I don't think I'm the only poet who has ever gone through a phase of thinking "wow, everything I've written is crap." At least, I hope I'm not the only one, and I hope it's not just that I'm right and everything I've written is crap!
Sure, an acceptance would help -- preferably with a nice little note from an editor praising my work -- but other than sending out a bunch of stuff, hopefully to more or less appropriate markets, I can't make that happen. (And I do have a bunch of stuff out right now.)
Failing that, anyone have any tricks that work for them? (If this ever happens to you, that is.) How to I trick myself into believing in my work again, at least long enough to get motivated to sit down and write some more?
Oh, I know this will pass on its own, but I'm impatient.
5 comments:
It will pass. Go read some poetry. I know that always helps me when I suddenly think everything I have ever written is crap, which by the way happens at least 2 or 3 times a year.
You aren't the only one. I often read Rilke to get my spirits back up. How about:
"A work of art is good if it has sprung from necessity. In this nature of its origin lies the judgment of it: there is no other."
Anne,
You are definitely not alone! If I ever find it shutting me down I purposely write a crappy poem. Once that's out of the way I can get in the groove again. :-)
Anne, think of this:
'Lord of harvest and of land if you commanded this
rest no it has come to pass.'
That's from Katie Ford's book 'Deposition'. The book has a strong undercurrent of The Passion, namely the 2nd section. And it's odd, because I picked it up from the library on Good Friday. Irony, how I love you so.
Thanks, everyone. Good advice all. And even though I know, intellectually, that others go through phases of doubting their work -- it's helpful to hear y'all say so in so many words, to know that people I know have talent doubt themselves sometimes. Not that I take pleasure in others' hard times -- I'm not a schadenfreude kind of girl (with the possible exception of misfortune suffered by recent exes, but that's different, hah!) -- but it's good to be reminded that doubt is part of the process. Thanks.
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