10 Things I’ve Learned About Writing — So Far
I have no business writing about writing. I’m an amateur at best, but I love reading and writing and reading about writing and this is a list of the things I’ve learned… so far.
#1 The muse must find you writing
Stephen King and Elizabeth Guilbert have more in common than they know. Yes, I’m comparing the author of Eat, Pray, Love with the author of Scream, Run, Die… and it’s because they have the same vision about writing, (and apparently, the same impulse to share it!)
“…good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up”. (King, 29)
I thought of this again when I read Shonda Rhimes’ A Year of Yes. She says “… I call it the hum. There’s a hum that happens inside my head when I hit a certain writing rhythm, a certain speed. When laying track goes from feeling like climbing a mountain on my hands and knees to feeling like flying effortlessly through the air” (Rhimes, XVIII) The hum for Rhimes is a bigger concept, but that description… that rings genius-like to me.
And yet… as thrilling as the feeling of writing under “the inspiration” is, you have to do your part too: “Your job is to make sure the muse knows where you’re going to be every day from nine ’til noon or seven or ’til three. If he does know, I assure you that sooner or later he’ll start showing up, chomping his cigar and making his magic.” (King, 180)
Similarly, Guilbert tells us that most of her writing life “consists of nothing more than unglamorous, disciplined labor.” (Guilbert, 66) Call it a muse, a genius, eudaimonia, call it inspiration, “you cannot expect it to be there for you all the time. (…) My genius — wherever it comes from — does not keep regular hours. My genius, for what he is worth, does not work on human time…” (Guilbert, 73) But even if the muse doesn’t keep regular hours, she does, and so does King.
If you want to be a writer, write. Write when you want to and when you don’t. Trust that words bring words.
#2 When you can’t write, edit
The “write every day” mandate is super valid. Sometimes it’s easy, and sometimes it’s not. Maybe you’re blocked, maybe the characters don’t know where to go… on those days, I edit. I go back to what I’ve written and correct typos, and find synonyms, and fill in the gaps, and add the punctuation marks, and capitalize the names, and obsess over all the details I miss when I’m on a “writing roll”.
#3 A room of one’s own…
Another point Guilbert and King (and probably many others) make has to do with isolating yourself with your ideas and your words. Guilbert says: “Sneak off and have an affair with your most creative self. Lie to everyone about where you’re actually going on your lunch break. Pretend you are traveling on a business trip when secretly you’re retreating in order to paint, or to write poetry, or to draw up plans for your future organic mushroom farm. (…) Slip away from everyone else at the party and go off to dance alone with your ideas in the dark. Wake yourself up in the middle of the night in order to be alone with your inspiration, while nobody is watching.” (Guilbert, 161). I loved this.
King instead goes straight to the point: “The closed-door is your way of telling the world and yourself that you mean business; you have made a serious commitment to write…” (King, 178).
Much like a very young Shonda Rhimes hiding in the pantry to come up with her stories (Rhimes, 18), you shut out the world, to create your own.
#4 Play, don’t plot
This is definitely my favorite takeaway from King’s book on writing. “You may wonder where plot is in all this. The answer — my answer, anyway — is nowhere. (…) I distrust plot for two reasons: first, because our lives are largely plotless, even when you add in all our reasonable precautions and careful planning; and second, because I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren’t compatible”. (King, 188)
Each writer finds their way, in my case, a pre-defined plot kills the fun. I’d much rather write and see where the characters take me. I watch them like a movie, I observe, and I record. I strive to take down as many details and dialogues and questions as I can while I watch them run, stumble, stagger, still, and pick their own ways. Eventually, the story starts to unfold. Of course, I organize the episodes and worry about consistency, but that’s what editing is for. I was happy to learn I was not alone in this.
“Plot grows out of character (…) Any plot you impose on your characters will be onomatopoetic: PLOT. I say don’t worry about the plot. Worry about the characters. Let what they say or do reveal who they are, and be involved in their lives, and keep asking yourself Now what happens?” (Lamott, 52)
#5 Read, w i d e l y
I savor beautifully constructed sentences like others savor five-star dishes. Consciously, appreciatively, positively buzzing with gratitude. Sometimes, I transcribe entire passages, sometimes I copy simple sentences, other times I copy a couple of words, or even, one single perfect-sounding word that I can’t wait to use.
