Why do I write?

Finding meaning in a mysterious, circular process

Anyone watching Fleishman is in Trouble? I haven’t been up on my TV since starting my 5ams, but my husband Mark’s been liking this one so I’m giving it a try. The series is about a divorced couple raising two kids in New York, discovering their desires in life are diametrically opposed and maybe always have been. It’s an existential look at marriage, money, friendship, status, family, aging, and why we do what we do. What is attractive about the series to me is its unfamiliar take on what it’s like to be in your mid-life, a phase that seems to rely more on endurance, stability and repetition than wild or bold new experiences.

This article about the series captures the mood well:

“Is all this really worth it? Am I spending these years, maybe the best years, focused on the right things? When does it get easier? Or as Libby put it, “How did I get here?” 

These questions are essentially why I write, as writing gives my life meaning, but to try and answer them fully is frustratingly circular. A snake eating its own tail: I write to discover something new about myself or the world I live in, and I live to be able to write. I write to notice. I pay attention in order to write well, to reach a deeper or more nuanced understanding of the world. I write to challenge my perception, and my perception is challenged by what I notice when I write.

I think back to how life feels different now from when I was 18 and starting to write consistently, which was when I wrote the first draft of “Sure,” my recently published poem shared below. Making art as a teenager was exciting because I realized I could do things that felt impossible to other people, that had felt impossible to me. On the flip side, it took twenty years of painstaking work and hard-earned maturity to edit and publish that piece with the perspective it needed.

Writing helps me navigate that tension between now and then, before and after, meaning or lack thereof. There is a natural give and take of creative work that echoes life in a way that pulls me to try and understand it. But as much as I can focus on habits, technique or craft, or whatever helps me pin down ambiguity into something more tangible, there is no denying the mysterious presense of inspiration or compulsion that seem to hold that tension in balance.

It is difficult, maybe impossible, to nail down what that is. I only know that I am moved by it. Driven by it. That the process gives me purpose.

News & updates 

I was accepted for publication in Seaside Gothic! My poems seem to be doing well in England (that’s three British acceptances in a row, two of them paying markets, and a kind rejection from a fourth). Look for “Into the Water” coming in April.

My poem “Sure” (my first paying piece of poetry, ever!) was published in Sylvia Magazine last week. As mentioned above, 20 years passed between first draft and final edit. Read it here (or below, but they could use your clicks).

What I’m reading

I haven’t been reading much online from indy authors these past weeks. I was wrestling a bad cold then immediately after flew to San Francisco for work. When I got back I volunteered at our weekend gardening expo, talking to local residents about compost all day. AMA! (Mostly, you should add more carbons, and don’t forget to water the pile). One fantastic, on-theme book I’ve picked up recently is Douglas Tallamy’s Nature’s Best Hope. Read it with me, tell me what you think!

February stats

Pending submissions: 39 poems, 13 publications
New declines: 14 pieces, 4 publications
New acceptances: 3 poems, 2 publications! 🎉
—“Her to Her” and “Refusal” in Sixpence Society Literary Journal
—“Into the Water” in Seaside Gothic
Novel word count: 2273 | no change

See you mid-March!

On on,
cassie.