Not a tutorial | Lesson | or Advice | Just my thoughts
A Few Words on Writing
From someone so far away from perfect, I’ll be damned for putting this here on Medium. Fuck it. This is my opinion. 60 years of writing shit!
Note: updated version.
Kurt Vonnegut said, “The primary benefit of practicing any art, whether well or badly, is that it enables one’s soul to grow.”
Writing, for some, is a spiritual journey. It’s about coming to terms with solitude. It can be a black hole of despair or a rich well of inspiration and enlightenment. It’s about knowing when to be tough on yourself and when to be gentle.
Read Steven King’s book On Writing. Read Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way and The Right to Write. Read the Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, especially the bios of the poets.
Many groundbreaking poets had difficult lives, but they wrote what they wanted and needed to, and so should you. Take writing workshops and hire a good editor, but to find your own voice, you have to know when to break every rule you’ve learned and when to ignore the editor you’ve paid good money to have read your work. But also when to listen to him or her.
Get out of your own way. Don’t try to figure it out when you’re doing a first draft, if it’s good or bad, just get the work out, no matter what it is an essay, a short story, a children’s story, an adult story, a poem, a novel.
Keep a journal, but don’t try to make it literary. Make it real. It’s cheaper than therapy, and you’re going to need it if you’re going to be an artist in this cold, competitive culture. Open your heart and your eyes, and don’t flinch. And don’t become an alcoholic!
Whatever you are writing is, first and foremost, a friend. Have respect for yourself as a writer and greater regard for your reader. Respect yourself even if you’re the only person who will read your work.
Take time to read your work aloud regularly in front of a group. Your critical ear will be sharpened, and you’ll hear good and bad things that you otherwise would have missed.
Write for your own illumination and joy. (If you’re writing for money, disregard everything above.) It’s a journey, and if, on this path, you find insight, humor and excitement, you can expect readers to accompany you.
For myself, I’ve written on planes, trains, park benches, cafés, and inside ballrooms.
I’ve written on trees and twigs, refrigerators, coffee tables and every other kind of table, and once on a growing mushroom. I’ve written on everything, including a bar of soap, carving out a love sentence and then watched it disappear with use …. promising it could never happen to me.
I’ve written inside forests, phone boxes, prison, (I was visiting), tents and mansions, meadows, and every room for which nature provides.
I’ve written and made it sun for me, made it rain for me, made the wind curl and caress my ankles and bring me any scent I desired.
I’ve written about sympathy, honor, courage, and the lack of it, about awkwardness, love, death, hope, and dreams such as none would ever know. (Doesn’t it happen that some things, some people, are so lovely I don’t know what else to do?)
The fact is, as writers, we are always being educated. It isn’t easy because I’m stubborn and get ruffled easily. I believe I can write! Can you believe that? I actually believe or have believed, that I can write a story.
If we were to spend several weeks with an accomplished writer, a month with an editor, and perhaps speak with an agent, I would soon appreciate just how far I am from reaching my goal. So, we continue to attempt to find the elusive theme. As we do so, we improve because the more we write, the more we improve. I think it goes hand in hand.
Lastly, writing is knowing when to speak and when to be silent.
And on that note, I’ll end.
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