{"id":19,"date":"2012-04-19T13:12:33","date_gmt":"2012-04-19T13:12:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grimaulkin.com\/ljacob-today\/?p=19"},"modified":"2012-04-19T13:12:33","modified_gmt":"2012-04-19T13:12:33","slug":"pain-and-the-writer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grimaulkin.com\/ljacob-today\/?p=19","title":{"rendered":"Pain and the Writer"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. <\/em>
\n Red Smith<\/em><\/p>\n

In the most recent episode of Mad Men<\/em> (the only TV show I watch), \u201cSignal 30\u201d, Roger Sterling calls Ken Cosgrove into his office and tells him that he can\u2019t write anymore because it divides his attention from work.<\/p>\n

Immediately, I felt a stab in my heart.\u00a0 I understand in the \u201860\u2019s this was probably par for the course for managers to tell people how to spend their off hours (the early version of \u201cwork-life balance\u201d?), but to tell a writer to stop writing?\u00a0 Might as well tell a pious person to stop praying.<\/p>\n

Yet in the last scene, we see Ken working on his next story.\u00a0 Stick it to \u2018em, Ken!<\/p>\n

This partially segues into what I\u2019m going to talk about next.<\/p>\n

A writer writes because that is what they do.\u00a0 Yet, in some cases, it\u2019s painful.<\/p>\n

I found out when talking to someone yesterday that one of the reasons I create worry and anxiety for myself is because I\u2019m looking for story ideas.\u00a0 There is always the \u201cwhat if\u201d.\u00a0 What if I do this wrong?\u00a0 Ever see the commercials for Direct TV, where it starts off that you can\u2019t find anything on the TV and the guy ends up homeless?\u00a0 This is my worry spiral.<\/p>\n

Yet, in there, is a story.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s often a good story.\u00a0 I can know the feelings, the emotions, of someone who is on the edge of a cliff and can describe it.\u00a0 I can sense the near-end of something, and how that feels.\u00a0 I can wallow in it.\u00a0 Sit on it, ruminate over it, and see the story in there.<\/p>\n

Of course this isn\u2019t good for my psyche!<\/p>\n

It hurts sometimes when I don\u2019t write.\u00a0 There\u2019s a story there, just at the edge of the mists, and I can see it, but it\u2019s jumbled.\u00a0 I can\u2019t write down summaries of stories; I need to have a story in relatively full cloth, or at least know where I\u2019m going with it.\u00a0 One-sentence ideas are not stories \u2013 they\u2019re teasers.<\/p>\n

I wonder how many writers cause themselves pain and torture when they even live throughout the day?<\/p>\n

No wonder Hemmingway and so many other great writers drank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. Red Smith In the most recent episode of Mad Men (the only TV show I watch), \u201cSignal 30\u201d, Roger Sterling calls Ken … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grimaulkin.com\/ljacob-today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grimaulkin.com\/ljacob-today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grimaulkin.com\/ljacob-today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grimaulkin.com\/ljacob-today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grimaulkin.com\/ljacob-today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grimaulkin.com\/ljacob-today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20,"href":"https:\/\/grimaulkin.com\/ljacob-today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions\/20"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grimaulkin.com\/ljacob-today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grimaulkin.com\/ljacob-today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grimaulkin.com\/ljacob-today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}