Writing for Our Lives
In the end, writers will write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals. ~ Don DeLillo
The Poet By Garry Knight
In a previous article “Why You Are Not Your Writing,” I asserted that the distinction between your identity as a writer and what you produce with your writing is significant.
A certain level of detachment from what you creatively produce and from its success or failure is crucial to growing and developing (as well as maintaining your sanity) as an artist.
But what about our keen identification as creative writers with the writing process?
The Writing Self
Write only if you cannot live without writing. Write only what you alone can write. ~ Elie Wiesel
If we sometimes confuse our sense of being a writer with what we produce from our creative efforts, it’s because writing is often gut-wrenchingly difficult. While certainly it’s not physically laborious, it’s both emotional and intellectual work, requiring deep concentration, passion, commitment, diligence, and faith.
For many of us, the creative work of writing gives us a sense of who we are, not only in front of our computers or on the page, but in our lives and in the world around us.
Why We Write
When I’m writing, I know I’m doing the thing I was born to do. ~Anne Sexton
Those who have committed themselves to writing as a career, a living, and/or a consistent creative practice know that you must really love writing in order to do it day after day.
As writers, we often spend long, lonely hours writing and rewriting not because the work is easy but because we get something rare and valuable from the writing process.
For some of us, it’s the sheer pleasure and joy of language that keeps us coming back to the page. For others, it is the opportunity to freely express our thoughts, perceptions, and observations, perhaps for the first time. For still others, it may be simply the hope that someone else will listen or read and be inspired and moved by our words.
I imagine for many of us all of these reasons, as well as others, combine to fuel our passion for writing.
Discovering Ourselves
Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn’t wait to get to work in the morning: I wanted to know what I was going to say. ~ Sharon O’Brien
But perhaps underlying all the reasons we write is the process of discovering who we are, not simply as writers, but as humans. And it’s in that discovery that we grow as artists and as people.
Personally, if I don’t write on a regular basis, I become seriously depressed and overwhelmingly anxious. And I imagine I’m not alone in this experience.
It is with writing that I discover myself on a continual basis, growing, stretching, and becoming more and more of myself with each word.
I write because if I don’t, then I no longer know on some deep intuitive level who I am and what my purpose in life is.
The Necessity of Faith
Writing and creativity require guts, imagination, and a tenacious sense of what we know and who we are.
As Sylvia Plath asserted:
Everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
Writing and creativity require a deep belief in not simply our skills and talents, but in ourselves as humans.
In my opinion and in my experience, it is, ultimately, sheer audacity and faith that keeps us going as writers—faith in ourselves, faith in the creative process, and the deep belief that by putting one word after another we’ll not only produce a novel, a poem, or a story, but we’ll become more and more of who we are and who we were born to be.
Why do you write?
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Flickr photo courtesy of Garry Knight
Excellent! I haven’t written much of anything for weeks–actually, I must amend that. I’ve written a good deal of prose but no poetry, my main passion. Not writing poetry makes me antsy and dreary. I begin to fear I’m done, all dried up, depleted for good. Yesterday I appointed a morning hour for writing new work, got out Kim Addonizio’s Ordinary Genius, made a cup of ginger tea, opened to a random page, and began. I felt charged up for the rest of the day. We can’t forget that there’s discipline in this as well as creativity.
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jenne andrews Reply:
July 22nd, 2010 at 11:38 am
I write because if I don’t, then I no longer know on some deep intuitive level who I am and what my purpose in life is.
This hits it on the head for me as well as your comments about the awful inner vortex that takes us into anxiety and depression when we stop writing. I stopped believing in my value and ability as a writer for several decades and lived, frankly, in hell.
With every day and every exchange with other writers I reconnect to the young poet I thought had deserted me– I think now I abandoned her. You are a true gift to all of us– your spunk, your class, your en-thusiasm (spirit-filled with the spirit of life– and could so relate to Diane’s and Maureen’s comments as well. Ginger tea– must try it– this old enervated broad needs a good a.m. kick-start….
Love,
Jenne’
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Ami Mattison Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 4:38 pm
Thank you, Jenne’, for your kind and generous compliments.
