The Difference Between “Writing to Learn” and “Learning to Write”

In graduate school, Donald Murray’s book Write to Learn heavily impacted the way I thought about writing. The title alone floored me. “Write to learn”? Isn’t it supposed to be “learn to write”?

From our earliest schooling, we are trained to learn with safety and caution. Trained to thoroughly learn about something before we do it. High school and college are especially modeled this way. We learn math before we apply it. We take four years of classes before we work in our fields. And we are taught to write papers or assignments in one fell swoop — getting it perfect the first time.

But that’s not how the creative process works. Nor is it how life works.

Murray opens Write to Learn saying, “Let’s write together. Write what? I don’t know. I don’t need to know what I am going to write and neither do you. Writing produces writing.”

How do you teach that? It’s difficult. You can mentor or guide that process, but you can’t standardize that process.

Since grad school, I’ve applied a “write to learn” philosophy to writing and life. Writing — like life — is terrifying and exciting. You’re staring at a blank page. Two approaches come to mind.

1. You can try to control the outcome, follow a script, and make it perfect.
2. You can just…create.

Which approach seems more freeing, uninhibited, and likely to produce inspiring writing full of genuine creative surprises?

Murray goes on to say, “It is impossible to have a blank mind. Something will drift out of your memory or experience, something you see or hear, smell or touch or taste will come into your head. The important thing is not to strain at it but remain in a drifty, dreamy state, making notes on what appears on the stage in the theater of your mind.”

This is very similar to meditation, watching thoughts, feelings, and emotions emerge like clouds continually changing in the sky. I never fail to write something when I sit down. With an Emersonian faith in the universe, something always arrives to fill my brain, inspire me, and add words to the page.

I think of life this way too. Up until the end of grad school, I was more of a “learn to write” person. Despite my philosophy, literature, and rock music history pontifications in the late 1990s, I liked my learning by the numbers. I took courses. Courses added up to semesters. Semesters added up to years. Years added up to degrees. On the side, I even read books from the “literature canon” and listened to rock music from canonized lists. I enjoyed learning, but I stayed in the “learn to write” lanes.

Atlanta changed everything. During my last 15 years here, all training wheels and guardrails disappeared. Gloriously chaotic — and even more gloriously educational — I’ve had to build a career by facing a “blank page” every day and creating my own story. I followed no societal script, no degree program, and no conventional career path.

By contrast, I know many people who found a rulebook somewhere and constructed a life based on those rules. This is how most of us live. We fear the blank slate of life like we fear the blank slate of writing. That’s why so many of us keep the training wheels on and follow a safe script.

Most people follow a version of this specific script: High school to college to a job/career to a marriage to a house to kids to overscheduled kids with too much to do for the next 18 years for each one. Understand: I am not knocking any of these things, and these milestones can be genuine sources of happiness for people. But many people do not choose these steps out of a sense of independence or intention. They choose these steps because “that’s what you do” or because they would look bad in the eyes of others if they did not do these things. It horrifies me to see friends and acquaintances beat up on themselves because they haven’t hit one of these milestones by a certain age.

There is a different path. Your own path.

Believe me, I can sometimes pine for “normalcy,” and turning 40 brought up some painful moments where Fear of Missing Out emerged in big ways. I made choices in life that eliminated other choices, and I can’t go back in time to “fix” it. But as a creative and professional writer, untethered since grad school ended and thrown to the wolves of a big city back in 2003, I’m now going through a kinder, gentler, and realistic reevaluation period about how I carved out my life. The last 15 years actually align closer than I realized to the aspirational vision I set for myself in 2002 where I wanted to thrive on an unscripted, chaotic path — the “ditch” as Neil Young calls it (in contrast to the “middle of the road”).

This chaotic path is a “write to learn” path. Instead of driving safely in my lane, I veered into the ditch. Multiple times. I edited a magazine for five years without prior experience. I built a business network from scratch without prior experience. I took jobs like director of business development for an IT company or director of content strategy for a digital agency without prior experience. I leaped into creative outlets such as fiction writing, social media, and economic development without much experience. I started my own copywriting and content marketing business six years ago without any sort of entrepreneurial experience.

Nearly all these experiences went quite well — and now I am “experienced.” And what a thrilling ride! What a thrilling education! I believe life is much more interesting and exciting when you “write to learn.” These experiences — like facing a blank page — forced me to creatively learn on the fly. Eventually, this kind of life experience accrued over many years and hardwired my brain into a new way of thinking, evolving, and adapting that now applies to nearly everything I do. I feel young at a time when many of my peers sadly feel old.

In 2018, new experiences are less scary because I have a creative life vocabulary for understanding how most learning situations commonly work. And my writing thrives as a result. When I write, I’ve learned to face the blank page with excitement and overcome my fears. First, I write. I draft badly. Horribly. Verbosely. Then I clean it up. When I revise, I learn what I’m trying to say. And the output always seems like a small miracle when I complete it. The process of going from something unformed and inchoate in my head to something that others enjoy and/or use is a metaphor for universal creation — and the miracle it implies.

As I evolve my life, I feel this impulse every time I enter scary new areas and learn new things. And I’m going through this terrifying process again right now as I’m intentionally evolving my life in several areas. While terrifying at first, I am encouraged to know that my “write to learn” approach will likely kick into gear — just as it has carried me through the last 15 years in Atlanta as I shifted from safe learning to real learning.

So, are you a “write to learn” person? Or a “learn to write” person?

If you’re a writer, then I challenge you to write to learn. And for everyone, I challenge you to more boldly face the blank page of your life. Throw away the script. You don’t need it.