A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes all the difference.
In order to deal with the fear of the unknown that accompanies us every time we take on a new activity, we often suit up. We muscle up a new self: Serious Writer Man. It’s really fake. And it always produces weak writing - writing that tries to please some bizarre-o notion of Posterity. When we try to sound like Serious Writers, we usually sound like goofy kids. Trying to hard.
…if you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer. It means you are so busy keeping an eye on the commercial market, or one ear peeled for the avant-garde coterie, that you are not being yourself. You don’t even know yourself. For the first thing a writer should be is — excited. He should be a thing of fevers and enthusiasms. Without such vigor, he might as well be out picking peaches or digging ditches; God knows it’d be better for his health.
Just as children collect their books and lay out their gear the night before school to make the next day’s start a little easier, purposeful book authors also lay out their things, mentally and physically preparing for the next writing day.
This brings us to the matter of how we, as writers, tell the truth. A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way. It’s a lie if you make something up. But you make it up in the name of truth, and then you give your heart to expressing it clearly.
I suppose there are people who write quietly and neatly, their books appearing with no big drama. But most people, especially on their first book, struggle with a terrible insidious mental weed called Creep. If you don’t surround yourself with your book, you risk it creeping away from you - or you unintentionally creeping away from it. Creep is bad, and it’s as common as the common cold.
I love it when…
…I come back to an old story that just never quite took off to discover something that could have been holding it down. Invariably this epiphany includes a moment of “duh.” How on earth did I not see this before? The reality is that writers will almost always benefit from taking a break, stepping away and moving on to something else for awhile before coming back and possibly discovering new life, a twitching finger, a bit of R.E.M. dancing under the eyelid.
Take away: Even when you think you’ve got it all figured out, force yourself to take a break before you turn anything in. Always leave time for this before any deadline.
Trinity College Library, Dublin, Ireland
Oh to be there. I want to hear footfalls reverberate, smell the paper and bindings. I want to sit on one of those benches, close my eyes, and breath deeply.
In general, though, there’s no point in writing hopeless novels. We all know we’re going to die; what’s important is the kind of men and women we are in the face of this.
Writing as Relationship or Why do you Write?
Why do you write? I have charged legions of sticky notes with the task of keeping this question front and center.
Aspiring writers, for the most part, dream of doing interviews and book signings, cashing big royalty checks, buying a cottage near a mountain or a river, and quitting their day job. Those all sound good to me. The reality is, however, that most of us will never experience any of that. Of the few that do, only a tiny minority will hit their first pitch out of the park. For the vast majority of authors, first (or second, or third or…) publication will not live up to the hype. Anne Lamott writes,
I believed, before I sold my first book, that publication would be instantly and automatically gratifying, an affirming and romantic experience, a Hallmark commercial where one runs and leaps in slow motion across a meadow filled with wildflowers into the arms of acclaim and self-esteem.
This did not happen for me. (Bird By Bird, xxiv.)
I know what she means.
