Some days I get so bogged down making the rounds of friends’ blogs, news sites and links from my Tumblr page that there is no time left for a post here. That is as it should be. Yesterday was one of those. Who knew that Millie of “My Boy Lollipop” did such a beautiful version of “Since I Met You Baby” and that Jacke Edwards, the male voice on her early records wrote this song. I had always thought it belonged to the Tex Mex border artists like Doug Sahm and Freddy Fender. Kevin is on a roll over at So Many Records.
Louise Wareham Leonard called my attention to a Louise Gluck passage on how writing never gets any easier. I find this fascinating because I recently had a conversation with Bill Keyser, a sculptor, painter and fellow art student at the Creative Workshop. He was telling me how he worries he is getting dependent on our teacher, Fred Lipp, and he wrestles with whether he should skip class for a while. He is torn because Fred has this amazing ability to always be there at exactly the right juncture to call your attention to the next concern. Only when you are ready to see it and be in a position to do something about it. Just when you think I’ve got it, this painting is done, Fred will turn your your head around.
I found this conversation so interesting, of course, because I have been there, still am. If you’ve read Louise’s piece you might want to take a look at this post I wrote a few years ago on the Midas Touch. Like Louise Gluck says “the fantasy exists.”
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chance favors the prepared mind.
This comment is not directed towards Louise Gluck. I have a lot of respect for her and can understand how writing poetry could be difficult but…:
I am seeing this meme about how difficult writing is, how painful, etc. all over the place but I can’t say that’s my experience. I enjoy it and sometimes wonder if a lot of this is being spread by writers who simply are making excuses for not writing. For me it’s 600-800 words daily (not counting the thousand I’m likely doing to make money a couple of times a week) without any second guessing until a draft is complete.
I read recently about a guy who took five years to write the first 100 pages of his first novel. That’s like one sentence a day! That’s nuts.