The Myth of the Sacred Writing Space

            Someone messaged me on Facebook—one of those mass messages sent by a stranger to a bunch of other strangers—asking if I’d contribute to her blog about “Sacred Writing Spaces.” Well, I had to go be overcharged for a pre-peeled orange at Whole Foods and get my Chakras aligned (I’d had a blowout earlier on the highway and had to have one of them replaced) before I could answer. Maybe Mercury was in retrograde, but I wasn’t feeling it. I wrote her back and said I didn’t really think I had anything to say she’d want to hear, in the politest way possible, though I thanked her for asking. The truth is, after publishing a dozen books with a couple more on the way, I don’t have a Sacred Writing Space. I used to, back when I didn’t actually write or have a life. But I’m a single dad, working three jobs, living in a cramped apartment I can barely afford.  I write when I can, where I can, and with whatever time I can scrounge.

            The idea of a Sacred Writing Space reminds me of those people who drive three blocks to the gym to run on a treadmill, the kind of people who buy special pans to cook eggs. It stinks of bourgeois privilege and spiritual laziness. But wait, says you, how is a Sacred Writing Space spiritually lazy? It’s a spiritual space; it’s got the word “sacred” in it! Well I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but no, it’s not. In the same way that one doesn’t need to go to church to be religious, that church can actually get in the way of spirituality sometimes, one doesn’t need a sacred writing space to be a writer. The idea that it’s essential—she didn’t ask if I had one, she assumed it. All real writers must have one, right?—is damaging because it’s setting up a situation in which this space becomes a crutch. If I can’t get away from the world and focus on my Art, well, I can’t be a writer. It’s more of a status symbol than a tool.

            Now, I’m not saying the opposite is true, that a person who has an SWS isn’t a “real,” OG writer, though I may be implying that I can beat them at arm wrestling. But you know what? People who do, they’re doing fine in life. They’ve had some breaks. They don’t need to be coddled, so let’s set them aside. Maybe they worked hard for it, and that’s great. Go sit in it and enjoy. Have a scone. I’m talking about the implication that it’s necessary, that a person can’t write or do any kind of art as part of their normal, let’s be honest, working class, lives. I reject this idea, not just because of philosophical differences, but because I’ve had to. I don’t have time to sit for five hours while the morning light makes up its mind to flutter in through my hand-made curtains (ordered from Etsy) in my Writing Nook, as I sip coffee whose beans have passed through the digestive system of Venezuelan monkeys and been sifted out by workers paid a fair wage—though really, what would be a fair wage for that, one wonders? I write in the living room when my daughter has finally gone to sleep, while my own eyes droop, and I know I’m going to pay for it tomorrow. It means I don’t get to read as much as I’d like, go to movies, ever, or just relax. I write on my lunchbreak, a sandwich in one hand, typing with the other, ruining the keyboard, I’m sure, with the crumbs. I jot down ideas longhand in the parking lot while I wait for my shift to start and passersby look at me strangely. Sometimes I don't write because I don't have time. There’s an implied bias in the idea of an SWS, that I’m not a real writer because of this, that I’m somehow lesser. And I’m not just talking about me. I’m doing okay. I’m having a scone, as we speak. I’m talking about women throughout history who weren’t born rich, who were expected to dedicate their lives to others. The idea of an SWS might seem like a reaction to that—now, they have time and can focus on their own pursuits--but you know what? There are still plenty of women, and men, and non-gender identifying people, who haven’t achieved that kind of luxury. How many of them might be encouraged to steal some time to write if they only thought it was legitimate? I have known them. I have met them. I have loved them. I have been them, people who thought you have to go to college to be a writer, you have to have been born in a certain place, you have to have time, because those are the prevailing myths. They’re the ones I care about, and their stories, I think, are a hell of a lot more interesting than some time-travelling lycanthropy romance or Great American Novel written in a Sacred Writing Space by someone who didn’t have to fight for every second it took to write it.

