Getting Personal

Writing isn’t like other jobs. You can talk a good game about being professional, about putting your ego aside and not taking things personally. But let’s be honest: Writing, especially writing fiction, is personal.

When we dig into the unconscious, into our obsessions and dreams, or when we appeal to our imaginations, those things give us only what was there to begin with. We may not recognize half the things that we come up with, but they’re ours: They belong to us. Some of it’s painful; a lot of it is embarrassing. The very best things we write are a bit of both.

And that’s the good news.

After we’ve put our deepest selves on paper—dredged up all that dark, frightening, embarrassing matter—then, unless we are already hugely successful, we must submit ourselves to the slap in the face that is rejection.

For this we bare our souls?

No, not exactly. But we write to have our words read by other people, and that usually means to be published. Which means rejection, since, though the world badly needs many things, your writing (mine, too) isn’t one of them.

In a sense, every good writer has to be his own full-time therapist. And every good writing teacher should have a grasp not only of psychology, but of group dynamics, and must be prepared to salve bruised egos.

In this business, egos are bound to get bruised.

But before dealing with rejection and other matters unpleasant, I want to say a few words about the two things I love most in writing: setting and atmosphere.