The Secret to Writing

Writing is hard. Writing is easy. Mostly, I find statements about writing ignore the action’s purpose: exorcism. Ejaculation. Ejection. Expunging. Expulsion. Eviction.

I could go on. Really. I earned the title Walking Dictionary well before I turned 12; a BA and a third through a MA later, you can rest assured I’ve graduated to Flapping Thesaurus.

What’s my point? Oh yes. Writing.

The thing, the real thing, about writing is that it’s a personal action. It doesn’t matter what medium you use, what form or genre you write, it doesn’t matter – in the end – how you do it. The real ‘thing’ about writing is that no-one else can do it for you.

… Ah, I hear a few readers snarking. Yes, you could tell someone what to write and they would then write it for you, but they’re not in your head. You have to dictate. You have to enunciate your thoughts to them. Jackass!

… As I was saying. If you don’t communicate that idea in your head and transform it into an artefact – visual or audio – then it stays in your head, doomed to gather dust, stagnate, or go to the place all unvoiced thoughts go to die. THAT, my friends, is the real problem with writing.

The ones we talk about all the time, like writer’s block? Poppycock. I’ve used an old word that sounds ridiculous because the idea of writer’s block is ridiculous. You do not have writer’s block. You have fatigue, possibly; a lack of ideas, maybe; an aversion to thinking your way out of that wall you say you’ve hit, quite probably. But writer’s block, an inability to begin, continue, or finish writing something? No. And I’ll tell you why:

Assuming, that is, that you are a writer, and possess the language fluency and linguistic acrobatics required to write well, then saying you have writer’s block is an insult to yourself and your abilities. It means that you think you’re not good enough to write what you want to write – you’re essentially saying that you’re not a writer. For the love of whatever you hold dear, don’t call it writer’s block. Describe your problem, talk it out, and you’ll find a way out of that box you constructed in your head.

You want to know the secret to getting down to writing? It’s the conviction that you can write. That’s how we all started out, and that’s how we all continue. We believe, to the point of knowing, that we can write and therefore will write, until eventually we actually write. We have the ego that says we are writers and will brook no argument to the contrary, teachers and critics and readers be damned.

A powerful concoction of conviction and ego. That’s it, folks. That’s the big secret.

Sincerely,

Macs