Today on Twitter, I came across this telegram. It was posted by @Tatum_Flynn, and it’s a telegram writer Dorothy Parker sent to her editor. Most of us, whether we are writers or whether we do some other kind of work, can probably relate to this feeling of absolute emptiness and despair. I know I can.
“…all I have is a pile of paper covered with wrong words” – that phrase really speaks to me.
It is easy to think that your work is a terrible horrible waste of time, even for a writer of Dorothy Parker’s caliber. It is easy to let those kinds of thoughts paralyze you. I know, because I have been paralyzed like that in the past. Sometimes we are just unable to see what is good about our own work.
What to do? Dorothy’s answer is right there: “Can only keep at it”. That’s it. That’s the only way.
Maria Haskins 