Just back from SHU

I just got back from the ever excellent Seton Hill University "In Your Write Mind" retreat. Nothing like a blast of writing juice to pump you up (unless you are a man... in that case, juice drinking makes you look girly).

In an effort to pomposly declare myself a writer here where my friends will see, I am going to post this needlessly egotistical piece of fluff that is masquerading as a deep sentiment about the writer's craft. 

->            How unnatural it is to try to put your inmost thoughts into words for others to ponders and reject or worse to somehow make their own, rendering your originality or angst a byproduct of their own experiences. How awful it is to dredge up those long buried outrages of youth for some sappy sentimentalist to chortle over as she sips her latte at Borders. Or worse… she doesn’t chortle at all.

            Yet we do it.

            There’s truly a sense of exibitionism that imbues the organs of a writer. To lay bare the bones of your very existence for the world to see and to judge and then perhaps to be rejected by the established judges of the profession. Sadomasocism at it most acceptable.

            Hours spent mining the cobwebbed corners of your psyche. Days suffering over revisions… Did I use that word too often? Is that verb to passive? How do I show the violence life subjects me to in so many supple sentences? How to bleed on a page without bleeding out? It’s vampirism, pure and simple. I am a gimp for the masses, though they don’t yet want my blood. Still I do try to bleed for them.

            I hack at my veins with my pure white Mac, dribbling bits of myself into the cup that is Microsoft word. “Drink me,” I proclaim to the editors sifting through the slush pile that must be gelatinous and rank with the devotions of so many writing Renfields.

            Some have tasted my prose and declared it to thin for their hearty appetites. Guess I should eat more iron with my verbs.

Salute!

Donna Munro