You know, many writers really don’t like to write. I think this the chief complaint of so many. They hate to write; they do it under the compulsion that makes any artist the victim he is, but they loathe the process of sitting down trying to turn thoughts into reasonable sentences.
The above quote was taken from an interview with Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird) in 1964 by Roy Newquist. That small piece of information caused me to pause and re-read it several times. I had never though that I hated to write. I thought that I was more afraid that the words would not come to me or that the RIGHT words would not find their way onto the page, that I really wasn’t a writer, that I was playing some kind of game with myself and I really had no talent at all. Writers write and I’ve spent a good deal of my time the last few years avoiding any kind of writing. I’ve called it writers block when maybe it’s just that I hate to write and at the same time I’m compelled to write, any kind of writing, just as long as I’m writing.
Yet, I don’t really want to set down and write but I continue to find myself doing just that, writing, but not the kind of writing I really want to do. My muse keeps prodding me, sending me into the underworld of floating words just waiting for me to capture their essence and mold them into a meaningful story. Expand and contract, the drummer beats to the rhythm of the expanding and contracting words surrounding me and I’m lost in the fluidness of the beat and call it confused.
Confused.
Being unable to think with clarity or act with understanding and intelligence. Lacking logical order or sense: chaotic.
Floating words have no external structure, no definable order. A writer makes sense of the senseless … or do they?
Chaotic.
A condition or place of great disorder or confusion. A disorderly mass; a jumble: the disordered state of unformed matter and infinite space. Lacking a visible order or organization: completely unordered and unpredictable.
Organize and predict victory. Paste the words into an organized, predictable outline and claim victory over the chaos of structureless words floating within the beat, expanding and contracting in a disordered state of infinite space.
Unpredictable.
Something difficult or impossible to foretell or foresee; unknown.
Unknown.
I am blind.
There it is, the big unknown. Alone it can stake its claim on the bravest souls, surrounding them in liquid fear until they drown. Or do they? Certainly not all fall pray to their own fears. What makes them different? More courage? Probably not. More faith? Maybe. A stronger desire? Probably. But certainly they write, regardless of the confusion, the chaos, the unpredictable, the unknown and the drowning fear. They write because to not write is not an option. And sometimes magic happens and the desire to create magic is greater than the chaos driving the fear.
So, I don’t hate to write. I hate knowing I can’t control the words, that I can’t know the story before it’s written, that I can’t map out the process in minute detail and I hate knowing my fear has drowned the writer in me.
Can I write now? I don’t know.
The interview with Harper Lee can be found Here.
Do writers hate to write? Interesting, but I know that when I organize and paste, all the magic goes away. You are right about the fear. We all fear the loss of control when those words and that story takes on its own life. However, I believe that is the most exciting adventure, and I agree it is scary.
You have so many talents. There is no rule saying what kind of writing you should be doing. In fact, there is no holding you back from any project you find interesting and worth writing about. Your talent is unlimited and if you float for awhile, the answers will come.
Thanks, Maria. I think this is a life process, not just a writing one.
Sometimes writing is like thinking - effortless, endless, noisy, senseless, and easy. At other times it’s like having constipation. You know it’s there waiting to come out, you can feel it like a dead weight, you desperately want to create something, yet no matter how hard you push, nothing happens; you feel blocked. The frustration of it can bring tears to your eyes.
Yet other times writing’s just a chore, or a delight, or a hassle, or an occupation.
I should know, people pay me to write. When I was young I wrote for joy, now I write for money. The joys comes at moments like this, when finally, after all that effort, something slips out easily, bringing with it great relief.
Jackie, thanks for taking the time to comment. It has been almost a year since I wrote this post and still I’ve not found my way to any kind of focused writing. But that may be about to change in the very near future. I still have hope.