The Secret To Writing Is…to Write

I have many secret desires, as we all do. Some secret because they should be—others because the opportunity to disclose has not presented itself. So, now a big reveal…whenever Garrison Keillor retires from the Writer’s Almanac, I want his job. He, or whoever else, can keep Prairie Home Companion, I want the other gig. For those not familiar (I’m judging you right now), Keillor has a daily 7-10 minute “show” on your local NPR station in which he highlights moments in history, from birthdays (some of literary greats or other people of importance) to historical events and then shares a poem. He ends every show with this tagline, “Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.” I love this shit. It always makes me feel as though I’m in a special support group with Garrison as our coach, feeding us words of wisdom and encouragement for our lives and our craft.

So, the question is, if I was to take over the show, what’s my tagline? The format wouldn’t change, just my own judgment in terms of which historical and literary subject matter. But the key, for me, is the tagline. Not an easy task to replace Garrison, as evidence by his recent vacation from the show and the replacement’s lack of gravitas to fill in, but a great tagline would help. The recent sub did not have a good tagline. Something along the lines of “I hope you will join us again next time on the Writer’s Almanac.” I mean, seriously, what’s that? So, here’s my feeble attempt, “And always remember, the secret to writing is…to write.” Alright, let the judgement begin. I’m open to amendments or replacements, but Garrison’s is so good, anything else will pale in comparison. Regardless of it’s worthiness, it’s something I try to remember as it is a secret I discovered.

I’m a PhD student (well, actually PhD Candidate, but I won’t bore you with the distinction). This involves a lot of writing and reading. The reading is challenging, but is helped by my speed. My wife always accuses me of “skimming”, but I prefer intellectually gifted. The writing, on the other hand, has always been problematic. I’d hem and haw, wait until the last minute, and generally be a hot mess during the whole process. Then, I discovered something. The pain of writing isn’t so much in the actual writing, but in the stalling, the thinking, and most importantly, the second guessing of your abilities as a writer. The general process used to be, I’d think about the paper, then I would outline the paper, then I would think some more, THEN, I would decide it was all shit and start all over again. Eventually, I would eek out a paragraph or two, come to the same conclusion and do it again. Eventually, I realized that I was editing before I was writing. This does not work. I decided I would just start writing and (insert cliché about chips hitting the fan or whatever). Sure, I had a general idea of where I was going, but, for the most part, I just wrote. Pages and pages of writing, I rambled, I sometimes would curse or rhyme just to keep it interesting. (As in, “I have no idea of what the fuckity fuck I am talking about here it seems worth keeping” or “Foucault’s conceptions are great inventions”.) For the most part, it worked. Now, it was hard to just keep writing, but it made the editing so much more productive and, to a certain extent, enjoyable. Has it alleviated all anxiety? No, they linger, but more quietly.

A byproduct of this method is that my writing improved. It became easier the more I did it and things, like this post, are fun to do. The problem is that my PhD student world made me feel as though all my writing must be “productive”. In other words, if it wasn’t an assignment, a conference presentation or a possible journal submission, what’s the point? So, when I don’t have to, I don’t write. I used to have a “blog” (Do people still “blog”?), and I always found it fulfilling. However, life got in the way and I stopped. Recently, I have had the urge to start writing more, what I termed recreational writing. (Twitter fills the void as I can be witty, snarky, intelligent, goofy in 140 characters, but it doesn’t do the same that for rage and anger that a long post can—or any complex idea or emotion.) A friend took me to task for considering this type of writing “recreational”. Her point was why should I devalue certain types of writing compared to others? It is all worthwhile and serves the greater good of becoming a skilled academic. She was right. I had forgotten the secret that in order to be a writer…I had to write. Indeed, I needed to write often, regardless of the format, purpose, or whatever. It really is a twofold secret. The first serves the actual task of writing something, get words on paper and go. But the second, and perhaps more important point, is that in order to build and improve your craft, whatever it is, is to do it at every opportunity. And so, I begin again, hoping that I don’t forget the secret. All the more reason that I’m ready to take over Garrison, so I can not only tell my listeners, but also myself everyday, “And always remember, the secret to writing is…to write.”