I was thrilled to learn I’m not alone in this. In Min Jin Lee’s intro to Free Food to Millionaires, she says: “…I read every fine novel and short story I could find, and I studied the ones that were truly exceptional. If I saw a beautifully wrought paragraph, say from Julia Glass’ Three Junes, I would transcribe it in a marble notebook. Then, I would sit and read her elegant sentences, seemingly pinned to my flimsy notebook like a rare butterfly on cheap muslin.” (Lee, XII)
Reading will teach you about genre-generated expectations.
Reading will help you fall in love with language.
Reading will help you find your voice.
So read widely. I don’t know if that’s the best way to say it, but it’s the best wording I could find today. I jump from fiction to fantasy to memoirs. I throw myself into the occasional thriller, knowing I don’t have the heart for it. I wander through poetry and dabble in historical fiction and scroll through multiple medium posts and… you get the idea.
#6 Read Poetry and Lyrics
In line with the previous point, I’ve found a lot of writers recommend reading poetry. There’s something about its evocativeness, its rhymes, and rhythms.
To that, I would add lyrics. Lyrics are a form of poetry too (at least in my book).
#7 Tell The Truth
Lamott kicks off her book on writing by saying: “… good writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are.” (Lamott, 3) She comes back to the topic of telling the truth several times throughout the book. I think her view on this is well summarized in the following quote: “A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way. It’s a lie if you make something up. But you make it up in the name of the truth, and then you give your heart to expressing it clearly.” (Lamott, 50)
Neil Gaiman similarly states: “We writers (…) have an obligation to our readers: it’s the obligation to write true things, especially important when we are creating tales of people who do not exist in places that never were — to understand that truth is not in what happens but what it tells us about who we are. Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all.”
I recently read a novel about spies which says something to this effect “ …because truth was what made the best lies real.” (Quinn, 328) Personally, I think this is a much better way of thinking about writing than the traditional “write what you know”.
#8 Read it out loud
Reading your writing out loud and consciously is, IMHO, one of the best ways to identify when a sentence isn’t there yet.
Lamott especially recommends reading out loud to sound out dialogues. When you read it out loud, does it sound like an actual conversation?
#9 Share it
For so many reasons.
For years, I was a closet poet & writer, and I shared my Narnia with on-one. I had more characters than Disney, trapezing my notebooks on invisible ink. I was scared that it wasn’t good enough (for what?), or finished enough… I was scared someone would steal it (Wait… didn’t you just say that it wasn’t good enough?). I was scared others would read it. I was scared that no one ever would. Are you reading between the lines? The only thing keeping the “magic” in the closet was fear.
Many of the authors I read speak about the first person or the first couple of people they share it with. People they trust to give them an honest opinion. I share it with my brothers, even though they sometimes take forever to get back to me (and yes I’m writing this knowing they will read it).
After they read it, I share the post or story on Medium. Usually, some people like it, and some don’t. Some send me corrections and others highlight sentences that they liked, and others clap and others say nothing. Not once did I want to shove it back in the wardrobe.
#10 Give yourself permission to suck
And believe it! Curiosity killed the cat, and perfectionism killed the story.
That’s it. All I’ve learned about writing, so far. I hope you find it helpful. And if you have any good 📚 recommendations, send them my way!
References — Dig in!
- 📚 Guilbert, Elizabeth. Big Magic. Bloomsbury, 2016.
- 📹 Guilbert, Elizabeth. Your Elusive Genius. February 2009. Retrieved from Ted.
- 📚 King, Stephen. On Writing. Hodder & Stoughton, 2012.
- 📚 Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird. First Anchor Edition, 1995.
- 📚 Lee, Jin Min. Free Food for Millionaires. Grand Central Publishing, 2017. (This one is not about writing, though this edition does include an interview with the author and regardless it’s one of my all-time favorite novels, so I highly recommend it).
- 📄 “Neil Gaiman: Why our future depends on libraries, reading, and daydreaming.” (2013, October 13) The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/15/neil-gaiman-future-libraries-reading-daydreaming
- 📚 Rhimes, Shonda. A Year of Yes. Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2016.
- 📹 Rhimes, Shonda. My Year of Saying Yes to Everything. February 2016. Retrieved from Ted.
