Writing as a Form of Craftsmanship
Learn, practice, improve.
During my recent visit to New Zealand I had the opportunity to meet several members of my fiancée’s extended family. Meeting new people can be scary for me but I’ve realized recently that I’m charming when I need to be. I smile. I stay confident. I speak clearly and I listen closely. I do my best to remember people’s names.
A familiar question always arises in these conversations: “What do you do?” which is not a surprising question for a prospective addition to the family. They want to know that I’m working or that I’m going to be working, that I’m not a schmuck. One of Sarah’s uncles asked me this question over tea one evening. We were sitting his kitchen at his home on the North Island.
Through the window behind me was a steep cliff, at the bottom of which was essentially a rain-forest. Sarah and I had driven on a winding dirt road to reach the house. We were deep in the bush, sipping tea with my future extended family, and I had no idea how to answer the question.
“I’m in graduate school,” I said. “I study writing. Well, I’d really love to teach, I think… but I also want to do my own writing.”
The man nodded. “I’m a craftsman,” he said. “I like to work with my hands, you know? I like to make things. I’ve been that way my whole life.”
I wanted to spark a conversation about how writing is a form of craftsmanship but I also felt a sense of doubt that I’ve often felt when trying to explain what I want to do with my life; it’s a question of value. What value does writing actually have? What value does my writing actually have?
I’ve spent countless hours thinking about this question because I’ve spent a great deal of time and money exploring the English language and what I am capable of creating with it. I’m obsessed with writing, but even a terminal degree like a MFA won’t guarantee me a lifetime of monetary success. Furthermore, what’s valuable about writing is not tangible, in the literal sense. You can hold a manuscript in your hand; a book looks lovely on a shelf, but the real value exists in the ideas and concepts that the words on the page represent, not in the object itself. After months of work, a farmer can hold his crop in his hands and know that he has successfully created something that will aid another human being; he is literally holding stored energy.
Unless they are particularly confident, a writer might not know if he has succeeded or failed until another person has read their work an made a judgment of it. Maybe the writing is clear and the story is moving, but how can you weigh and measure the success of a piece of writing when you aren’t a published author? You could spend weeks writing what you consider a beautiful story, but what have you really accomplished? Good prose won’t necessarily pay your electric bill. You can’t eat poetry.
My biggest fear is that after years of learning, trying, and striving, I will discover that all of my efforts will have been for nothing. I’ll be stuck out of sheer necessity in some career that I despise. Creative writing, it will turn out, just isn’t for me.
But in my heart I know this isn’t true. Writing isn’t something that just happens to a lucky few. Some people are struck with talent, but even those who are gifted must learn how to use their gifts. Writing can be taught and practiced; writing can improve over time, and this raises an important point: writing, like carpentry, is a form of craftsmanship.
When a carpenter builds a cabinet, he is building an object that not only serves a specific function but is pleasing to look upon. If the craftsman is successful, the homeowner will feel happiness while admiring the skill with which the cabinet was constructed and use the cabinet to store his or her dishes without it falling to pieces. Successful carpenters focus on the precision of their design. The end result is something that is useful and aesthetically pleasing.
The writer does the same thing as the carpenter; the only difference is the medium and the intended function of the object. When constructing an essay, for example, a writer will have an intended message and a desire to craft prose that is pleasing or moving. The words should function to carry the meaning in a piece of writing just as the cabinet should function to hold objects without falling off the wall, but both objects could not be considered good works of craftsmanship if they are not also a joy to interact with.
No one doubts the value of good writing. Ernest Hemingway was one of the best fiction writers of all time. Some would argue that he was the best fiction writer. He told good stories, and we wouldn’t have wanted him to do anything else. Even if you’ve never read any of his books, you’d probably agree that Hemingway would have been wasted as a truck driver.
When you are a struggling creative writer, or a young creative writer, it can be easy to lose hope. You study the great artists of the past and compare yourself to them. You doubt that you’ll ever be able to write as they did and you worry that you’ve wasted your time and energy.
But we don’t tell students in trade schools to give up if they can’t do the job perfectly on the first try. We train them and encourage them. We tell them to practice and learn from their mistakes. Writing, like any form of craftsmanship, is a life-long enterprise. Your abilities will grow and change over time. If you keep trying, you’ll look back at what you created a year ago and you’ll be amazed by how much you’ve grown.
My response to Sarah’s uncle should have been, “I’m a writer.”
His follow-up question would have been, “Anything I’ve read?”
To which I’d say, “No, sir. Not yet, but soon.”
