Stories come to us as wraiths requiring precise
embodiments. Running seems to allow me, ideally, an expanded consciousness in
which I can envision what I'm writing as a film or a dream. I rarely invent at
the typewriter but recall what I've experienced. I don't use a word processor
but write in longhand, at considerable length. (Again, I know: writers are
crazy.) - Joyce Carol Oates
For as long as I can remember, I
have wanted to write, had the urge and desire to create works that would convey
depth, emotion and experience to the reader, to make them think, feel and
react. It has been something I have
worked at for a long time, with small bursts of success here and there, most
often in terms of my professional life, where my ability to turn a phrase or
summarize a technically complicated idea into a concise and salient point will
be met with a “good job” by a co-worker or supervisor. When it comes to my personal writing,
however, I have been lax as of late.
While I have participated in National Novel Writing Month (an exercise
that challenges one to write 50,000 words in 30 days during the month of
November) for the last five years and “won” (completed the challenge) four of
those years, I have failed to keep up with the momentum that the daily practice
affords me, and reading through the process as described by Joyce Carol Oates
in “To Invigorate Literary Mind, Start Moving Literary Feet”, was a refreshing
and completely identifiable description of the task of writing and the necessarily
solitary practice it is.
Oates, one of America’s most
prolific and varied writers, is a master of the written word. Even the article is poetry on the page, and
pulls the reader in to the scene she sets as she compares the practice of
running to the practice of writing. Her
descriptions of the “mindlessness” of running, of how it is in and of itself a
meditative act that affords her the opportunity to lose herself in thought, is
one that I believe many writers would agree with, because it is often within
the mundane tasks of day to day life that the little bursts of inspiration can
materialize and demand attention be paid.
It is often when one’s mind is engaged in something that is so automatic
that the freedom to create, to imagine worlds and characters, can rise up.
As I have progressed in this course
and reflected more and more on the use of social media by writers and readers,
it appears that while the process Oates details still remains solitary and meditative,
the ways in which those works are consumed, interpreted and disseminated has
changed. Between Facebook, Twitter and
blogs, as well as other platforms, writers have a myriad of ways to market
themselves and their work, a task traditionally handled by publishing companies. As the world of self-publishing has boomed, writers
who are truly motivated to get their works in as many hands as possible are
driven to get their names and works out among the worldwide audience available
to them via the Internet, and the possibilities are almost limitless. A quick review of the books listed on the
Amazon Kindle application bears this out, as many writers have chosen to forego
the traditional publishing route and utilize services provided by on-demand
publishers such as Amazon Kindle Direct, Lulu, etc. Just as the internet has given power to the
reading audience to comment and determine which entertainment products might be
successful, so to have these new tools available to writers allowed them to
market their books directly to audiences that might have an inherent interest
in their works. Through my own presence
within vegan groups on social media, I have discovered many cookbook and animal
rights authors that I might not have otherwise known about any other way,
because these authors make themselves open and available via social media as a
way to connect with their target audience.
Reference:
Reference:
Oates, J. (1999, July 18). To invigorate literary mind, start moving
literary feet. The New York Times.
Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/library/books/071999oates-writing.html
