I worked this long holiday weekend, as I work many weekends. Not by choice, but by deadline. And not by bad time management, but because of lack of hours in the day.

Working the weekend means that I get up early, I log on to the computer, and I write or edit something that isn’t necessarily my own chosen topic all day. By the end of the weekend, I’m usually read for a break, but instead the week starts.

As a result, my own chosen topic, my own writing, my third (omg, it’s my fourth) unpublished manuscript languishes. I’m on the verge of giving up for these reasons:

I’ve worked in the publishing industry for 10 years and I have some sense of how things get published.

For my non-fiction manuscript to be published, I would need to be semi-famous in my field (theology) or semi-related to someone just famous (Nicole Richie’s ex-druggie sister, who went through a spiritual conversion or Richard Gere’s theologizing niece). And that’s not going to happen.

For my fiction manuscript to be published, I would need a a record of print in literary journals, which I can’t seem to get. Me and the literary journals? Not a good fit. I know this because I read them. Lots of them. And submit to lots of them.

So why do I keep thinking that my own work will get published outside of educational publishing when an author’s name is stamped on top and me (the writer’s) name is left off?

Because I’m damn delusional. And I woke up on Saturday with this thought: this can’t go on for too much longer.

And it’s not simply burn out—though it is partially so. It’s mostly the climate of publishing.

When you work in publishing as an editor and a writer, you live in a community of criticism. Misspellings aren’t allowed, bad grammar is abhored, and every document is returned covered in criticisms, some constructive, some helpful, but unhelpful. As I said on Mary’s blog, often critiques are an attempt to make the manuscript more of the critiquer’s style and voice rather than understanding the writer’s style and voice. And I’m a good editor who can write in many styles. Criticism is simply part of the process. Most of the time, it makes the end result better.

But continuous criticism also kills creativity. After ten years, I think my creativity isn’t a gush or a seep. It’s a drop here, a drop there, where it usually evaporates instantly with the hot rush of criticism.

Witness this incident, one of many from last week: after much grinding of teeth, I turned in a manuscript that a client wanted, a “creative” approach to blah, blah, and blah, which followed the client’s instructions to the T. It was returned with nasty comments and suggestions to dump the entire thing and try something “creative.” Again.

Creativity does not exist in this climate. It runs, it hides, it puts the blankets over its head and hopes for a better day when it is loved, appreciated, nurtured, and respected. And it’s not coming out until that day comes.

This is a spiritual crisis, which I hadn’t been able to identify because I was in the midst of it and it wasn’t precipitated by the types of events that normally precipicated this sort of event (death, divorce, failure).