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Sometimes, I like to call myself a mythogographer, one who is a compiler of myths, who renders myth to page to create something new. The more I write, the more I rely on myths of our past to create a mythology for the future, which is probably why I write speculative fiction.
Often, writers get asked, “Why do you write?”
It’s a good question. Why on Earth would anyone want to sit in a chair (or stand, whatever) for hours on end, alone usually (or in a coffeeshop or library, still basically, alone) and stare at paper or screen?
I’m sure my dogs think humans are nuts. They remain in one place for a long time. Stare at something that isn’t alive. Ignore the rest of the world, especially my dogs. And when they aren’t doing that staring, what we humans call writing, they get grumpy.
There are other things we as writers could be doing, and often do instead of writing–dishes, laundry, gardening, shopping–anything to supposedly get things out of the way so we can write. More like wasting time, right?
Writing is hard. Well, for me, the first draft isn’t hard at all. There are no restrictiions to the draft. No editing. No making it better. Just writing. Letting my imagination free range.
Then comes the editing. For me, definitely more difficult. Like in molding clay, I can easily form the shape while it’s moist and pliable, but as the clay dries, the details get added. Thank goodness, writing isn’t like pottery for every step, because in writing, we can easily change things (well, easier than dried clay) through editing, though it may be a long, long process.
I’m finding, at this writing, the process of editing my first draft first novel not so easy. Certainly, not as fun as writing the first draft.
Which is probably why I’m typing up this webpage now. Waiting for hubby to get busy in the garage with his motorcycle so I can dig into my edits with peace. I’t’s been all morning. I’m still waiting. LOL
Richard Ford said, back in November, 1999:
“Beware of writers who tell you how hard they work. (Beware of anybody who tries to tell you that.) Writing is indeed often dark and lonely, but no one really has to do it. Yes, writing can be complicated, exhausting, isolating, abstracting, boring, dulling, briefly exhilarating; it can be made to be grueling and demoralizing. And occasionally it can produce rewards. But it’s never as hard as, say, piloting an L-1011 into O’Hare on a snowy night in January, or doing brain surgery when you have to stand up for 10 hours straight, and once you start you can’t just stop. If you’re a writer, you can stop anywhere, any time, and no one will care or ever know. Plus, the results might be better if you do.”
Well, true, writing a novel isn’t brain surgery, but it sure does a number on your mind! There’s all those strings of subplots and characters and yadda yadda to keep track of. When I was a kid, on Sunday evenings we as a family would watch The Ed Sullivan show together, and I’m talking back in the late 50s and through the 60s. I always enjoyed watching the guy who balanced plates on tall poles. Sometimes they did fall and crash on the floor, but most of the time those plates would spin flying saucers way above the guy’s head. Amazing stuff!
Kinda how I view writing an novel. Spinning plates, defying gravity, constantly on the edge of destruction.
Writing in general, and for me, writing a novel specifically, keeps me humble. Sometimes, when I’m not at my computer, I think I know what I’m doing. I read about writing. I attend workshops on writing. I spend weekends and sometimes entire weeks at workshops studying writing. I’m proud of myself, a life-long learner. I know stuff!
Then, I sit in my deskchair, stare at my monitor, and the monitor stares back, daring me, taunting me. Be brave! It yells at me in its blankness. Be creative! Throw caution to the wind and let your imagination soar!
Uh huh. Yep. OK. Thats where I feel humble about my writing. Where I can’t brag about anything. Can’t be over-confident. That’s where I have to dig inside of me, where the truth resides (whether you want it to or not) and find the universe living there, waiting for me to take a little nugget of an idea and start a Big Bang of storytelling.
“Once I got to my desk, once I started writing, I still believed anything was possible.” said Alice Hoffman.
Isn’t that how writers think? Not the “any idiot can write a novel” but the “I can create something new, fun, imaginative, exciting, even maybe intellectual.” Well, I can at least have fun trying, right?
James Salter said:
In the end, writing is like a prison, an island from which you will never be released but which is a kind of paradise: the solitude, the thoughts, the incredible joy of putting into words the essence of what you for the moment understand and with your whole heart want to believe.
Writers put their whole heart into the words on the page, however they get there be it by hand, or type, or voice, we create something new.
“[Writing] is lunacy. . . You have to be obsessed,” said Susan Sontag.
Yeah. Obsessed. Exactly. I write because I’m obsessed, possessed.
Many authors speak of obsession. I remember back in the 70s when I first had the idea to be published, I read a story about a woman who left her family–husband and kids–move out completely of their home, to write in peace. Sometimes I feel like that now. Thank goodness for coffeeshops, huh?
Writing, like coffee and chocolate, are obsessions and so far, legal addictions. And so I write.
