Real Isn't How You Are Made. It's A Thing That Happens To You.

Lit Salon on the question of what makes for "real" writing + the tendency to "covet" the pain of the writing life + the enlivening experience of laboring for love & art

Dear Jeannine,

I’m ashamed, really, to even ask this question. It makes me sound like an asshole. And maybe I am an asshole. In fact, I am for sure at least a little bit of an asshole. But since this is anonymous, I figure, why not just get this off my chest and see what you think about it, since I’ve been appreciating your answers to other letter writers. So, here goes nothing… please, tell me how can I explain to my friend that journaling and blogging and self-publishing aren’t the same thing as … real writing?

See, I told you I was going to sound like an asshole.

And I feel like an asshole, too, because this is a very good friend I’m talking about, someone who was in my wedding, someone I see at least once a week, someone I met in college, where I majored English and she majored in, let’s say “accounting.” I went on for my MFA, have published one book (a literary memoir) with a small press, and have a fairly large body of fiction and creative nonfiction in lit journals. I also have a…