Hemingway and Lonely Writers
Posted by Mark Shaw on December 6, 2008
Hello hemingwaywantabes. Feeling down, feeling depressed, feeling lonely. Then listen to what the master, Ernest Hemingway had to say about the writing process:
“Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer’s loneliness but I doubt it they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day. For the true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries for something that has never been done or others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck he will succeed . . . It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him.”
Wow, now you understand it – you cannot be a great writer if you are not lonely. So cast away your family, your friends, even that canine pet by your side, and close yourself in a room of choice and write, and write, and write some more since the more you write, as Stephen King points out, the better you get. And, finally, as Hemingway says, you will succeed and then you can afford not to be lonely anymore.
Your thoughts, hemingwaywantabes!!!
