Asked if he thought he had evolved as a writer, Patrick Modiano, the most recent Nobel laureate in literature said, “No, not really. The feeling of dissatisfaction with every book remains just as alive. I had a longtime recurring dream: I dreamt that I had nothing left to write, that I was liberated. I am not, alas. I am still trying to clear the same terrain, with the feeling that I’ll never get done.”
George Orwell said, “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”
Hemingway was, as usual, more blunt: “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
Poor Joan Didion: “There is always a point in the writing of a piece when I sit in a room literally papered with false starts and cannot put one word after another and imagine that I have suffered a small stroke, leaving me apparently undamaged but actually aphasic.”
And who (except Geoff Pullum and his grammarian friends) could argue with Dorothy Parker: “If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”
More recently Amy Poehler, an actor, a comedian, and now a published author, has written, “The truth is, writing is this: hard and boring and occasionally great but usually not. … I have told people that writing this book has been like brushing dirt away from a fossil. What a load of shit. It has been like hacking away at a freezer with a screwdriver.”
I collect comments about writing the way other people curate home exhibits of cat figurines or have closets full of black chunky-soled shoes. When I find one of these bits from fellow sufferers I think: Thank you! It’s not just me! Friends, do you see what excellent company I keep?
Writing is hard. For most writers, the financial rewards are few. I know the best I can hope for—and I hope for this daily—is a nice email from a stranger letting me know that something I wrote helped. Or moved them. Or made them laugh.
In a way you’re more fortunate if you view writing as a necessary task required by your job, rather than as a major part of your identity. When your work is intertwined with notions of your value as a person, you’re pretty much screwed.
Not long ago a friend called with a long lament about how he was afraid he wasn’t a writer anymore. He had, he said, spent seven hours on one paragraph and it still wasn’t good enough. He thought he was going to have to become a bus driver or a janitor. (Those are your choices? I asked). He said he was a failure, a fraud.
I took a deep breath and tried to say soothing things. But I thought, Shut the hell up. How tiresome it is to hear these jeremiads, especially from people who are, on the face of it, prospering. This friend has had a long career as a writer, and his latest recently published book had been a commercial and critical success. He had, really, no freaking right to complain.
And yet complain he did. For a while I was a good friend, listening with cuticle-picking patience and reminding him of his successes. Finally I’d had it, mostly because in that moment he reminded me so much of myself. When I realized he’d become a magnifying mirror of my own bad habits and irritating tics, I said to him: “Stop having so many feelings and just do the f-ing work.”
Then we both laughed really hard.
My friend told me my outburst helped him. He realized he needed to stop wasting time and emotional energy and live the old Nike slogan: Just do it. Our exchange made me wish at times my tactful friends had told me to stuff it when I went on and on (and on and on) about how hard my life was because I had to spend mornings working on a book.
During the last World Cup, many Americans, even those like me who don’t give a hoot about soccer, learned about the practice of “flopping.” Was that guy really hurt? He looked hurt. When I learned it was a performance, I had a moment of recognition. Yes, he may have been hurt, but nowhere near as badly as he made it out to be. I began to see myself and many of my writer friends as floppers.
I’m most likely to flop when I meet people who say they love to write, or those who don’t see writing as anything more than a chore to be done after the real work has been accomplished—the “I just have to write up the results” kind of folks.
Surely there’s some middle ground here, between those of us who feel like we’re bleeding on the page and those of you who are quickly wiping down the kitchen counter after the meal has been prepared and eaten. On either end of the bell curve stretches a dangerous flat line where you care either too much or not enough and the work suffers, often by not getting done.
If you want to craft something that people will want to read, you’re going to have to work hard, and in ways that put callouses on your brain. You have to get used to the feeling of stuckness. You have to show up and do the work even when it feels stupid and meaningless. Sometimes it will take a whole day to write one paragraph. You must learn to sit quietly and listen to criticism, if you’re lucky enough to find someone willing to give it you. It’s excruciating to reread pages you’ve sweated over and realize you can’t use any of them. They may be fine—good, even—but they don’t belong in this book. Highlight and delete. And think about how much the whole process sucks.
Though let’s be honest. No matter how awful it feels, it’s far from the pain of a real illness, or not being able to afford to get your car fixed, or having to teach five classes a semester at three different campuses. Yeah, writing is hard. But if it’s what you get to do for your job, it’s also a luxury.
When my students start to experience the inevitable thesis meltdown two months before the final result is due, when they think they won’t be able to do it, to produce anything worthwhile, that it’s too hard to finish, I tell them: This is what it’s like to be a writer.
Then I turn to my own work and find it lacking. I want to throw everything out. I tell my friends I’m not a writer, I can’t write. When things get really bad I’ll send an email to my editor detailing my plight and explain to him how much the book he’s been working with me on sucks. Because he knows me and because he’s an experienced editor, he’ll fire back a simple response: “Your demons are right on schedule.” I’ll think, Right. Stop having so many feeling and just do the f-ing work.
Yet I continue to collect quotes and quips from good and famous writers to remind myself my demons have a great pedigree. I try to keep them stashed away because I know they are also unsightly.
Rachel Toor is an associate professor of creative writing at Eastern Washington University’s writing program in Spokane. Her website is http://www.racheltoor.com. She welcomes comments and questions directed to careers@chronicle.com. Her first novel, On the Road to Find Out, was published last year by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and she is now working on a book about rats.