          I could really go for a pre-peeled orange right now, though.

-CL Bledsoe   

Books in Progress

I was thinking I need a list somewhere of manuscripts I've completed or have almost completed, but that haven't been published. So feel free to skip this. Most of these titles are placeholders.

Novels
Completed:

A History of the Standard Oil Company On the Moon
A Quarrel of Feathers
Ship of Fools
The Devil and Ricky Dan
Cities On the Moon
Goodbye Mr. Lonesome
A Mischief of Rats
The Saviors (was forthcoming but the press folded)
Odysseus Among the Swine
Sheriff Comes to Zombietown (sequel)
Damaged Seeking Same

In Progress:

Untitled 4th Necro-Files book (50,000+ words)
Beelzebubba
Jubal's Daughter
Flying Dog

Partial Maybe Something Draft:

Not a Princess
Hood
Whitey
Untitled Rice Farming x2
New Madrid
Frankenstein story
Music version 1
Memphis serial story http://www.troubadour21.com/category/series/river-city-blues/
The Cypher

Story Collections
Completed:

Air Is Seen through Motion Not Form
Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down
How to Buy a House
Nobody's Darlings
Naming the Animals (out of print, could use expanding/reissue)

In Progress:

Solum Stories
Weird Arkansas Stories

Poetry Collections
Completed:

The King of Loneliness (forthcoming)
Driving Around, Looking in Other People's Windows (forthcoming?)
Arkansas
You Hated Us for Our Wings, So We Never Flew

In Progress:

The Cypress Trees (sequel to Riceland)
E. Poems
Collaborative Project
Untitled Persona Poems
War Poems
Prose Poems

Other
Waiting for the Miracle (essay collection)
10 (1-act plays)

Couple poems in The Potomac

http://thepotomacjournal.com/issue17/Poetry/bledsoe.html

The Night Was Moist

Someone approached me recently wanting to co-write a screenplay. I've done a bit of collaboration, so I was open to the idea. This wasn't someone I knew particularly well, and as we talked, I mentioned that I'd written a few scripts in the past but hadn't done anything with them. This seemed to astound this person. "They're just sitting on your hard drive?" He asked, as though I'd cured cancer but forgotten to tell anyone. 

My response was one I felt didn't even need to be said: basically, I've written a lot of stuff, and most of it I've never sent out or shown anyone. At this point, I've published eleven books and have two more forthcoming. After the conversation, I dug around and discovered around thirty pretty much complete manuscripts--poetry collections, short story collections, and mostly novels. I couldn't say how many unfinished ones I've got. I didn't count screenplays, but I've written maybe four or five complete ones. It's a relatively new pursuit for me. So what? I've been writing seriously for fifteen years. I would hope to have amassed a decent amount of material.

I was met with not just amazement but disdain. The guy acted like I was lazy and woefully disconnected from reality. "I would have those scripts in the mail," he said. "Are they any good?" Hard to say, but I was happy with a couple of them. "Send them out," he said. Didn't I realize that I could be signing a multimillion dollar production deal right now instead of wasting my life?

That's when I realized two things. One, I wasn't going to be working with this person. Not just because he clearly had a bad attitude, but because of reason two, which is: he's not a writer. Not really. Maybe he will be someday, maybe he's just starting out, whatever. But at the time of this conversation, this guy was not a writer. If he were, he would know that writing isn't about creating a finished project to sell, a screenplay to send out. If it were about that, well it would be a hell of a lot easier. Writing is a compulsion. I read updates on FB from writers saying things like, "I got to 40,000 words. I guess this might be a novel." I imagine a statement like that must be confounding to this person. What it means is that sometimes you write nearly two hundred pages (that's probably close to a couple months commitment) before you even know if you've written anything worth editing. Or, sometimes you write a whole novel, sometimes you write ten novels, and they're just not on the level of your other work. It doesn't mean they're bad. It can mean a lot of things. Maybe they're too personal. Maybe they're just not right. Maybe they're good, but this other manuscript is better, so you focus your energy on that one.  

