Joyce Marcel is an award-winning journalist and columnist who lives in southern Vermont. She writes about Vermont art, culture, politics, business and music. Her work has appeared in Vermont Business Magazine, Vermont Life, Vermont Magazine, The Boston Globe, The Boston Globe Mazazine, The Springfield (MA) Republican, the Brattleboro (VT) Reformer, the Providence (RI) Journal, the New York Post and many other newspapers. She currently writes opinion pieces, news and arts stories for The Commons, the weekly newspaper of Windham County (VT).
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Can you write too much to write? That’s both my question and my problem.
A little history may be in order here. When I was already too old for it, I was lucky enough to get a journalism job on a small-town daily newspaper in Vermont. Before that, I knew I was a writer but I never thought I would ever see my name or my work in print. I just didn’t know how people accomplished something as amazing as that.
Since then, with a lot of ups and downs along the way, I’ve made a career out of freelance journalism. Sometimes my by-line appears three or four times a month. In my small way, I have readers. I have a voice. I have an outlet for my opinions. I can pay my bills — just barely, but still. I have been able, on occasion, to bring about small amounts of social change. If you’re as driven by curiosity as I am, journalism is a wonderful thing.
But journalists respond to the events around them, and I have always dreamed of writing other things. Currently, I’m in the middle of a passion project — a book about six generations of my family and the effects that the social, cultural, political and economic movements of our times have had on all our lives.
But just when I’m writing full-tilt about a beloved ancestor, a business magazine wants a story on an out-of-the-way Vermont beer-maker who was just named the best brewer in the world. I jump right on it and my ancestor gets shelved. Or an art magazine wants to know about an influx of high-end jewelers in my hometown. Or I’m asked to cover Town Meeting for my local daily. I love to poke my nose into other people’s business and write about what they’re doing. And let’s face it: I love receiving checks in the mail.
But it’s difficult to pick up the family book again, so it’s taking me a long time to make any progress. I deeply regret that. I feel like journalism is making me cheat on my family.
I wish I could say that I’m the kind of writer who wakes up at 5am and does my book writing before starting my work writing, but that’s not the case. Whatever I’m doing takes my full attention — that’s why I do it, to lose myself in the work.
Writing can be as fatiguing as laying bricks or painting houses. You really can’t put in too much overtime. Early on you learn what your best hours are — for me it’s between 8am and 2pm — and you schedule your life (dentist appointments, meals with friends) around that. After that, the brain gets weary. It’s a good time for paying bills, playing on Facebook and answering emails, but it’s not a good time for creativity. Maybe I should just wish to be smarter — maybe having a bigger brain would help.
It’s not a question of discipline. I write every day, Sunday through Sunday. Like most writers, I can’t stop writing. Also, if I don’t have a current story firmly in my mind, I lose those flashes of insight that come when I’m doing something else, like raiding the refrigerator.
Putting a leash on my curiosity would help, but it’s like putting a leash on a wildcat; it has a life of its own. Sometimes I try to tell myself that going deep — writing my book — can be as satisfying as going wide — journalism. Then the phone rings and I’m off and running again.
Sometimes I’m grateful that I don’t also have an imagination. What if I wanted to write fiction? Curiosity is more than enough of a beast to deal with.
So I write all the time, and it takes me away from my writing. Sometimes I think I should never have jumped on the journalism train. Maybe I would have had a bigger, better literary career. But as long as curiosity doesn’t kill this cat and the bills keep coming in, it’s too late to change.
photo: M. Shafer
Deborah Lee Luskin is a novelist, essayist and educator who lives in Southern Vermont and has long admired Joyce Marcel’s work.
Very nice! I am also a curious person, and I wonder if we curious people are different from others.
That sound so familiar; the part about writing about your ancestors and getting distracted by other writing challenges. Remember the song that states “Just Breathe?” I’m not sure who it is by or what the title is yet I let it run around in my head as a reminder to do just that….Breathe. Sometimes it helps to clear my mind of the overload. Enjoy the moment success, along with the tugging you in multiple directions.
Interesting perspective. Like someone once advised: if you want to be a serious artist, don’t teach art classes – it drains energy and steals time.
Hard to maintain focus, keep priorities – and pay the bills!
Loved your post. One bright side to writing about ancestors~ they aren’t going anywhere. The mortgage and the light bill however, need to be paid their “due.” I flit around too. Lot’s of obligations, short attention span, easily distracted…sigh…
Keep writing all of them, you’ll eventually get there (where ever that turns out to be !)
Reassuring. I’m wondering about discipline in writing. You speak of good times to write. I suppose productive times. What if one cannot stop writing? What if one’s entire existence must be filtered in through the written world? As if one must experience every single thing twice (if not more), first by living it. And then by writing it. I am constantly wondering about this. Is it living? Living in that parallel space, just next to life. Where words claim it all. I just do not know. And you speak of fiction writing. What if one’s approach to all things difficult is to want to create a new reality? One where we decide it all. All god-like. Some read to escape. Others write. It seems there are so many important reasons to write. I honestly don’t see why one would ever stop. I suppose to raid that fridge. Vital to keep from keeling over. But other than that. Anyway, thank you. It is reassuring to be told that one cannot write too much.
Can you write too much? In a word: no. I believe that every word we write makes the next word better.
Well said, Caleb! “Every word we write makes the next word better” will be a good reminder for me when I’m not moving the pen as much as I should.
Interesting comments.
Some thoughts.
First, discipline comes from writing every day, doesn’t it? (Also, in my case, deadlines.)
Then, after a while, there’s that “10,000th hour” thing. (That’s the title of that piece about the beer-maker, incidentally. It’s behind a paywall or I’d give you a link to it.) It comes from Malcolm Gladwell and refers to the magic time when you’ve done something for so many hours that things just click and you no longer have to think about it; you have achieved mastery. You can also say “practice makes perfect,” but most writers depend on editors for the perfect part. I know I do.
And Wilhemina, I believe that journalists define reality. I think it’s our job. (You know you’ve done a good job when you cover a selectboard meeting and no one says, “That’s not the meeting I went to.”) And after that 10,000th hour, you’re living and writing about living simultaneously. Don’t ask me if that’s good, bad or annoying. It just is.
Thanks, everyone, for being such insightful readers.
Knowing ourselves well enough to accomplish our goals is a bit like grasping the timing when juggling balls! Sounds like you’re a pretty good juggler to me!
🙂
Great post! I’m an older, late-in-the-game writer too, so this hit home.