#fwriction

As you may (or may not) have noticed, we have yet to post a new issue since the start of the new year. Rest assured, this does not mean we won't be; simply put, we have been trying to catch up on submissions (we're getting there), as well as focusing on our other individual literary pursuits. (And, you know, other fun stuff.) 

In the end, we still hope to publish one new piece of prose (fiction/nonfiction) each month, channeling all our waffle-rockery into those authors and works. In addition, we will continue to publish interviews for our Writer Squared series scattered throughout the year.

Thank you all for your support and readership, as well as your patience. This journal is a labor of love, and we love the community of writers and readers it brings to us. We look forward to many more years of face-melting fun!

All our best and love,

Every great writer I can think of either enjoyed the company of other great writers, sought the company of other great writers, or lamented the lack of community. So there’s clearly something healthy about the company of like-minded individuals. But I would give up the community if it ever came at the detriment of writing, of ambition.

I think what is most important is arriving at a confidence and assurance in your own work. However that may come. Isolation is important. For me isolation was a way of stripping away the vainer goals I might have had—book deals and money and large audiences. The question of “Will an audience accept this work?” becomes foolish when you are the only audience. And if you are well read and willing to be brutally honest with yourself, I think at a certain point the author is the only audience that matters. If the writing is honest and ambitious and skilled then people will like it. There is an audience out there for every kind of writing. So I guess what I’m saying is that the community is best when you have reached the point when you don’t need the community. Otherwise I think people write to fit in and they write for the validation of their peers and their friends. That seems the sure way of losing ambition and writing small. You settle. You become comfortable. You become dull.

I think a writer should use a community to push their work. And when they have reached the point where the community can no longer push the work—for whatever reason—then they should move on.