Write a 500-word introduction to your own imaginary collected poems or complete stories. Assume your writing life has undergone a struggle, from obscurity to hard-won fame. This is your final opportunity to say something wise to your readers and critics. What were your strengths; and why did your audience first ignore your writing, then welcome it? Do you have any literary or personal debts outstanding? Now you can settle them publicly. State what you think the future holds for your work.
Aim: Writers feel intense dissatisfaction. Learn to wait, and work at it; get used to that feeling of being perpetually dissatisfied with your abilities, achievements and the mercury-movement of language as you try to control it.
Trying to use words, and every attempt
is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say
T. S. Eliot, The Four Quartets (1943)
Writing exercise from The Cambridge Introduction to Creative Writing--David Morley
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| An imaginary look at the future-past of one's own writing journey. |
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