Writers Writing

Where Books Come From

I was driving along one day, listening to NPR, when a voice said, “Nobody knows what it’s like to be a writer but other writers.” Damn right, I thought. Then, Oh! That was me—a clip from an interview I’d done a while back. It made me laugh.

Over the past few days, teaching at the Midwest Writers Workshop, I was reminded (for the millionth time) how much I still agree with myself. I loved the buzz of conversation among writers, giddy to find themselves among so many others who thought their obsession with words was perfectly reasonable—sharing stories, offering tips, encouraging one another. Some of the attendees were beginning writers; others had published extensively.

“Yes!” I heard again and again.

“Oh, my God. I know.”

I felt the same way myself.

Sometimes readers assume writing comes easily to the authors whose books they love. It so does not. Whether they are plotters, who outline the story before they begin, or pantsers (like me), who jump right in, trusting the story to reveal itself as we go, writing is hard. No matter how vividly you imagine the story you want to write, nothing about what you imagine is words. Nothing.

Writing is a second language to the heart.

You must literally translate what you know, feel, see, and hear in your head to words and rhythms on the page. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, the story you wrestle into words comes close to the one you imagined; more often, it falls way short. It’s the nature of translation. The same thing happens translating a story from, say, English to French.

No matter how smart you are or how accomplished in language and craft, there’s just no way a story in one language can become exactly the same story in another.

Some writers, even the best of them, walk away because they never figure out that this is true. I get why they walk away! I’ve thought of doing it countless times. But I feel worse not writing than I do, writing. Living inside even the most impossible, defiant story, makes the real world feel as far away as Mars.

On good days, when the story offers itself up beneath my fingers, I am supremely, incomparably happy. But even when the story is stubborn, recalcitrant, unruly and defiant, thwarting me at every turn, it’s still wholly mine to shape and control. Plus, having written, I feel fuller, better, more able to navigate the real day to which I must return.

This is all to say, bravo to writers—from newbies to old hands—who gather up the courage every day to keep going to their desks, eventually finding their way.

Think of them as you read. Send them good energy. They need it.

And in case you’re between books at the moment, I highly recommend these, written by MWW faculty members.

#midwestwritersworkshop, #creativewriting, #loriraderday, #kelsey.parker.ervick, #havenkimmelholmes, #jillchristman