartfully encouraged, in some cases almost gratuitously so. Some may even experience this before they have confirmed in themselves that this is what they want to do. This is a trap. That isn't to say you shouldn't still try, but when you have those thoughts of, Maybe this will be different for me, or if you find validation that your purpose has been accepted, it is better to retain a healthy amount of paranoia until true sentiment is revealed.
For those who are confronted with this early on, try to find solace in the fact that you have avoided some deception. It may not be premeditated, but it still appears, after the first, when any hint of a guarantee can be perceived. Then, those who encouraged at the start will disappear. The writer, young in their discovery, begins to feel the first moments of disillusionment. They will ask themselves questions, Was I lied to? Am I delusional? If I am delusional, why didn't anyone tell me the truth and save me from myself?
So do not weep over the horrors of war
Before we had only the surface
Of the earth and the sea
Afterwards we'll have the abyss
What's under the ground and skies full of airplanes
from 'War' by Guillaume Apollinaire
So you progress. You say, Alright, I knew this could happen. I was prepared for this possibility. And some will be. A slow interspersion of talent begins. There is no secure plan for it. Even those who have the most success cannot tell you why they are there other than what they wrote was good. Some will invoke luck, some will invoke ability. What we're trying to draw attention to are the others, those who might have similar ability but, for one reason or another, can find no space within this writerly space. If they do not exist, so be it. The hypothesis is proven false. This feels disingenuous, however, as it seems to imply that the system is working exactly as it will work and there is no other possible function for it. Those who are there are supposed to be there. Those who are not, are not. What other mechanisms work with such obvious perfection?
And now it's time to get the fuck out
Of this beautiful pointlessness.
from 'Cimitière du Montparnasse, 12ème Division' by Frederick Seidel
Perhaps we're looking at the wrong thing, and so we are so consistently disappointed. Sometimes the easiest answer is the correct one. We can't help but feel some are hoping for that; that the failing writer will recognize on their own time that they're just not that good and then no one will have to confront them about it. Unfortunately, that logic often fails to define within itself what defines the work as good or bad. The words themselves are helpful in that they are efficient, but they often fail to describe something with any significant vivacity.
Someone should write a book. It will be titled, "Call The Bad Work Bad." A host of politicians and quiet academics and marginally published writers will breathe a collective sigh of relief. They no longer have to patronize the work of those they find cute but otherwise uninteresting. The irony then is that they do not see the host of individuals sitting across from them thinking the same thing. A student, unaffected by the seemingly "fantastic" work of their professor, no longer has to pay lip service to something they intuitively recognize as boring.
What is the warning then? Know where you are and why. Not why in the sense of, what put you there. The internal why. Why are you doing what you doing? Why is it important to you? If you can't answer that then the derision of time will eventually leave you conquered, unable to continue. A second, that derision will never come as expected. Even when the issues of writing have been so excessively stated within the culture as to be considered cliche. When writing, know that achievements in a mirror are never as close as they might appear.