sylvia plath picked her nose

If my memory is correct, I read once that Sylvia Plath picked her nose when writing, particularly if it wasn’t going well. That really stuck in my mind, not just because of the “ooh, gross” giggly kid factor, but because it is a profoundly humanizing imagine of a writer usually buried in a mountain of myth. When we think of Sylvia, we think of her searing, dark poetry, her combustible marriage to Ted Hughes, her tragic suicide. We don’t think of her picking her nose, but you know she did. We all do.

               

I think I’m at a crossroads with my writing. I’m exploring different options about where to go and what to do with it next, and of course I’m continuing to write as I do so. Except that I’ve not written much in the past week, saddled with a lethal combination of writer’s block and the negative editorial voice in my head that says I never have and never will write anything worthwhile. That’s a fun voice, isn’t it? I don’t know how much stuff I’ve started and stopped/deleted this week. I found myself staring at the screen this afternoon, absentmindedly picking my nose (you knew this had to tie together somehow.) Which doesn’t fit in my image of a writer hard at work, honing his craft. But if Sylvia did it…and I’m sure Carver did it…King, Campbell, Murakami, Ligotti…I’m sure they all have/do pick their noses and stare at a blank screen/paper from time to time. They are humans made of the same organs as I. It’s their work that is mythic. The writer is never mythic, no matter how fascinating or dull their life may be. They did not transcend their bodily limitations. Their bones hurt and skin itched and they felt despair. Science tells me this is a fact. Negative editorial voice says “yeah, and that’s the only thing you have in common with any of them—y’all got a spirit locked in a sack of meat.”

That’s fine, negative editorial voice, because I don’t want to have anything in common with them. I want my own voice. And it gets damn hard to hear when you are shouting all the time. No one likes a know-it-all, and I’m beginning to think you don’t really know all that much. It’s easy to oppose everything. It’s harder to stand up and work to overcome your own limitations. So maybe you should put up or shut up, get out of the way of the muse you seem so weirdly terrified by, and help build something worthwhile and unique.