what we talk about when we talk about writing

On Talking About Doing the Work, or Doing the Work

Years ago, in the days before the internet, I read two books about the writing life: one, The Writing Life, by Annie Dillard, and the other, Writing Past Dark, by my friend and HarperCollins author, Bonnie Friedman. Both of them are written on a more or less contemplative foundation, which seems right for books about writing written by writers. Both talk about distraction, place, history. In one of the first chapters, Bonnie writes about killing flies while she’s supposed to be writing. Annie writes about the dangers of writing in a space whose view is too beautiful. (I don’t generally kill flies while I’m writing, but I have had the experiences of alternately working in spaces whose views were breathtaking, and spaces whose views were not unlike solitary confinement.)

I read these books early on in my writing life: at the time, I’d had exactly one essay published in a small literary journal, about making the discovery that my grandmother (while married to my grandfather) was a lesbian in a longtime relationship — sixty years — with a woman who lived in the West Village. I was deep in the throes of writing a piece of short fiction, in a manner I can only describe as obsessive: I worked on it whenever I could — during breaks from work, at home after work, early in the morning before work, all weekend. Annie’s book came out in 1989, and Bonnie’s in 1992; I had already read my way through Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones which I loved (and still love), but that also convinced me that I would not write anything decent — or, at all — unless I was in possession of a particular cheap fountain pen that Natalie wrote with, and (if memory serves) recommended. I stopped writing, and instead went out looking for the pen, all over Manhattan.

For months.

I looked and looked, and searched and searched. During this time, I wrote very little except in my journal, in which I described my hunt. There’s very little in those entries about what I was writing or thinking about writing or having trouble writing or why I was having trouble writing. Instead, pages and pages about searching for a cheap Bic disposable fountain pen of the sort that Natalie wrote about in her book. When I finally found one — $2.99 in a dusty stationary store on West 72nd Street in Manhattan — it leaked, it was hard to write with, and I hated it. I used it once.

This, as they say, is a thing.

One writer friend of mine, upon hearing that Toni Morrison wrote her novels longhand on yellow legal pads, went out and bought a stack of them on which she planned to write her novel. Another friend kept a particular kind of journal — off-size, purchased in France, soft-covered — after seeing one sitting on her favorite author’s desk in a book of photographs about the workspaces of famous writers; my friend bought it, but never wrote in it.

For the most part, I think this is probably human nature, and therefore totally relatable: I started playing Martin guitars because that’s what my heroes played, as opposed to, say, Guilds (I had two of those also, but they weren’t the same). How many kids begged their parents for a pair of Air Jordans for Christmas for the same reason? My guitar playing would improve a little bit after I switched from an inexpensive plywood guitar to a Martin, but would only change radically if I practiced many hours a day, which I did. If a kid gets a pair of Jordans for Christmas, will it help the accuracy of their shooting? Maybe, maybe not. Practice, however, will.

In the same way, writing only gets better — only gets done — if we actually do it. The Bhagavad Gita says it best: we are not entitled to the fruits of our actions. It is about the process, and about becoming the best writers — the best artists and creatives — we can be. But, there are hurdles.

In the last few weeks, I’ve noticed a remarkable number of pieces on Substack about the writing process—everything from Summer Brennan’s wonderful essay about writing and the problem of outsized expectations, to pieces about whether or not one needs an MFA to get published (a question that’s been asked since Reagan was in office), to people who have never once sat on the editorial side of the desk offering editorial wisdom from the editorial side of the desk (which is a little like teaching French when you don’t speak it, and only have a pocket Berlitz from 1975 as a textbook), to making a solid living on Substack that allows you to quit your day job.

Again, so much of this is human nature that it’s impossible to find fault with it, and one shouldn’t. It’s emblematic of imperfect humanity: we compare, we argue, we pontificate, we copycat, we take sides, we gossip, we frantically throw everything at the wall and hope something sticks, we get jealous, we build our worlds around how to do The Things That Our Heroes Do, we try to take shortcuts — I was convinced that if I wrote with the cheap, leaking Bic fountain pen that Natalie talked about, I’d be her; after all, that’s what this is all about — and in doing so, this happens: we don’t actually do the work itself.

Caveats: part of the writing process very definitely involves spending time with trusted colleagues with whom you can safely share your worries, concerns, and even your work. Creatives talking to creatives can be a very good thing. Some writers are also far more generous than others; when my friend, poet Maggie Smith revealed on Substack her behind-the-scenes, line-by-line process — an absolute mystery for non-poets — it compelled many of her readers to get straight down to work. Part of being a creative means not falling into the grip of isolation, which can be stultifying and soul-killing, and that is where Substack absolutely soars. Read your favorites, engage with them, and then — just as you’re about to drill down into the fiftieth essay on How to Make a Living On Substack, stop, bookmark it, and go back to work. Maybe visit it again later, but for now, return to your writing.

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One of the most common questions that teachers of writing get happens on day one of workshop; someone energetically raises their hand and wants to know Do I need an agent, and how do I get one? When I am asked this question, which is a lot, my response is always the same: how much of your book is written? At least ninety percent of the time, the answer ranges from I have about twenty pages to I’m still just sort of thinking about it. When I tell them Focus less on the agent and more on the work, at least for now, they usually respond with Oh, okay, thank you, like I am probably not the hundredth person they’ve heard this from. Others take a different approach: they go to all the right events, move in all the right circles, wear all the right shoes, belong to all the right organizations. They have very strong opinions on process, and on how a book gets made (which may or may not be accurate), only: they’re not writing. Writing is writing; talking about writing is not writing.

Which is not to say that talking about writing is inherently wrong, or problematic. Far from it. What I am saying is that if anything is distracting you from doing the work itself — from doing the writing, making the art, confronting the page, learning who you characters are and why they put on their left shoe before their right, or why they have that barely noticeable tremor, or why your narrator’s voice changes pitch when she’s around her neighbor — it is not helping. To be a writer (and probably an art-maker of any sort) requires the ability to keep one’s rear in one’s chair, and to subtly slip into a place where your brain begins to operate comfortably in a separate world of your creation, and isn’t resulting in your looking over your shoulder every few seconds to see what someone else is doing, or saying, or thinking, or even wearing.

It’s not about the right pen.

Devote yourself to the work, no matter what. Fall in love with it. Keep good sentences in your ears.¹ Work hard. And then, work harder.

1. Jane Kenyon