When I have experienced blocks in the past, I too have suspected that some part of me abandoned my poet self–stopped believing in her abilities and inherent value, forgot that my creativity is perfect and innate and that ultimately writing (poetry in particular) is about nurturing belief not simply in one’s skills and talents but in one’s own humanity.
For a writer, for a poet, not writing is certainly hell. I’m so glad you’ve found your way back to heaven’s gate where that gifted poet has been waiting for you!
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Ami Mattison Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Thanks, Diane! I totally identify with your fears. When I don’t write poetry for awhile, I get very dramatic about it all, imagining myself to be completely washed up. I think those fears are pretty natural for those of us who find ourselves so deeply identified with the work of writing.
I agree that discipline, or diligence–just doing the work–is so important. In fact, I believe writing is 90% doing the work and 10% inspiration with a pinch here and there of luck…And maybe a cup or two of ginger tea.
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Another excellent post, Ami. I think you capture what many of us feel about being writers and writing.
For me, writing is about curiosity, discovery, and revelation, and it’s full of passion for exploring what’s inside after taking a good look at the surface. When I share what I’ve written and readers respond, I feel I’ve accomplished something worth doing. It’s a great feeling.
Maureen´s last [type] ..Down on the Farm
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Ami Mattison Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 4:28 pm
Thank you, Maureen! What I find interesting about your take on writing is that it exemplifies, in my mind, how a poet looks at the world…curiosity, discovery, revelation, exploration, going below the surface of life to its inner core.
And I know exactly what you mean by that “great feeling” of writing and having readers respond in positive or even complex ways. For me, that feeling of accomplishment makes the hard work of writing totally worth it.
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I’m again taken by what you write here, Ami.
In a moment of passion I wrote these words to myself recently, ‘If you do not write, you will die’. I meant it. I wrote the words because at that moment I felt I had been silenced for a variety of reasons, which I will not go into here.
I think there are many reasons why people write. In her book, ‘Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing’ Margaret Atwood sites seventy two of them. There are probably many more besides.
Our reasons for writing are idiosyncratic but there tend to be universals among them.
I enjoy George Orwell’s words: ‘I write ….because there is some lie I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing’.
Orwell’s words echo my own reasons for writing, not only to stay alive but essentially to have a voice and hopefully to be heard. Thanks for an inspirational post, Ami.
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Ami Mattison Reply:
August 8th, 2010 at 4:14 am
Thank you, Elisabeth! I’m inspired by and identify with your experience. For a writer, not writing can be a kind of emotional death–often leading to depression and even suicidal thoughts. At least that’s been my experience. I too write to stay alive, healthy and well.
Also, I appreciate your insights into why writers write. Unveiling the truth, getting “a hearing” when we have been silenced–these are both fundamental reasons for many writers to write.
Thanks again, and good luck with your writing!
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Hi, Ami. I just came across your blog via Elisabeth (Sixth in Line) and greatly enjoying your reflections on writers and writing.
In answer to your question, “Why do you write?”. I am tempted to veer off into a reply to the question “Why don’t you write?”, because after decades of thinking and brooding about writing, it is only recently that I have started to actually try. But anyway …
Apart from the many good reasons you mention in this post for writing, I think I write because it is perhaps the only way I can make myself believable to myself. That probably makes no sense, but what I am trying to say is that I find in myself such an incongruous mix and mash of different personalties that I tend to think I would not believe in a character like me in a novel or play or film penned by anyone else, so I might as well give it a try myself. Self-centered and self-indulgent? Yes, afraid so. But when done in the company of other like-spirited bloggers, such attempts at self-discovery through public writing brings so many rewards.
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Ami Mattison Reply:
August 9th, 2010 at 3:26 am
Thank you, Lorenzo! Good for you for finally letting yourself write!
I think I understand what you mean by making yourself “believable” to yourself. One reason I write is because writing makes my experiences feel real and authentic.
And I agree that self-discovery is an inherent reward of writing, and perhaps it’s not as self-indulgent as you think.
Thank you for sharing your experience, and good luck with your writing!
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If ever I take a break, within a week I start sleeping really badly. Block is a different thing; working through block, even if I’m only planning with a spider diagram, that still gives me the needed fix. Of course the danger is of being satisfied with just that!
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