The Myth of the Real Writer

[This is Part 1 of 2. Read Part 2 here.]

The Myth of the Real Writer:

It comes tapping at your mind, a harbinger of doubt and dread, whispering one of your worst fears: All of your attempts are in vain, and no matter what you do, you'll never be a Real Writer. It swoops in at odd times, maybe upon a dreary midnight, or after you've been napping, or while you're reading a book you love. Often it shows up as when you're in the middle of writing a difficult paragraph. Once it takes hold, it's hard to hear anything else besides its heart-wrenching, energy-draining refrain. 

It's time to break free from the Myth of the Real Writer.

What is this myth? It contains many components, a litany of absolutes about what Real Writers do or don't do.

Real Writers... 

• ...write every single day.
• ...get up early to write first thing in the morning.
• ...know the whole story before they sit down to write.
• ...write fantastic first drafts.
• ...never have to revise.
• ...write only by hand in Moleskine journals (or on typewriters or on laptops in cute coffeeshops).
• ...never have writer's block.
• ...never fear the blank page.
• ...are willing to sacrifice anything for their creative work.
• ...have read all of the Classics, all important contemporary literature, and everything in-between.

As I mentioned in my last post, I used to think I couldn't be a Real Writer because my creative process didn't match my ideas of how a Real Writer operates.

I thought:

I can't be a Real Writer because I don't write every day.

I can't be a Real Writer because I have to write a lot of nonsense before I figure out what I'm really trying to get at.

I can't be a Real Writer because sometimes I don't know what to write about.

I can't be a Real Writer because I haven't read Tolstoy yet and I forget the titles and plots of some major Shakespeare plays.

I can't be a Real Writer because sometimes my own writing bores me.

I can't be a Real Writer because I don't write as much in one day as other people do.

The list could go on.

What helped me to see beyond the Myth of the Real Writer?

First, I got to know more writers and realized that most of them struggle with similar issues.

Second, I discovered that every writer's creative process is unique. I learned that there's no universally "right way" to approach writing.

Even now that I know this, I still get tripped up on different versions of the myth. In my next post I'll share a story about how this happened to me just earlier this week.

What about you? Do you have a Myth of the Real Writer in your head, too? What does it tell you? And how do you respond?

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Want to break free from your own Myth of the Real Writer?

Join The Word Cellar Writers Guild, an online community and resource center for writers. 

We have a library of writing modules (like self-paced e-courses) that focus on elements of craft and issues of the writing life, all to help you become the writer you long to be.  

Dispatch from Vermont Studio Center

view of the kahn studios from my vsc studio at night

11:21pm. 11 degrees Faranheit, windchill of 3 degrees. From inside my writing studio I can hear the wind whooshing and whistling through this valley. The river froze over a few days ago, and I suspect it will stay that way until I leave. I've been here at Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT, since January 5, and the river, which I can watch from my studio window, has been a constant companion and fascination. We've had a polar vortex and a thaw and another vortex, and the river has slowed and quickened, melted and hardened, flowed and frosted. This river, called the Gihon, is quite small. I suppose it's not much bigger than some streams, but it's made for an engaging view. I love that it keeps changing. I had no idea I could come to feel so deeply connected to a river. I'm more of an ocean girl, you know, but I've been pleasantly surprised to find myself so enamored of another body of water.

Yellow light spills out of the windows of an artist's studio in a building across the river, making patterns of tree shadow on snow. I can see the smaller branches waving in the wind, and the larger ones start to bow when the wind reaches a whistle pitch. The artist in the studio across the way has painted the walls yellow and filled one wall with a huge red and white paper creature, a serpentine design that reminds me of a Chinese New Year's dragon from here. I watched it take shape over the last few weeks, and now I'm watching it change shape. She must be dismantling or rearranging it. It seems to change at least a little bit every few days, like the river.

After tonight, I have only four more full days here. Before I arrived, a month felt like a long time to be at an artists and writers colony. I wondered if I should have signed up for two weeks instead. Now I'm wishing I had another week or two here. I've written and done good work during this month, but I wish I could do more. Still, I keep reminding myself that the end of this month and the end of this writing residency doesn't mean the end of my writing life. It feels, in many ways, like just the beginning of its next phase.

{p.s. I've been posting lots of photos from my adventures here over on Instagram. You can follow me (thewordcellar) or see my photos online.}

{p.p.s. I haven't made a Big Official Announcement yet, but if you're read this far, I'll let you in on something: Registration for the next session of Write into the Heart of Your Story is open! This 2-week online course will run Feb. 14-28, and it's all about moving your writing beyond "what happened" and into "what matters." And at $29, it's kind of a steal, if I do say so myself!}

Writing Process Revealed

red mill, vermont studio center

I've been at Vermont Studio Center for one week as of today, which means that I'm one-quarter of the way through my writing residency. I'm not writing tons of words each day, but I am writing so very much more than I have been for a long time. I'm starting to sink into my writing life again, and I'm happy about that. The other day I felt fairly glum about a new piece I was working on, until I realized that I had simply hit a slump that shows up in my process.

