My writing mindset today, at the end of my career, has similarities to my mindset at the very beginning of my career. In the beginning, I was writing in a vacuum. I had no audience. I had no guarantee I would ever have an audience. What I had was a growing pile of rejection slips. But I kept writing.,
Today I also have a sense of "almost" writing in a vacuum. In my decade in the limelight, the 1980s, I was very aware of having an audience and a usually good press, and I had a strong sense of belonging to an artistic community in Portland. That all vanished with my obsession for hyperdrama and finding a new audience out of the country. I performed with enough success overseas to have a one-act hyperdrama now considered to be "in the canon of first generation hypertext," and I've had dissertations written on my work in hyperdrama. So it's not as if I "failed" at anything. But at home, I did become invisible, which is a huge change from my former visibility and, more importantly, a sense of being respected. You have to be visible to be respected, and the folks who were around in the 1980s get smaller in number every year.
At the same time, I have a publisher waiting for my novel. This can't be called writing in a vacuum. So it will get published. But it won't be read by many. That is a given. And that's fine, too, because I don't write what most readers today want to read. I don't read what THEY prefer, so why should they read me?
Still, in this giddy stage of writing, in the zone, on a roll, with no real audience ahead, it feels a lot like the early days. I think it's a healthy ego that keeps the energy going. Also, now, a strong habit. I write as much by habit now as anything else. It is what I do. It is how I react to the world.
It is what it is. It may be a form of mental illness ha ha.
Today I also have a sense of "almost" writing in a vacuum. In my decade in the limelight, the 1980s, I was very aware of having an audience and a usually good press, and I had a strong sense of belonging to an artistic community in Portland. That all vanished with my obsession for hyperdrama and finding a new audience out of the country. I performed with enough success overseas to have a one-act hyperdrama now considered to be "in the canon of first generation hypertext," and I've had dissertations written on my work in hyperdrama. So it's not as if I "failed" at anything. But at home, I did become invisible, which is a huge change from my former visibility and, more importantly, a sense of being respected. You have to be visible to be respected, and the folks who were around in the 1980s get smaller in number every year.
At the same time, I have a publisher waiting for my novel. This can't be called writing in a vacuum. So it will get published. But it won't be read by many. That is a given. And that's fine, too, because I don't write what most readers today want to read. I don't read what THEY prefer, so why should they read me?
Still, in this giddy stage of writing, in the zone, on a roll, with no real audience ahead, it feels a lot like the early days. I think it's a healthy ego that keeps the energy going. Also, now, a strong habit. I write as much by habit now as anything else. It is what I do. It is how I react to the world.
It is what it is. It may be a form of mental illness ha ha.
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