Some More on Writing

You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair--the sense that you can never completely put on the page what's in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page. I'm not asking you to come reverently or unquestioningly; I'm not asking you to be politically correct or cast aside your sense of humour (please God, let you have one)...it's writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner. If you can take it seriously, we can do business. If you can't or won't, it's time for you to close this book and do something else.

If you don't want to work your ass off , you have no business trying to write well--settle back into competency and be grateful you have even that much to fall back on. There is a muse, but he's not going to come fluttering down into your writing room and scatter creative fairy dust all over your computer station.

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others--read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.

Talent renders the whole idea of rehearsal meaningless; when you find something at which you are talented, you do it (whatever it is) until your fingers bleed or your eyes are ready to fall out of your head. Even when no one is listening (or reading, or watching) every outing is a performance because you as the creator are happy. The sort of strenuous reading and writing I advocate--4 to 6 hours a day--will not seem too strenuous if you really enjoy doing those things and have an aptitude for them.

I've been thinking about writing this past month, partly because I accepted the challenge to blog every day during the month of November and partly because I'm working with writing so much this year. Kids at all grade levels in elementary school have writing for 45 minutes a day for 5 of their 6 days in a cycle. Additionally, they have to respond to their independent reading and their reading workshops (also at least 45 minutes a day every) in writing. That's far more writing than I've ever seen. There are some aspect of the writing that I'm not totally sold on, but they are really stretched in areas like selecting a topic, writing what you know, and learning how to think, and talk, and write about what they are reading and what they are writing. The emphasis on the interaction between the written word (either a book or what the student has written) and the person is significant. There's no doubt that writing that much every day can be tiring (Noah one day proclaimed that he hadn't learned anything here because all they do is read and write) but there's no doubt that writing like that makes better writers.

I felt a tinge of that blogging every day. Of course, I harbor secret dreams of being an author. I find the quotes above from King's book to be a bit intimidating, though. I think, Geeze, I'm not that committed, I don't have that burn, etc. And he's definitely got an answer for that whine. Because the truth is that if you have the passion, you simply do it. Even when it's hard, the hours spent writing are better than the other things you're not doing, which is how I imagine Olympic athletes or musicians feel about their passions.

But...the truth was, that I found ideas to write about. I found things to comment on. And those seeds seemed to be all around me (once the crushing pressure of producing every day settled down on me). I think it's highly debatable whether what I wrote was worth reading or had much meaning (King also says "that while it is impossible to make a competant writer out of a bad writer, and while it is equally impossible to make a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent one"). But the process of having something to say was definitely easier by the end of the month. I used to wonder how columnists could get up columns several times a week, or even how a pastor can write a good sermon every Sunday. I think that answer is that when you're doing it, you can do it. And by writing consistently, you do get better.

Can I commit 4-6 hours a day to something beyond my current job and responsibilities? I guess if I wanted to write, I wouldn't ask. Stephen King wrote his first novel Carrie after he was teaching English all day, afraid that that job was going to bleed from him the time and energy and motivation and creativity that he needed to write. He lived in a trailer with his wife and 2 small children, without enough money to have a phone, and wrote on a child's desk balanced on his knees after a day of work. So I'd say the guy was compelled to write. I guess he wasn't asking "do I have the time?" because not to write was simply not an option. I have a couple ideas for what I think might be a really great children's book (just like every other parent/teacher/reader/person). I think there are a few experiences living abroad that would make pretty good essays for a magazine (if I can let go of worrying that I might offend someone and just write what was really going on in my head). What holds me back? Fear--of wasting my time, of not being good enough, of....what?

Maybe I should take on NaBloPoMo again in January, set some parameters (like not doing 5-6 half-baked blogs on the weekend and then whipping them up on the day I have to post), and try again. Or maybe I should commit to writing less--say twice a week and spending a couple hours on each post. See what happens...maybe other blogger/readers are interested in coming along for the ride?