This new essay, like many that I write, started with a confluence of a visual and a sentence. (In this case, the view out my studio window and the line, "The statue is closer today.") From there, I was hooked into a general landscape and some meanderings thoughts about what it evokes. I immediately sensed some metaphors that might crystallize, but I was careful to not hold too tightly to them too early, since they might morph along the way.

I wrote a bit about what I saw and thought, and then I did some research about the local landscape. This led me to additional research about the names of things, other local landscape features, and so on down the rabbit hole. As I gather all of this information, I sense connections and a resonance among all the pieces, but I'm still not sure how it's all going to fit together.

Then I went back to the writing and started adding in bits from my research. At this point, I hit the boring and cumbersome phase of the essay. It's at this point -- when I have a bunch of information and some half-formed thoughts about what that information means -- that I'm often tempted to give up. This is the phase of writing when I am sure nothing will come of it.

But this week I realized what's happening on a deeper level during this boring and cumbersome phase: I'm integrating the information I learned in my research into my mental foundation. I'm taking facts and weaving them into my own personal knowledge base. Part of the way I integrate these into my mind is by taking notes (during research) and then writing really boring paragraphs that paraphrase what I've just learned.

Realizing what was happening at this part of the process has been a revelation to me. It helped me to realize that I'm not failing or coming up against a wall. Instead, I'm simply integrating new information into my knowledge bank. And once I have that new data in place, I can use it to write something much more interesting and evocative.

So what I did this time was leave my Word document full of boring research-driven statements, and switch over to Ommwriter to start a new draft of the essay, one that uses my new understanding and begins to build an atmosphere and experience around my original visual and sentence.

In between writing, I've been doing more research, taking notes on this and that, all of which might join the essay. Very likely, I'll research stuff I don't need, and very likely, my first draft will include stuff (facts, thoughts, descriptions, and metaphors) that don't end up in the final draft -- or they might end up in there in drastically different forms.

I've heard painters say that every piece goes through an ugly phase. The ugly phase in my essay-making process can be disheartening. But seeing the process for what it is -- a process with different components and phases -- is helping me to move through the ugly phase and beyond it.

I can see now that this process (initial visual and idea; first bits of writing; research; integration; deeper writing; more research and integration; deeper writing, etc.) is how I've written most of the essays in the collection I've been working on for a few years now. I'm not sure why the process finally took shape and revealed itself to me, but I'm glad that it has. It will now be interesting to notice if this process holds, or if it changes for future essays.

You Gotta Roller Derby That Shit! (Or, The Magic of Practice)

By the age of 36, I was used to doing things that I already knew I was fairly good at. It's not that I intentionally avoided new experiences or didn't want to learn new skills, but I had a pretty solid idea of where my natural talents and interests resided, and I tended to stick to those neighborhoods, which were populated with things like reading, writing, storytelling, teaching, and cooking.

Then I entered the world of Roller Derby and hot damn, this was a new part of town! I've written before about how I'd never played a sport, how I didn't like to sweat, and how I hadn't roller skated for two decades. Beyond the physical challenges, playing derby has meant some huge shifts in my mindset and perceptions of myself and what's possible.

One of those realizations has become my new mantra: You gotta roller derby that shit!

Let me explain.

Logic and experience tell me that the more I do something, the more I'll learn about it and the easier it will become. Although I knew this theory should apply to roller derby, I secretly doubted that it would hold. Every time I bemoaned my lack of skill and my slow progress, my husband, who grew up playing sports, told me that if I continued to go to practice and work at it, my skills would improve. My rational brain knew this made sense, but I just wasn't buying it. I worried that I was hopeless.

Still, I kept showing up. And then there was that one time near the end of last season when I finally had so much fun that I forgot to be afraid. This season started off better than I'd anticipated, and I could finally see that I was improving. Even my league mates commented on my progress. I felt proud, but I worried that it might be a fluke of some sort. But week after week I felt stronger, more in control, and more at home in this once-foreign neighborhood. Finally I had a realization...

Holy roller skates, it's true!

If you keep practicing -- even when you don't see immediate results, even after you've had to take time off for an injury, even when you have to leave practice and cry in the bathroom for a little while because your internal monologue won't shut the hell up with phrases like "You don't belong here!" -- if you keep showing up and doing the drills and trying the things you suck at until you suck less at them,  eventually you'll make progress.

We all practice. Pianists play scales. Actors rehearse lines. Writers string together a lot of words that don't end up in the final draft. Chefs perfect techniques and dishes through repetition and tweaking. And athletes do drills and go to practice.

Of course, innate talent can make the going easier. But it can also get in the way. I seem to have little innate athletic talent, so I know I have to work hard to be fair to middling. On the other hand, I know I have innate talent as a writer, which means I don't always work at it as diligently as I should. It's easy to let myself skate by on my "good enough" setting when it comes to writing, because my "good enough" comes easier than some other people's "fair to middling" setting.

