Whycome we write

First, thanks so much for asking to see pictures of my family. I can't thank them enough for giving me such rich material to mine. I'll post them one by one, as I'm able to post bail one by one. This is Momma.

Momma instilled in me a love for poetry, especially verse interspersed with Latin and packed with more allusions than a magician's show. Why are you smiling at me like I'm the Wife in need of Bath?

As I was saying, Momma would often read to me from TS Eliot's The Wasted Land and A Love Song for J's 100-proof Rock, while sipping her white licker ("Why, if the worst this does is grow me a little facial hair, I'd say that's a fair trade for how I'm feeling now, honey. Now where was I?").

Anywho, I've been reading -- and empathizing -- with everyone's posts about worrying about their packet reactions. It has me thinking about one of my favorite passages about writing from Eliot's Four Quartets.

In this passage (in "East Coker"), he addresses the writing struggle and how to move forward in spite of it. Maybe this will help if you're sweating the process:

And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men (I add women) whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

So, we're trying and will continue again and again.

Whether or not my advisor says to me, "I'd consigned the Great American Novel to the realm of unicorns, Santa Claus, and a kinder, gentler nation until I received this. THANK YOU for making me believe again," well ... that’s just not my business.

Of course, if he does say this, I've got an entirely different problem on my hand: I've been submitting only short stories.