Sunday Writers. Maybelle Crabtree here. My apologies (once again!) for my lagging on blogs this summer. All I can say for now is life doesn’t always go as planned. I spent a great amount of time in hotel rooms these past few months. Sometimes it was for rest and relaxation; a well-needed vacation. But other times, it was out of necessity. But I won’t get into that now. Just know that I am home once again on Primrose Lane and ready to blog anew.
Even though I didn’t post anything on my blog this summer, I have been writing. Mostly free-writing which this time has been more of a diary entry than a process for ideas. And, as always, I’ve been reading. One book I read was called Telling Lies for Fun and Profit by Lawrence Block. He, at one time, was a monthly columnist for a writer’s magazine I read in my younger years. Recently, I began a new subscription to the periodical.
Sunday Artists, Sunday Musicians but Sunday Writers?
The book is a compilation of some of his columns. Forty-seven of them to be exact. One article in particular, got me thinking and that’s what I’m writing about today. It talks about Sunday writers.
Block begins the article with a description of an encounter he once had with a friend who told him that he was making money under false pretenses with his column because the vast majority of the readers would never write anything worth publishing.
Block replies to this accusation that every writer he’s ever known writes with the hope of eventually getting published. That would include yours truly. This little blog of mine began a few years ago with the hope that maybe one of my posts would go viral and that would lead to be being a published author just as I dreamed of as a young child.
That hasn’t happen. Yet. Maybe if I was a little more diligent in writing the blogs than I have been, maybe it would happen. But here’s the thing: it’s what Block wrote next that changed my thinking on this whole writing thing.
Why are writers hung up on publishing? Block asked. He then writes:
…all the Sunday painters daubing oil on canvas for their private enjoyment, all the actors whose ambitions have never strayed beyond amateur theatrical presentations, all the folks taking piano lessons without the vaguest dream of a debut at Carnegie Hall. Millions of people snapped pictures without hoping to see them published. Millions more make jewelry and throw pots and knit shawls, free altogether from the craving to profit from their craft…they don’t need to prove themselves in the marketplace in order to get a sense of accomplishment from their work.
Why Aren’t There More Sunday Writers?
Then Block asked more questions, “Why aren’t there more Sunday writers? Why don’t those of us who write as a hobby find our work satisfying in and of itself?”
Here’s my thoughts. I love to write. I have since I was a kid. And I just write. I don’t use outlines; sometimes I have notes. It’s one of the gifts that God has given to me to share. Maybe He doesn’t want me to share it the way I want to by being “published” Maybe there’s another way; by sharing it in a simple post on Facebook, writing a speech to present to an audience, or simply by writing a blurb for a newsletter to promote a class.
It’s the process of creation is joy to me. It’s the closes I can get to being God. I control the plot, the theme, and the strategy. I control the viewpoint and characters. Well, maybe not always the characters. Sometimes the characters “do” things out of nowhere. And I scream “That’s not what I had planned!”
Long ago, I dreamed of fame and fortune as a published author. Today, I don’t need a fortune. I have enough to be comfortable. And fame isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. I much rather be anonymous, just another face in the crowd. It’s less stressful that way.
I am a Sunday Writer
So I will be a Sunday writer. Not just on Sunday but every day of the week. I will beam when someone says, “You have a way with words,” or “I enjoy your work.” That is satisfaction enough and encourages me to write on. And I’ll conclude with one last quote from Lawrence Block:
I would certainly hope, though, that Sunday writers can avoid equating failure to publish with failure as a writer. If you are gaining satisfaction from writing, if you are exercising and improving your talent, if you are committing to paper your special feelings and perceptions, then you can damn well call yourself a success. Whether you wind up in print, whether you ever see money for your effort, is and ought to be incidental.
I am a writer. I am a Sunday writer!
So what do you think? Are you a “Sunday” person? What’s your hobby and how does it make you feel? Drop me a comment down below and let’s discuss. Maybelle Crabtree signing off.