But good enough isn't great. And I no longer believe that you have to be born with the most talent to become great. I think it helps, but only if you decide to keep showing up and working at it. In other words, you gotta roller derby that shit.

I don't really expect to ever be great at derby, and I'm okay with that. I just want to be as good as I can be , and if that's just "good enough," that'll be great.

But I do want to be great at writing. And in order to do that, I need to show up and put in more work more often. I need to roller derby that shit.

This means sitting down to write at set times even if I don't feel like it, just as I go to derby practice at specific times each week, whether or not I feel like it that day. This means writing the same essay again and again, the way I keep practicing my turnaround toestops over and over. This means acknowledging the inner voice that whispers "What if this is as good as you'll ever be?", and then turning away from that voice and trusting in the magic of practice.

I've worked as a freelance writer and editor for more than nine years now. I have a graduate degree in creative writing. I've seen my words in print online and on the page. And yet I know I have miles to go in deepening my craft and honing my skills. I go through serious bouts of worry that I'm as a good of a writer now as I can possibly be, even though logic and reason tell me that this isn't true. What if I'm never any better than this? What if this is as good as I get -- and it's not great?

Yeah, what if? But what else is there to do about it but to "roller derby" the hell out of it, and trust the process?

Scott Russell Sanders on Love & Lucidity

 

Last month I attended the 2nd Annual River Teeth Nonfiction Conference at Ashland University in Ashland, Ohio. In the coming weeks I'll be sharing my notes from some of the sessions. (River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative is a literary journal I recommend that you check out. And what exactly are "river teeth?" Find out here in this essay by David James Duncan.)

Scott Russell Sanders opened the conference with a keynote address. I first encountered Sanders' writing in his book A Private History of Awe. I read it during graduate school and was so smitten with it that I used it as one of the main examples of my critical thesis, "Spinning a Web of Wonder: Capturing and Conveying Awe on the Page." I admit that I geeked out a tad bit when I had the chance to tell him this in person last month

Sanders read aloud two of his essays, which he wrote a number of years apart (20, perhaps). The first was "Buckeye," which you can read or listen to on Terrain.org. The second was "Useless Beauty: A canticle for the cosmos," available online in Notre Dame Magazine.

He shared these two essays to illustrate the evolution of his writing style (and, I daresay, the consistency of his interests). Both essays start with an object (a buckeye in one and the shell of a chambered nautilus in the other), and both begin with a personal story. But "Buckeye" continues as memoir, with Sanders reflecting on his father's relationship to the land, and Sanders' own subsequent relationship to place. "Useless Beauty," on the other hand, quickly diverges from his personal story and muses on instances of seemingly useless beauty in nature.

During his talk, Sanders explained that despite the different approach in each, both essays are about the same thing: "Taking care of things that we love." In each essay, the personal story is an entree to, or is surrounded by, the larger world. As a younger writer, Sanders' work leaned more toward memoir. Now, later in his career, he still writes about many of the same themes and ideas, but through a less personal lens.

Sanders made several interesting points during his talk, including several on the value of art as well as the need for clarity in writing. To paraphrase him: 

• We need art for our love of places. This country is very thinly storied. The Native peoples had connection to and story with the land, but modern culture has destroyed that. Our places need our stories, especially if we live in places that aren't often written about. Our places need our love. What is love? Love is sustained attention.
• Science gives us knowledge, but it doesn't make us love things. Art lets the artist articulate and convey what she loves. 
• Sanders said that his emphasis on lucidity in his writing style comes from his love of science. There is a distinction between confusion and mystery in writing, he said. All writing should be clear, even if it deals with mystery. Obscurity is easy. It's easy to write incomprehensible work, but as writers we should want readers to spend their energy on the things we don't know (that's the mystery), rather than on the things we already have answers for. (In other words, don't try to confuse readers by being vague, sophisiticated, or just plain tricksy. Good writing often deals with unanswerable questions, but don't raise questions in the work and not answer them if you have answers.)

And finally, because Sanders is a master of fresh comparisons and startling descriptions, a few of my favorite passages from "Useless Beauty," with the most striking phrases in bold below.

The lustrous interior reveals a sequence of chambers resembling crescent moons, 30 in all, which the nautilus fashioned as it grew, beginning with a cranny too small to see without a magnifying glass and increasing, step by step, to the size of a child's grin.

* * *

If you study flowers, for instance, you will find quite a few that seem fancier than they need to be. … Look at iris, with its streaked petals flung out in all directions, like the blurred arms of a whirling dervish.

* * *

What of canyons and crevasses, waterfalls and glaciers, the play of current in rivers, the restless ballet of clouds?

For more examples of lovely, unexpected comparisons, and for some great writing, I highly recommend Sanders' A Private History of Awe.