I'm not saying that writing is a magical unicorn fart and we must all attune ourselves with the crystalline energies of its, like, inspiration, man, and not get bogged down in that whole money thing, ya dig? The hope is always that something really good and, hey, lucrative, emerges from the word pit. Of course. But you never really know until you...well, actually, you just never really know. I've heard writers say they regret publishing a particular novel, so even at that stage, you can still not be sure if what you've written is worthwhile, good, whatever it is we're actually striving for. 

And, to clarify again, I don't have thirty manuscripts and some screenplays (stageplays, a memoir, etc. etc.) sitting in limbo because I'm a perfectionist. That's not what I'm saying. I may well dig several of them out some day. But, to be honest, it's a hell of a process to undertake, not just revision, but sending a book out, waiting, being rejected, finally placing it, revising it ten more times, not really making enough money off it to have bothered, dealing with crappy reviews, if that happens (it's only happened to me once or twice, but that was enough), or the book just kind of being ignored, which is what happens to the vast, vast majority of books published. It's emotionally draining. To be honest, most of the books I've published survived this whole process because they either were really important to me, or, in the case of my genre novels, once I established a relationship with my publishers, it was a lot easier placing more books with them. But it was still a long and difficult process. 

Another thing to consider, not to go too deep into this: it takes me a couple months to write a draft of a book, more or less. Let's say it comes out pristine. I revise it, maybe take a couple weeks to do that because I'm in a hurry for some reason. I tend to revise as I go and mark possible trouble spots, so I can revise pretty quickly usually. But, to be really honest, I'd probably sit on the book for several months, maybe years, before I even look at it. And I'm still writing that whole time. So that's at least one more book. Then, I send it off. While it's in the mail, I keep writing. Let's say the press picks it up in three months. That's crazy-quick, but let's say it happened. Well, I actually wrote another book during that time. The press schedules the first book to come out in six months time, which is pretty quick. Two or three months go by, I've written another novel, and they send me edits. So, I revise, maybe take another couple weeks on that, send it back off, get edits back, this repeats a few times, etc. etc. So, by the time the book comes out, I've written three more books. These are just drafts, mind you. The book does okay, the press liked it a lot, and they want another. But they want something similar. So that means I write a whole new book and go through this process again. What happened to those three books, plus everything I write during the revision time for this new one? They're on my hard drive.   

What I'm saying is: Jesus, a writer fucking writes, just like Billy Crystal's character said in Throw Mama from the Train. If you don't, you're not a writer. Writing one book doesn't make you a writer. Sorry, but it doesn't. (And, hey, if you only ever write one book, you're probably not very good.) I cannot tell you the number of people I know from grad school or wherever who wrote a handful of stories or poems, maybe one complete manuscript, won some award, and never wrote anything again. Hey, guess what? Not writers. Not really. They figured that out--they were lucky enough to taste some success and realize that wasn't enough and quit. Writing isn't about awards or product. It's about process. Being a writer means you write when you can, without anyone holding your hand, without anyone caring in the slightest, and maybe some of it sees the light of day. Most probably won't. Or maybe you quit writing for six months and drink scotch and smoke cigars and then finally, finally put the razor down and get back to it only to write the best thing of your life and then never show it to anyone because you might be wrong. Or you might be right. So yeah, I have all kinds of crazy shit on my hard drive. I've got screenplays. I've got stuff in all kinds of different genres. I dabble. I practice, and I don't send every practice session out into the world. 

-CL Bledsoe  

The 50 States Project: CT, New Jersey, MI, ME

I haven't been sending work out for a good long while because I've been trying to pay my rent. But, hey, it's paid! For now... . So here are a few more states I've cracked in my quest to be published in all 50 states. Spoiler: it will probably be a while before I post another update in this series. Right now, I'm in the mid 20s with this, but I have to send more work out.

