Dear Readers,

When we launched Waterwheel Review, we were keen to explain why we were so moved and motivated by the image of the waterwheel. Water stands for language, an ever flowing, renewable source; the waterwheel, an engine of labor, circles through, lifting words and then dropping them back into the running stream. Our magazine is a mill, we said, where the waterwheel powers writing and publishing. “We want—and need—to make things.”

For a couple of years, now, we have known that we can’t make enough of our own things while we give so much energy to the work of others. We have had to cut substantially the time and attention devoted to our own writing, and mostly we have been glad to do it, determined to find a way to repay our own work in the end. We never did find that way.

If we could quit our jobs and earn that income publishing this magazine, we would take that deal in an instant. But that’s not the world we live in. For many, many months we have known this, but we couldn’t accept it until now. And thank goodness for that.

Every single issue of this magazine has been a wonder that transported and enchanted us. We can’t say we gloried in every moment. We read or edited or built the site at times while sick, exhausted, grieving—that’s the nature of any publication. But we damn well gloried in every word, every paired image and sound.

Four years and thirty-six issues: What an honor to publish our contributors. What a privilege to offer stunning work to our readers. We must use the word pleasure, too, always rolled out to accompany “honor and privilege,” but pleasure isn’t strong enough, nor is gratitude nor joy nor blessing. For once we find ourselves at a loss for words to express precisely what it has meant to keep this waterwheel turning.

Maybe this will do it: How many times does anyone ever fully achieve the glittering, half-glimpsed vision floating above; that winking, flirting piece of art we ache to manifest? For the three of us, precisely this once.

We will keep making things and so will you. We started this magazine with the image of the waterwheel and a Jean Rhys quote, and we will end in the same way, as we thank you for reading and submitting, and wish you and yours all the very best:

Listen to me. All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. And there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don’t matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake.

—Claire, Suzanne, Cheryl

September 1, 2024: Waterwheel Review will stay online for the foreseeable future. It remains as it looked for the final June 2024 issue.

Waterwheel Review

Literature Without Labels

By

Editor’s Notebook: All hail the Sloth-beast!

Editor’s Notebook: All hail the Sloth-beast!

December 2022

orange and grey swirl with little bubbles like dishwater grease

We’re BACK with another essay in our series, 7 Sins of the Writing Life: Sloth.

“I’m appalled that Sloth is not simply having a lazy day,” writes Cheryl. I’m appalled, too! Wait… what??

By ignoring our writing we cut ourselves off from the rewards that stem from this deep thinking and creativity, and we fail a community that needs the respite of a compelling story after a long, hard day, an essay that helps them feel less alone, or a poem that provides courage during a tough time.

I’m not sure anyone needs my writing but me, and, because he has to live with me, my husband. I have proved many times that if I don’t maintain a regular writing practice, I begin to disintegrate. Specifically, I get over-sensitive, spacey, and irritable. I get twitchy. Writing keeps me sane and Sloth is my enemy.

To rescue myself from a protracted period of Sloth this summer, I started doing weekly Zoom meetings with one of the most talented writers I know, my friend Annaliese. We’re both tackling an unfamiliar genre and neither of us is used to feeling uncertain about how to manage a project. Our meetings allow us to get past hesitance, confusing material, and rabbit holes.

We take turns reading aloud whatever we wrote in the preceding week, reflect on what we heard, process questions and plans about what’s next, and then sign off with good wishes for the writing week ahead. I can’t say the Sloth-beast doesn’t rear up between these meetings but she damn well knows to take a seat in the back when the deadline is coming on hard. Six months into this particular Zoom habit, I’m deep into my project, and the only things twitching are my eager fingers, desperate for the keyboard.

Cheryl, who talks about how to train the Sloth-beast in her essay, approves.

I asked Annaliese what she thinks of the deadly sin of Sloth with regard to writing and writing practice. Like Cheryl, she quickly found her way to the beast:

[S]loth always means to me a dragging, a sluggishness, reluctance to stick with things. It’s tied up in the whole thing of work bringing one closer to some kind of enlightenment. Clearly a judgment word.

But in truth I think of sloth the animal (not a concept but a living, breathing being) as, yes, slow-moving, but not in a willful, negative, destructive way. It’s the sloth’s way and it’s consistent and tenacious, and that pace presents challenges and dangers and yet they keep on keeping on. They show up—no matter how hard that may be. Of course, that’s the human perspective. The sloth is not slow to him/herself. And “slow” is not a negative thing. We live in such a fast-paced society/world/orbit these days, we have forgotten the value of showing up, of being, of breath and love and joy and generosity.

We have to show up, no matter how hard that may be.

If you’re feeling a little bit of Sloth—what writer isn’t?—and you’re fortunate enough to have an Annaliese in your life, give her a call. But of course there are so many ways to train the Sloth-beast to help you show up. Let Cheryl tell you how she did it.

May you indulge and enjoy all writing sins forevermore. And may you write well today.

—Claire Guyton