Writing as Life or Death...
Or is it more important than that...?
Sometimes, when you read other writers writing about writing, you might be forgiven for imagining that ours is a pastime undertaken in a holiday camp sitting at a desk where our notebooks are accompanied by a packet of crisps and a pint of beer. It’s all a bit ‘Hi-De-Hi’!
“Let’s play this game children: it’s called ‘Inane Prompt’ or ‘Irrelevant Challenge’. And at the end of the session you get to take your work home along with a Certificate and a lollypop!”
That’s a tad unfair I know, but there surely exists a school that thinks ‘writing’ is about just that, writing.
But isn’t it more important than that?
Yes, there is a role to be played in helping people put words together - but sometimes these initiatives feel a little bit like signing up to join a knitting or quilt-making circle: ‘knit one, purl one, knit-two-together’. And it may be a little cynical to say so, but such things often seem inextricably linked to their leaders/influencers growing income.
Which - let’s not kid ourselves - is contemporary enough, in its own way. And thousands of people get a great deal of benefit out of ‘belonging’.
Yet what I miss amongst all this is the angst of writing.
Call me an Old Romantic, but where are the people who talk about the agonies of this addiction? I don’t mean discussing the editing challenges that hitting a deadline poses, or the stresses and strains of a book tour, a signing, a reading. [If you’re under contract / being paid you’ll get less sympathy / plaudits than you might imagine…]
Surely writing is about more than all of it. Isn’t it akin to a Faith..?
For me, writing is fundamentally existential. It’s a daily battle of will-power, of wrestling with ideas, of trying to come to terms with thoughts, emotions, choices - and all before a single word hits the page.
Writing is shrouded in common questions writ large - WHY? WHAT? WHEN? HOW? WHO? - their capital letters shouting out from somewhere deep within the psyche. It’s about who I am, and who I want to be. It’s about self - because self and writing are inextricably linked.
There is a monster constantly on the prowl, needing to be wrestled with, where the only way of calming it and gaining control is to best it by attempting to answer the biggest questions, then putting the words down.
Don’t give me a prompt to write to; the monster just laughs.
“Can’t make up your own mind?! Just playing at the game like some kind of hobbyist?!”
Of course the process of writing - any writing - brings rewards, and for many people these rewards are adequate and satisfactory, met by taking up the challenge of the prompt or the writing group (where, ironically, the writing is often not talked about). And if that floats your boat, then that’s okay. Honest.
But I’m convinced that there are thousands of writers for whom such a landscape is insufficient; for whom these are sideshows merely help them get through the day/week/month. Are such writers in the majority or the minority? Truly? Who knows? But they are largely silent.
I wanted to write this post in order to try and quiet my demon, if only for an hour or so; to call it out; to demonstrate that I still knew it was there, and what its game is. For some reason (as a pressure valve, perhaps) I felt compelled to recognise it today; to say - publicly - that this is a hard game to play. And a painful one. And one that can rip you up inside. Often.
I wanted to say that, for me, writing is not a hobby, nor a plaything; that in many ways it has become the core of my existence.
Birth: done that. Death: that’s coming. Writing’s now what comes between here and there. Existential, like I said…
Can you too hear the Spectre laughing..?
Right there with you, Ian. Writing for me is a lifeblood. And although I “teach” writing classes, (I like to think of myself as more of a “guide”) I never offer prompts. Don’t like them. It’s seems more of a game. If you’re going to write -- let’s WRITE.
For writing to succeed I think you need to do it full time, practice, practice to find your voice. Doing it with a host of other things is not the way forward, or at least not mine. .