On Writing

 A few months ago I wrote about my commitment to my writing; I decided I would write every day. After having read If You Want To Write by Brenda Ueland, I would like to add a few more thoughts on the subject.

One thing, from the book, that struck a chord with me, is the idea that creative expression can never be forced. Will power alone will not make good writing. 

Committing to writing every day will certainly help to develop skill. We learn by doing it. When we first pump water from a well, it’s often rusty, but if we keep pumping, the water will come clear. Keep writing, keep writing, keep writing, and you will get to a depth within you where poems or stories are longing to be written. So yes, there is certainly a time and place for “willing” (v.).

But, and here it is; the writing life also includes hours and hours of not-writing; times of, as Ueland puts it, “moodling around”, puttering, staring out the window, or meandering aimlessly, when our imagination and our ideas percolate and mature. “Imagination works quietly and slowly” - B.U.

We can make ourselves sit down and work; we can prepare an environment for creating. We can “will” ourselves to persevere when we feel stuck - all that - but we cannot “will” truly good work into existence.

It’ll bloom when it’s good and ready. Not sooner, and as author and poet Mark Nepo calls it “far beyond our willful wanting”. 

You may have labored for hours on a piece and nothing flowed; the writing felt dead, and you may be seconds away from tossing the whole damn thing in the trash, only to have the entire poem just pop into your head a few hours, or days, later, while doing the dishes or walking the dog, (or petting the cat in my case).

Willing can also be useful to discern between creative “moodling around” and when we’re just avoiding work. 

Another thing Ueland emphasizes in her book, is the importance of authenticity. Work that has the underlying motive to impress, or be profitable, or trendy etc. will often feel inauthentic, or even dead, to the reader. 

Elizabeth Gadd (@elizabethgadd), an amazing photographer, (look her up on Instagram and YouTube) talks about “comparison mind games” that often has a paralyzing effect on us. We may feel like impostors, or not good enough. When we try to be like this poet or that, this artist or that, we lose our own authentic voice and expression.

At those times, when you have no idea what to write; when you feel stuck, or paralyzed, one way of coming alive again is to write about exactly that; describe what “stuck” feels like and looks like, does it have a color? Where in your body do you feel it? Does it have weight? Keep writing, and be as authentic, raw, real, and truthful as you can, and you will soon find your confidence, your voice, your life, again. 

Photo by Florian Klauer, courtesy by Unsplash