Sunday, January 11, 2015

Art. Failure. Writing. Love. Confusion. Truth.

I'm not gonna lie.  The last couple of years have kicked my ass.

I've gone through just about every position a twenty-something can have in a literary agency without actually becoming a flat out agent - assistant, junior agent, office manager, royalties assistant/royalties manager...  I gained a lot of invaluable industry knowledge, and the certainty that I did not want to be in the business of selling other writer's books.

After that revelation came to me, I spent a lot of time frantically trying to figure out what I did want to do.  Write, was the first thing that came to mind, just like it's been the first thing that came to mind since I was twelve.  I like to think I'm smarter now than I was at twelve.  But really... not.  No, upon the decision that I would (once again) attempt to become a professional, paid storyteller...  I immediately set off to write a lot of stories carefully calculated to appeal to a mainstream audience and make me enough money to live off.

Head, meet wall.  You know the drill.

In short, I wrote a lot of things my heart wasn't in.  And because my heart wasn't in them, most of them turned out pretty shitty.  Yet I kept telling myself I had to keep going, because if I stopped, I'd never get anywhere, if I stopped, I'd end up working a job that made me miserable for the rest of my life...

At some point, I realized it wasn't just the job that was making me miserable.

Just me, as usual, trying to force myself to be something I wasn't "for my own good."

Why am I saying this?  Why am I typing out a pointless confession as if the internet is my own personal diary?  God, I wish I knew.  Call it therapy, maybe.  Self-therapy via internet.

All I know is this:  I want to be in love with what I write.  I want to laugh and bawl along with characters that seem more real to me sometimes than my own family.  I want crazy, dark, twisted, ugly, beautiful stories that make my heart feel like its breaking.

The Far Away Years was the first novel I ever wrote, and it ripped my heart out completely.  When I finished writing the first draft, I cried for a week because I didn't want it to be done.  Looking back now I see a flawed story.  But I still love it; I still love Danny and Jeff, and I still miss them.

I want that feeling back more than I want anything else.

So I'm trying a new thing now, that is somewhat of an old thing.  Going back to my roots.  I'm not the same writer I was ten years ago when the first words of The Far Away Years were written.  I'm not even the same writer I was when it was finally published six years ago.  I've lived more, loved more, hated more, cursed more, bled more.  But I'm ready to be that person again who says, fuck the mainstream, fuck my savings account, fuck everything.  This is what I love.  Beautiful or ugly, this is my art.

Don't get me wrong.  I still hope, someday, to make a living off my art.  As I embark on a new phase in my writing, I still have every intention of promoting and asking everyone I know to buy my books and be so kind as to consider reviewing.  But only as long as I can look at those books and say:  I love you.  You are the best and truest thing I was capable of in this moment.

Happy New Year.

~the long buried L.F. Blake, clawing her way to the surface again~

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