I wrote my first original fiction in my junior year of college. I’d written some fanfic—a handful, maybe—before that, but mostly because my friends did it. I didn’t think of myself as a writer. It certainly never occurred to me to create anything of my own. But then I took Intro to Creative Writing and suddenly I loved writing.
Or, well, I suppose I loved the idea of writing most. I was the only non-writing major in the class, and the only upperclassman. Everyone else had been writing their entire lives. They talked about being in kindergarten and writing little novels. About the awards they’d won in middle and high school. About the books they planned to publish and the careers they planned to build.
I didn’t talk much.
But I listened. And I was fascinated by this world I’d never thought about. I’d always been a reader, but it honestly hadn’t crossed my mind to wonder where the books came from. Who they came from and how. So I started exploring. I read every article, blog post, and Twitter feed I could find on process. I was particularly interested in the commiseration posts. The writing is hard, here’s how to deal with it posts. I memorized all the tips and tricks for squeezing words from your brain like blood from a rock. I loved seeing my favorite authors tweeting their writing woes and encouraging their followers to push through when it gets rough.
Everywhere I looked people were trying to help me survive writing.
They were offering me a lifejacket.
So I figured I ought to be drowning.
*
I worry that our (the writing community’s) desire to be helpful, to encourage, to tell young writers they aren’t alone is more harmful than we realize. Because writing is hard. It can be draining and miserable and frustrating. But that’s not the goal.
All those pieces I read, all those writers commiserating together and reaching a hand out for me to join them, made me think that’s what writing should be. That if I wasn’t miserable, I was doing it wrong. And I don’t just mean on a subconscious level. There were so many times when writing felt easy and fun, and I stopped myself. I scrapped what I was doing or I thought of ways to make it more difficult, because if I’m enjoying myself then it’s not worth it. Then it’s not good writing.
That’s bullshit.
Those times when the words come out of you light and free? When you know it’s coming out right and you can’t type fast enough? When you’re bursting because this is so. much. fun? That’s the ideal. That’s the goal.
It’s not going to happen all the time. And I do think there’s value in commiseration, because we all need support. We all need to know it isn’t just us.
But we all need to know it isn’t just us when it’s easy, too.
I think part of why this aura of difficulty exists is two-fold. One, what I’ve already mentioned: we want to show it happens to everyone and provide ways to deal with it.
But also two: no one wants to look like they’re showing off. (That’s a sweeping generalization, but you get my point.) It can feel like bragging to say, “Wow I wrote sooooooo much today and it was sooooooo easy!” I think this is even truer for women. We’re trained to demur, to be “humble”, to downplay our accomplishments and skill so as not to make anyone else feel bad. It’s not necessarily a conscious thing; it’s just the done thing. So we talk about how hard writing is, and we stay silent about the times it’s easy.
I worry about how this all has affected my process. Last week I wrote a really personal essay, and it came out in all of thirty minutes. It came out exactly as I wanted it to on the first shot. I barely even had to correct any typos. I almost trashed it right then. It was only a half-second hesitation, but I worried it had been too easy. Except sometimes it is easy, and I’m trying to relish it more when that happens, not question it.
I’m not saying we should talk less about the hard stuff. I’m just saying we shouldn’t ignore the easy stuff. When we do, it can give the dangerous (and unintentional) message that difficulty and misery are what make your writing legitimate.
(There’s also a whole other side to this discussion about how ableist and physically/emotionally damaging a lot of writing advice can be. India Valentin talked about this beautifully the other day on Twitter, which you can read here. I particularly like her point about “competitive suffering.”)
I’m going to try to be more open about the good days, about the joy in my process, about how much fun writing can be. That doesn’t mean I won’t also mention the rest and reach out for comfort and commiseration when I need it. But I want to start publicly celebrating my victories, if for no other reason than to prevent another young writer like me from feeling ashamed of her good days.