Paula Cappa

Winter Creative Writing Thoughts,  January 28, 2026

Writing, or any artistic endeavor, can be a long struggle and a lonely journey. We seek to express our questions and answers, searching for that creative lift. There is ambition. There is earning a living, respect from your industry colleagues, readers, reviewers, followers, success wherever we can find it, and the ever-present self-image we all cultivate through creativity.

In re-reading May Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude, she has achieved a certain wisdom about how adversity vs. success. And May would know because she struggled her entire life with not only very public bad reviews (among good reviews as well) of her journals, novels, and poetry, but also repeated blows to her craft and reputation as a poet and author. She has been recognized more by the churches than the critics for her contribution to the literary world. She says . . .

“On a deeper level, I have come to believe that I am not meant for success and that in a way adversity is my climate.”

As a published writer I understand the trials of living in a climate of adversity. May adds that she has been ‘in the wilderness’ and outside of the mainstream—meaning the popular literary realm of her colleagues.

Here is the point she makes about how this adversity has directed her life and her career.

“The inner person thrives on it [adversity]. The challenge is there to go deeper. . . It is only when we can believe that we are creating the soul that life has any meaning . . .There is nothing that we do that is without meaning and nothing that we suffer that does not hold the seed of creation in it.”

This idea of adversity driving creativity into higher realms is not new. Some people might even wish you moments of “bad luck” instead of good luck, so you can understand that success is not always earned or deserved, but neither is failure.

Out of the near fifty books of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and journals that May wrote, none was a best seller during her lifetime, although Journal of a Solitude eventually became a national best seller. She was published by W.W. Norton.

“I have been overconcerned with the materialistic aspects of bringing out this novel, the dangerous hope that it become a best seller, or that I might, for once, get a leg up from the critics.”

She claims that her work must stand alone and “make its way heart by heart, as it is discovered by a few people with all the excitement of a person who finds a wildflower in the woods that he has discovered on his own.”

The power of attitude here is key. Sometimes our work does stand alone and make its way ‘heart by heart’ with only a handful of people who find it. Turning adversity into advantage is not easy and requires self-discovery, resilience, and perseverance. And one more thing.

“From my isolation to the isolation of someone somewhere who will find my work, there exists a true communion. I have not lacked it in these last years, and it is a blessing.”

Every reader is a blessing, and one by one, our communion grows. “We are creating the soul,” May declares. “Have the time to be.” 

For all of us who are struggling with any level of adversity in our creativity, we are called upon to open the deep channels and accept the blessing of each reader.

Below is a video of May speaking about this, the conscious and the subconscious, and what it means to be a writer. “World of Light, Portrait of May Sarton.”  A Film by Martha Wheelock and Marita Giovanni Simpson (1980), 30 minutes.

[To play, click the link ‘Watch on YouTube’]

And, if you want to listen to May’s “Writing in the Upward Years” (1988), seven years before her death, sit back and take in more of her wisdom about success, failure, and the small applause that kept her soul thriving. (40 minutes)

Books by May Sarton and Reviews at Publishers Weekly:

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/authorpage/may-sarton.html

View her books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B000AQ48TS?ccs_id=03f3b59b-3f84-4a17-a91f-ad89573b648a

You will find more posts on May Sarton in the INDEX above.

May Sarton (born May 3, 1912) died of breast cancer on July 16, 1995, and is buried in Nelson Cemetery, Nelson, New Hampshire.

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