18. Connecticut. Connecticut has been a kind of white whale for me for some time. For whatever reason, I had no luck at all from any Connecticut journals for a very long time. To be honest, I quit trying for a while because it started to seem impossible I’ve yet to crack The Connecticut Review, but I also haven't sent them anything in years. The first CT journal kind enough to include me in their pages was a little one called The Broken Bridge Review, which is published out of the Pomfret School. They took a fairly emotional piece from my upcoming collection Driving Around, Looking In Other People’s Windows, which deals with medical issues and the dissolution and collapse of my marriage. And jokes! Clowns throwing pies! Okay, maybe not a lot of clowns. Recently, I managed to place a poem with the Connecticut River Review, published by the Connecticut Poetry Society. Let me reiterate that it took me more than 10 years to break through in Connecticut. I’m not really sure why. It’s very likely that most of what I was sending out early on was too Southern. The piece CRR took is a persona poem about slavery within the prison system in the south, though, which is pretty Southern. But it’s the kind of poem just about anyone would take—except for a journal more focused on experimental writing.

19. New Jersey. Probably the most well-known journal in New Jersey is Story Quarterly, which I've never been in, though I used to buy and read it regularly as an undergrad. I don't know that I've ever sent them anything, actually. If I did, it was before I knew how to write, so that doesn't count. SQ is a beast, a massive David Foster Wallace-sized tome that, I believe, is actually published annually, despite the name. They publish the top names, and will accept longer pieces. Paterson Literary Review is another New Jersey journal I've heard of but don't actually know anything about, other than they only accept mailed submissions. Edison Literary Review showed me some love. They took a dirge I wrote a few years ago about the diminutive actor David Rappaport. It’s part of a kind of series I’ve been working on for several years about the deaths (mostly suicides) of various artists. Also, I really like Time Bandits, which he was in. Again, I think it’s a poem a lot of journals would take because it's a little unusual in subject matter while remaining easily accessible. It deals with some big issues in slightly different ways.

20. Michigan. Probably the most well-known journal in Michigan is the Michigan Quarterly Review, which I don’t believe I’ve ever assayed or even read. I've come across poems in collections that originally appeared there, and I often enjoy those poems, but I've never read an issue. I did place a surreal little poem in Temenos, a journal out of Central Michigan University. I believe I discovered this journal after finding a friend’s work within its pages. This is something I frequently do--if I see that a friend has published in a particular journal, I usually will send them something. When I was just starting out, this was kind of a competitive thing. I would seek out places friends and classmates were published. Nowadays, it just seems like these places might be a good fit. Another Michigan journal I’ve had luck with is Pank, which I’ve been fortunate enough to appear in several times, as a poet, fiction writer, and as an interviewee. Riceland was also reviewed very favorably in an issue. I don’t have a particular connection with them—it’s a damned fine journal, so I’ve sent a lot of submissions to them and gotten lucky a few times. When I first started sending work there, I don't think anybody had heard of them, but now, they've become kind of a big deal. I don't know if they'd publish me as readily if I sent them something now.

21. Maine. For me, the journal I admire the most out of Maine is probably Beloit Poetry Journal. BPJ was one of the first journals I started reading as an undergrad, and though I sent them some submissions years ago, I never sent them anything they'd probably even have considered publishing. My bad, BPJ. Sorry for wasting both our times. Needless to say, I haven't been in BPJ, and I haven't sent them anything in years and years. I should really try again. I did send something to Off the Coast, a quirky little poem from my forthcoming collection Driving Around, Looking in Other People's Windows. The poem is about my marriage woes at the time. Crosscut, out of Husson College, took a couple of emotionally charged poems from Riceland and Driving Around, both about my mother's long illness and eventual death, my relationship with her, and the process of getting tested to see if I had Huntington's Disease, as she did. So, you know, more clowns with pies.

That's it for now!
-CL Bledsoe