I dare say, a quick solution for a distraught, wanna-be writer’s broken heart, is a mocha bar and iced coffee from Angelica’s bakeshop.
This is my second class with a professor that has ended up with bloodshed tearshed. The first time a few weeks ago was because he said something really bad about me. Today’s was of the same context, but with more drama and intensity, since he did it to me in front of the whole class, after I did what seemed like my best, in performing my written short story to appease his theatrical appetite. He said that my work …”lacked dialogues. That is a badly written short story.”
I’m glad I sit at the back-most part of the classroom, so I can free my tears without anyone (hopefully) noticing. I could not stand the humiliation I received, and I wished I could have evaporated at that moment. I was broken before my classmates to see the fragile, insecure André inside the seemingly strong facade. My tears could not hold back the sadness for the effort I exerted for a professor who refuses to give sensible encouragement for his learning writers.
This encounter has given me more reasons to be scared to write again. I’ve gone down that road before, and this path is as familiar as it is going to get. I’m tired of going around in circles, falling back to square one, when I could have reached the exponential form. Fear has found me again. If I write out of fear, then it will not be writing at all. It will be getting inside a torture chamber filled with the reeking bodies of dead writers’ dreams, hollow enough to echo lies into my ears.
I know I am not the best writer to suit everyone’s gustations, because I have to accept that writing is a subjective matter, but at least I am trying to be the best for God and myself. He is the ultimate Writer, and I know He will love my writings no matter how great the contrast is between His works and mine. For my trying will somehow inspire other writers who are going through the catacombs. I pray that no matter how “badly written” my works will be, I will continue to write bad ones if that is what it takes to start a catalytic force that will drive others to get their pens and paper.
This is the part of me that has been calloused with the judgments of the “better” men, but the sixth time I have fallen, I will get up the seventh. I know I will get there. Despite all reverence, I will continue to write not because of the mocha bars to come, but because that is who I am; the majority of me that writes.
You ask whether your verses are any good. You ask me. You have asked others before this. You send them to magazines. You compare them with other poems, and you are upset when certain editors reject your work. Now (since you have said you want my advice) I beg you to stop doing that sort of thing. You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now. No one can advise or help you – no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must”, then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.
– Letters To A Young Poet (Letter One)
Rainer Maria Rilke
love,
André
The Andrémeda 