Just Write: An Essay on the Craft.

I have often heard it said that in order to be a writer, “just write.” Is this truly how people distill arrival at this much desired destination?

“Just write.” No -- I say plan, envision, immerse, act, think, listen, research, talk, excavate, invert, subvert, mull over and reinvent. It is not sufficient to just write. Nor would I say is it possible without a certain very strong urge and commitment to do so. A life of isolation in your own thoughts and words, with no promise of compensation, validation or financial reward is tough on the ego. Never mind all the rejection one faces when finally ready to share their work with the world. I know people who seem more ready to admit to grave moral failings or remarkable lapses in judgement before they would venture to step out onto the limb of actually calling themselves (gasp) a writer. This is perplexing and sad because writers serve a very important purpose in culture and always have.

Liz Gilbert’s anecdote about “catching” that moment when one is visited by the fickle and fleeting inspiration or muse, captures some of the imprecision of this art.

One has not only to be poised, well read, practiced and ready when the muses visit, but motivated for the hard work it takes to render something worthwhile of the ideas. These ideas and inspirations often hit us in the middle of daily life when we are doing something like driving our children to school with nary a pencil nor scrap of paper in sight and no red lights to speak of to even be looking for such tools.

They rise like bubbles threatening to become lost in the ether, bursting while we are left searching the air blindly with our fingertips, seeking their imprint. They likely will resurface again in some iteration, somewhere, like long lost friends. And then we will know to repurpose our free moments -- force them if we must -- in order to extend a hand toward these much awaited visitors, grasp their hands firmly, give them their due attention, look them squarely in the eyes and say “it's nice to see you again.”

From there you will seek out a quiet spot, and listen to this revered guest as they spill forth their wisdom. When we lose an idea, it is as though the air has soaked up the good stuff and we are left swilling the aftermath of our own thoughts, the profuse yet fleeting backwash of our brilliant ideas. And nothing is more infuriating, exasperating, or really, more sad for people like us, who keep setting the table for a guest who doesn’t always show up because they keep getting lost on the way.

Writer is a persona: when writing, it is a mask you wear, a character you create if only to withstand the task of creating the work. Some refer to it as being a medium between the muse and the words. A certain sense of remove is what allows me the comfortable distance from which to spill my ideas less self consciously.

We are largely in our own worlds yet I promise you we are slaying dragons of self doubt and frustration behind closed doors.

As writers we absorb and observe the world and make sense of it with words. We love language and words, syntax and context, the playful way reordering words can subtly change meaning. We live in a soup of words that are streaming and echoing in our minds nonstop. We are ruthless observers, and as anyone with a writer friend knows, everyone is fair game, all is grist for the mill and you very well may show up in their writing -- be it veiled or not so veiled. And yes, there is a certain self-centeredness to the notion that all writers feel urgently that they have something important to say. You’ve been warned.

We are visionaries creating something out of many “nothings.” No one’s process is quite the same, yet the mechanics are. Pen to paper, voice into recorder, fingers on the keyboard. I heard writing described by author and playwright Claudia Dey as a ritual akin to taxidermy:

"I often liken it to taxidermy ... you comb the wilds of your world, you find a beast, you enter into a darkened room with this beast, you scissor up the middle, you take out everything that could rot it, and then you create a mannequin and you sew the skin back onto the mannequin. And the more time that you spend artfully enlivening (sic) this beast: so making eyes out of glass, and eyelids out of clay and a nose out of plastic and lips out of wax -- the more the beast comes to approximate life."

Does anyone truly believe that in order to be a writer you must “just write?” Is that all there is? On one level yes, it is the most basic act which defines the vocation / calling / art / profession / obsession.

But the title of writer is far more hard won than that advice suggests. I would say to a budding writer these things: read everything you can, everything that interests you and never stop. Don’t only let yourself gravitate to writing you admire or aspire to be like; push yourself further. Read poetry to learn about the meter of a sentence and the musicality of words. Read novels and essays. Read a lot. Analyze the structure and format of the writing that resonates with you and ponder how a piece that moved you achieved what it did. Always be on the hunt. Always be observing. Never go anywhere without a notepad and a couple of pens or pencils. Put your work aside when it isn’t resonating with you, like someone you love but just need time away from. There inside is something redeeming more often than not but you need perspective to see it.

As Tobias Wolff once said what is writing but “black marks on a page” and yet it has such weight for something so thin. The sum of those scratches can change someone’s life.

Saying just write and that will make you a writer is like saying simply bear a child and you will be a mother. No. It takes much more than that and it’s something you earn.

You also have to be a responsible steward of the gift if you are so lucky as to gain some talent  or recognition from all your hard work along the way. You have to be ready to receive the idea and channel it when it comes. I treat ideas as spirits or as one would handle a scared animal -- don’t look it in the eye or it may skitter off. Allow it to trust you, to get used to your scent and trust then approach. Be ready to receive. It could also be perceived as a commitment phobic lover, the one you’re infatuated with in secret -- the one you desperately want to know but don’t want to crowd. As in that case, give the idea time to breathe and yield to you. If you do, you will witness its approach. Is that a romantic enough view of writing for you?

Then there is the intersection between writer and reader. I think this is where the magic happens. That intersection is what validates the writing and perhaps therefore this is what makes the wordsmith -- toiling away in a vacuum -- a writer. The reader meets you halfway but there is no spark of connection if you do not open your heart and bravely let your writing out into the world for it to be acknowledged and consumed -- for it to touch someone else. A favorite poet of mine -- and someone with whom I've had the pleasure to sit around a table, sharing poetic works -- Billy Collins, once composed a poem called "Night Letter to the Reader" which is the equivalent of a silent nod to the one looking at his words, as if to say "I see you." He often addresses his reader directly. I stood silent when I heard him speak of this: what an intimate exchange, yet on such a large scale. Yet it is this very thing -- the tenuous but riveting connection -- the magic between a writer and reader.

Collins on the relationship between writers and readers

After all, isn’t that why writers write? To say something to someone? Because perhaps at some point in their life they, in an unguarded moment, were touched by something an author wrote, fell in love with words and decided they too wanted to pursue the craft? Are we writers if we are only writing for ourselves, or are we merely diarists, albeit with a bit more creative flair?

For a writer to be a writer, then, there are a constellation of things that align -- motivations, mechanics, skill, persistence, and making the writing public, among others.


originally composed: December 16, 2011