The Year in Writing and Failing (final edition)

The year went so badly for writing that I pre-empted this now-annual post with a precocious version over the summer, declaring that "while I am writing, I am failing."

My year-end taking-stock has been an enjoyable ritual for the past 7 years as I am typically able to log a few solid accomplishments each year. 

That's despite the fact that I am still a completely unknown writer (trust me) and an emerging literary translator (emerging at my tender age, by the way, not so great).  

(If you're curious, here's the post from 2019 and another one dedicated to literary translation). 

But 2022 diverged so thoroughly from the outline of my writing goals for the year that in a fit of despair, I decided in July to declare 2022 'The Year In Writing and Failing' (OK, yes, only on my blog, which is read by about five people, but as you can see on the right, last year was 'The Year in Writing and Contemplation,' which sounds oh so much better than failure).

And it's because I'd decided that 2022 would be the year to write about the uncle I never knew.

What I didn’t know, of course, is that it would also be the year I struggled to write about the uncle I never knew -- struggled over and over and over. I submitted the idea dozens of times in myriad different versions, writing it and rewriting it.

Nicknamed Spike, my uncle died long before I was born -- before he could even become my uncle. Exactly 65 years ago this year.

And now at the end of what I’d dubbed the Year of Spike, I have not told his whole story -- but I did manage to tell a part of it. An 11th hour compromise that introduced my readers to him, and the hole his death left in my mother's life.

By which I mean: at the end of November, I published an essay in Boston Globe's Ideas section about the importance of recording our parents' stories, and it included excerpts from an interview I conducted with my mother about Spike. Here's the essay:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/11/23/opinion/why-you-should-record-your-holiday-dinner-conversations/

So much about Spike remains in my notebook and unpublished: the details of an archival article I found about the accident ("Youth, 18, Killed in Crash"), the comments sent via email by his octogenarian schoolmates from the now defunct Brooklyn Prep high school (that he was "a wild man," that he went to "smoochie smoochie parties," that he was defined by speed and fun), the list of high school activities (he ran track, was in the honor guard, had twice been elected Class Vice President, etc), the scholarship he may have received to the College of the Holy Cross (the college doesn't still have admission records from 1957 -- I checked).

And it also means I only published two essays in 2022: the Boston Globe Ideas essay and an essay called “The Obituary We All Need (to Write)” for the Brevity Nonfiction blog:

https://brevity.wordpress.com/2022/01/27/the-obituary/

I could cry when I think of all the bylines I wracked up last year in 2021.

Luckily, this year went better for my literary translation endeavors. Key moments:

*It was year one of my NEA Literature Fellowship in Translation; you can learn about my project here (I've chosen to work on the project over two years, rather than one)

And:

*My translation of Edith Bruck's short story, "Silvia," (which is part of my NEA project) won the 2022 Hunger Mountain Translation Prize.

The $1,000 prize money? Oh very nice. So nice I left the check on my desk for a month or two so I could gaze at it! Then I took a picture of it at the Wells Fargo branch in Hartford before cashing it.(Would a rich person ever do that? Well, I guess I wouldn't know).

But the real prize -- and other translators will understand -- is landing the publication. Hunger Mountain, which is published by the Vermont College of Fine Arts, will publish the short story in its winter issue. So a bit more of the work I am doing as I translate Edith Bruck will be out there in the world.

I also had another bit of my translation work "published" -- as part of a podcast!

The American Scholar's Read-Me-a-Poem podcast included my translation of the poem, “At the American Express Office,” in its Feb. 22, 2022 edition.

You can listen to it here:

https://theamericanscholar.org/at-the-american-express-office-by-edith-bruck/

All kinds of other wonderful things related to my work happened, but my goal each year is to land essays and other writing in as many journals as possible, even the same journals, but often. Publish, in other words.

So, yes, in the world adjacent to writing and translation, I visited Italy (that's sunlight bursting through the oculus of the Pantheon and splashed against the interior), and spent time with "my author." I walked for miles and miles in Florence and Rome. I heard, spoke, devoured Italian. Saw old Italian friends who remain so dear to me, lo these many years. Not bad, right?

And I blogged quite a bit -- about mourning my father on one end of the spectrum and my adventures in Italy on the other end.

I also squeaked out a few bylines for CNN (which is writing, after all), including a preview of Joan Didion's auction. You can read that article here; I also wrote about the story of my life, oh no, I meant to say my favorite movie (by which I mean, "We're all George Baileys in one form or another.")

Yet I never write or publish as much as I would like. And that dream of editors approaching me to write something -- anything -- for their publications? So far, still safely residing in dreamland.

I am, however, spectacularly alive. And I become particularly alive through writing.

Despite this publication drought, so many days of my life in the past year have been marked with outbursts of writing and the thinking required to produce writing. They often coincided with reading particular books or changing up my routine or immersing myself in the publication of artist profiles, typically in The New York Times Magazine. I am seized with inspiration and spend the day rampantly writing (and sometimes furtively, too, since the urge to write feels almost manic and I do have other obligations like raising a son and editing some days for CNN and translating). For example, an outburst of writing happened in August after reading a profile of Cecilia Vicuna. 

All of this to say, I am writing writing writing. And that feels like a gift (one of the privileges of adulthood: something you do for yourself that costs nothing is so precious it feels like someone else bought it for you at great expense). Writing writing writing, for all those years when I sensed something inside that wanted to come out, beyond the proceedings of a Chamber of Commerce meeting or the revelations of an SEC filing. But I wasn't ready to give myself over to Writing. More than ready now!

It wasn't a great year for publishing -- not for me. But it was a year full of writing. If that's what gets you through the night (or day), I wish you the same in 2023. 

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