When the muse deserts you writing can become something of a punishment. I generally feel this way when writing non-fiction. Despite writing poetry, prose – personal fancies – for over twenty years, trying to write journalistic articles is like untying knots in a stubborn piece of a string. The sager among you may raise a rueful eyebrow, and you would be correct in doing so. Honestly, writing concise factual content along with macaroni cheese and Law and Order is my downfall. It's just plain hard. Not only do you have to determine what is the necessary detail to include, you have to write it well, write it in a logical structure and find the angle. Phew! I am new to this really, only within the last year have I even considered journalism and although I did it out of necessity (much more likely to get paid for this type of work than poetry or fiction) I have developed a fascination and huge respect for those who write beautiful non-fiction.
I am reading Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand and I am struck by her clarity, her effortless joining of research with anecdote and pitch perfect prose (excuse the alliteration). I mentioned to a friend that I was reading it and she told me that Hillenbrand wrote Seabiscuit while suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome. Can you imagine? Now that is talent. And also crippling to my psyche. While I sit at my shiny new desk squeeze even one good sentence out I am shamed when I think of Laura Hillenbrand.
I suppose part of it is feeling out of my depth as I have no journalistic background whatsoever, but I have to say part of it is fear. The piece I am working on at the moment is so important to me, partly because it is a subject close to my heart – art in Zambia – partly because it is for a magazine I greatly admire and to be published in it would be such an accomplishment personally and professionally and don't want to screw it up. I am down to the wire on this one as I want my writers' group to read this and help me out, we meet in two days.
It comes down to this, I will not leave this room until I have a rough draft of 2000 words done, wish me luck, I definitely need it.
