A Writer's Notebook, Day Three-Hundred-And-Seventy-Six

I was watching a documentary about the life of a writer, who does not matter here, but they were talking about how the author in question never said much nice about their own work.  It is pointed out that a part of this may an affectation of modesty, but it did get me thinking about this issue, and I think their is often a certain duality involved.

For me, to offer the instance I am able to speak of most clearly, I think it is fairly clear that I have a healthy impression of my own work, if a bit egotistical at times, and I admit that I think my writing has value and may be better than much of what I've encounter from other writers struggling to build a career.  I think that my work is good, if I consider it, and I am willing to stand by that statement in general, though I admit to feeling a bit wrong even saying it here.

Part of that feeling that it is wrong to say such a thing is certainly some kind of fear about vanity, but I think there is also something else at work.  On some level, it is certainly true that I am not a fan of my own writing.  Often, I'll pick up a sheet of older work and look at it wondering how I could have been so naive to do this or that, but I also, at times, see that those very things are not aspects of my work that have faded away, but instead qualities that have remained.  The things I see as flaws may be parts of the work I cannot escape, in some sense. 

This is also often true in writing a poem.  I might finish a piece and feel terrific about it, but later I'll look back and dismiss it as mediocre.  That does not, of course, wind up being any sort of reflection on the work in either case.  I might think I have written something awful and find people admire and love it, or I could share a piece after months or years to find all that labor is meaningless.

I tend to think most artists have this sort of relationship with the work.  On one hand, there is a love and a sense of purpose, and a feeling while engaged in the process of movement and growth, but the work itself can often be so much lesser than what was hoped for, it is natural to not see it as beautiful.  This is one reason it is so important to have the feedback of others, to not exist alone even when the work is solitary.