What haunts you? What images or moments have never left you? What do you keep revisiting again and again and again?
In the latest Glimmer Train bulletin, Melissa R. Sipin discusses how her stories are obsessions over such moments. She writes:
I am that kind of writer. You can call us tortured ones, silly ones, obsessive-compulsive ones that labor over each word and breath and inflection and erase erase erase until that one sentence flies on its own, bleeds into the next one.
No remnant of the first draft has remained, except for the one thing that started it all: my brother’s black question mark tattoo, impressed on his right forearm and four inches in height.
Read the full essay at Glimmer Train. Or, check out these other pieces on the writing life:
- From Myth to Meh by Edwin Rozic
- On Multiple Drafts by DM Gordon
- Polyphony in Fiction: What Is It, and What Is It Good For? by Joe Vastano
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
I agree with this mantra “Write what haunts you” for my particular haunt won’t leave me alone, tho’ I;ve tried, mightily, to quiet the Beast.. Yep, that’s right…I periodically go off into other territory (I write my blog at Biddy Bytes, and post other journal pieces in newspapers as paid freelancer,) but the haunting continues–always there, at the back of my mind. The edits are screaming at me, too, to “Get finished!” to the point I’ve lined up 3 important folks in the journalism and medical field to be my readers, so now I MUST deliver. It’s the gun-to-the-head time. Problem for me? My back story keeps getting in the way, and tho’ it’s BIG, it must remain the back story…Then, there’s the age-old problem of: I could edit the daylights out of my work, til it becomes a whole new product. Sometimes, that fact stymies me..
her advice resonates with me at the deepest level. we artists are obsessive creatures. it’s a great thing that we have ART to channel that obsession into.
can’t wait to read her story.
Yes, wonderfully articulated mantra. It’s the way to find your individual voice. We are all haunted and plagued by different images, ideas, encounters, and we must turn them into something, use them. I do this with my music too. It’s the only satisfying way to deal with the most haunting aspects of life!