Is there anyone who shouldn’t write?
“Is there anyone who shouldn't write?”
I was asked this fascist-in-disguise question last week, when my friend Joan Juliet Buck interviewed me for her podcast "Joan of Art." Caveat: it wasn't her question, but a question someone had asked her to ask me.
At first I didn’t realize what a horrible question it is. It even seemed kind of normal. But then my Reject button started flashing.
True, some people are not very good writers. Does that mean they shouldn't write? But then, lots of people are not very good at lots of things they enjoy doing. For example, I'm really not at all good at playing the piano. Okay, maybe I shouldn't book myself into Carnegie Hall--but even if I did, nobody is forced to buy a ticket.
My point is, would anyone seriously consider telling me I shouldn't play the piano AT ALL?
So what is it about writing? When you tell someone you're playing the piano, they don't say, "Oh! Can I buy your stuff on iTunes? When's your next performance? Are you playing Rachmaninov?" They say something like, "How great. You must enjoy it so much." Maybe they ask what you're playing, and if you say "Just scales" or "Chopsticks" they'll nod sympathetically, and maybe even praise you for being willing to be a beginner.
But if you tell someone you're writing, do they say, "How great. You must enjoy it so much." No. The first thing they say is, "What are you writing? Fiction or nonfiction?" (And if you answer "poetry," up in the air goes their nose.) And on it goes: "Do you have an agent yet? Who do you write for? How many subscribers do you have?"
What's wrong with writing for yourself? Writing for your own creative satisfaction. Writing to know yourself better. Writing to find out what you think and what your life means to you.
Wait a minute: is that "journaling"? Uh oh, that's "therapeutic." Which is defined as "not real writing."
But why is writing that's therapeutic not "real writing"? Who says what's real writing and what's isn't? That great Platonic judge out there, decreeing who should write and who shouldn't?
Also, why can't writing that's written for publication--with the intention of being original, engaging, authentic, euphonious, and meaningful--be therapeutic to the writer too? It's certainly therapeutic to readers, when we see our wild hopes and weaknesses and fears mirrored in characters on the page.
I'm curious about why writing is singled out as a creative pursuit that ought to be done well or not at all. (And again: who's to judge? Writing can serve lots of different purposes.) I suspect it goes back to school, and the suffering most of us underwent when our work came back slashed with red pen by a teacher who didn't care what we were trying to say but cared only for the cosmetics of how we said it. No wonder the practice of writing is so fraught with judgment. No wonder so many people think they can't write.
This is nonsense. Everybody who has language and a means to put words onto real or virtual paper can write.
Not all admired writers are special beings who just put pen to paper and out it comes. Some are: clearly stories just pour out of Stephen King, like they poured out of Agatha Christie. Iris Murdoch used to "brew" for a year, then sit down and start at the beginning and finish at the end. But most writers I know only wish they could do that. And anyway, how is this relevant to someone who simply wants to explore and enjoy writing? When I sit down at the piano, I'm not expecting, ever ever ever, to play like Vladimir Ashkenazy.
I used to buy into those snotty assumptions around writing and I didn't even realize it. I used to think writing ought to be for publication. That it was virtually a sin to write and not be a good writer. If you subconsciously buy into them too, it's my job to convince you to change your mind. Literally, my job.
I have worked with hundreds of people over the past 20 years, using what we've now begun to call the Imaginative Storm method. And every single one of them was able to write something that gave them creative satisfaction. Should they publish this writing? Maybe, maybe not. Should they write? Absolutely.
Should you write? Absolutely.
You don't have to know grammar. You don't have to be able to spell or punctuate. You don't have to write in complete sentences. You don't have to write "well." In fact, TRYING to write well is, in my experience, the biggest obstacle to actually writing well. Just play with words, explore your mind and your memories, observe and question. Don't write with any intention beyond just creating something on paper that didn't exist before.
Ten minutes--that's it. You can't write well in ten minutes, can you? (Answer to that question in another post.) But can you write something interesting and new that amuses you and maybe even gives you a scrap of insight into your relationship with the world? You bet.
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Visit imaginativestorm.com for info on our free Writing Prompt of the Week on Zoom, our self-paced online courses, our live workshops, and our book Write What You Don't Know, co-authored by me and Imaginative Storm co-founder James Navé.
My podcast episode on Joan of Art airs on Friday, September 8, 2023.