Author Entrepreneur: Failing at Journaling
Welcome to my Friday column of artist entrepreneurship, this week’s post focuses on the author entrepreneur’s life, with guest columnist, Catharine Bramkamp, fun and funny author’s coach and author, sharing her take on journaling. And yes, she journals at my online journaling community for writers, We Write Books.
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I am failing at journal writing. I’m participating in two journaling communities in which you share your day and your posts and in doing so, you will magically chart your inextricably progress towards the achievement of self-realization and future success.
Of course I signed up. The first program instructed me to write through various exercises to hone my writing skills. Yet when I completed the assignment, I did not progress to the next step of the program. My post was rejected. I see how it is; my personal thoughts and experiences didn’t make the cut.
In the second journal-writing program I experienced the same kind of set back. Compared to the journal cohort, my own goals and aspirations were just not lively enough, not angst filled enough to be listed in this week’s most interesting posts. This lead me to the terrifying conclusion that yes, I am boring.
The image of a writer, the persona in our imaginations, is one of an angst ridden, hard drinking, well traveled, many married, interesting individual. I am none of those; I am tragically average. Yet I write anyway.
The question then becomes, what if we are average but to compensate are blessed (or cursed) with an above average imagination?
What if you create fantastic, blood dripping plots, yet live comfortably in the suburbs and drive to Safeway in your blue Volvo? Is that bad? Can boring be the new interesting only because you are so against type?
What I’ve experienced and discussed with many authors is that the best way to get fiction written is to be normal.
Forget madness; forget alcohol, drug addiction and abusive relationships. The working writers I know, the successful, published writers are a sober, focused lot. We work, often nine to five. (See the problem? My journal entry included lines like – spent afternoon in edits for third book. Outlined next book. Picked up dinner from Safeway. Should our next Volvo be red?) We write and revise and do all the predictable, adult projects required of us.
For instance, I’m editing not one, but three books. It’s a frustrating to re-read what I wrote previously (did I really write that?) and tedious (I work at about 13 pages a day because that’s all I can stand to do) and necessary. And it takes all my time, so I don’t have energy to create interesting journal postings, or take a trip to the local bar (the Eight Ball) and utter inflammatory statements that lead to interesting altercations that I can then describe in my journal entries.
I am so, so average. I’m thinking that to avoid any more journaling rejection, I’ll just make up stuff so my journal posts are more dramatic and readable.
What if you journaled about a more interesting life? What if you wrote up fantastic experiences and funny encounters? What if you did write about exciting things? Give it a try!
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Catharine Bramkamp is a writing coach and the author of Don’t Write Like You Talk: A Smart Girl’s Guide to Writing and Editing (3L Publishing). She holds two degrees in English, published hundreds of newspaper and magazines articles, a handful of novels including three in The Real Estate Diva Mystery series. She has published two essays in the Chicken Soup for the Soul anthologies and is an adjunct professor of writing for two colleges. More information at www.YourBookStartsHere.com.
