An Interview with Oyster River Pages

Hello~

I hope everything is going swimmingly wherever you are!

Every few weeks (or months) I try to hunt down the URL's for my recently published work in order to link them on my publication page. This time, as I was going through, I noticed that there's a lot of work, interviews, editor's notes, etc.. that I haven't been able to share.

It's time to try and fix this oversight. So, today I want to share with you an interview I did with Oyster River Pages when they  published my poem "Treading Water."

The whole interview can be found here, in case you would like to take a look for yourself!

I remember being confused as to why they wanted an interview. It's not very often that my work gets attention warranting an interview, you know? With so many great writers and poets out there it just doesn't doesn't happen too often.

The interview forced me to reflect on myself, why I write, and what writing brings to my life. A question I've found myself agonizing over was:

"Does writing or creating energize or exhaust you? What aspects of your artistic process would you consider the most challenging or rewarding?"

My answer at the time was that writing was more exhausting for me, but worth it. There was more there than that, but you get the gist.

Looking back, I feel I gave a somewhat unsatisfactory answer. To me, I think most people would expect me to say writing is exciting, as if it gives some sort of adrenaline rush. And it can, rarely, when you feel like you just pumped out something truly well-written.

In reality, for me, writing is exhausting. But so is work and at the end of the day, writing is work. We don't get paid for it, or if we do it's not nearly enough to live on, but it is effort expended to create something. It seems like a lot of people believe that writing is a hobby, it's something you do in your free time, it's not the same as teaching a class, laying foundation for a new supermarket, or arguing in front of a judge about why your client is innocent.

Society has been shaped in such a way that artistic endeavors are seen as less necessary, less challenging. It's something that people with free time and money should pursue.

I would argue and say that part of the reason writing is tiring is because there is that added stress of needing to be successful in order to continue writing.

Let me try to explain it another way. Recently, I went to a writing event in a new city. There was a group of almost twenty people, some who wrote often, some who didn't. Everyone participated and read their work out loud. At the end of each reading, people discussed what they liked about the work. For the first time in a very long time, I wasn't writing wondering if something was publishable, if it was going to make me money, if anyone would like it.

For the first time in years, maybe a decade, I was able to relax and feel like what I was doing was fun.

All I wanted to be when I was younger (think high school aged) was a writer. Then I got into the realm of writing. I realized I was going to need something special to be seen and that most likely I wasn't going to have that something special.

So, I got a full-time job and I write on the side. Do I like my full-time job? Not really. I'm good at it. I have certificates and awards in it. But it's not where I want to be.

I want to be writing. I want to write.

Do I have energy after working 8-12 hours a day to write? Not always. Sometimes not even often.
Does writing make enough to pay my bills if I just 'cut back a little? Noooooooooooooooooooo.
Is everything I write even going to be published? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

For me, the biggest challenge in the artistic process is that we do not live in an artistic friendly society. There a million things I want to write, but so very little time for me to do it. At the end of some days I feel like a failure. What's the point of living in a world where on a day to day basis I'm simply going to work in a job I find unfulfilling that takes up 95% of my time?

Still, there's nothing else to do but keep trying.

I think that's part of why this interview with Oyster River Pages meant so much to me. It was like being seen for the first time in a very long time. My poem 'Treading Water" was also nominated that year for a Pushcart Prize! I just wish I'd taken more care in answering some of the questions.

Best,

Mea