In Another Ten

“Uh, no,” he said frankly. I like that about him: he has always been completely frank. “It just seems like a bunch of words randomly put together.”

“Did you take into account the way they appear on the page, man?” I asked.

“Who cares?” he said.

I didn’t have an answer.

And this was what I really learned: You have to be able to answer the question, “Who cares?” Even if the answer is simply, “Me! I care!” But the truth was (and is), even I didn’t care about my dumb, one-draft-only art poems. And if I didn’t, no one else was going to care about them for me.

A little aside about that notebook: I kept it for a long, long time. Part of me had a very hard time accepting this lesson, even years after I had learned it. I have found stuff I wrote in the past, later on down the line, and thought “You know, there’s a core of something interesting here,” or “Well, at least it’s got a decent couple of phrase turns in it.” I kept thinking that if I revisited that notebook often enough, eventually I’d find it to be full of hidden insight. What I finally realized a few years ago was that the insight wasn’t coming because it wasn’t there. I threw the notebook away. Maybe someday I’ll get a new notebook and try poetry again. But when I do, it will be because it matters to someone, even if it’s just me. Until then, I need to work on making words make sense.

Lesson #4: Writing Doesn’t Better Itself

There was a semi-recent period where I was a very prolific writer. When I first started ironSoap.org, for example, I wrote every day. That was my goal: Write every day. I achieved the goal and thought riches and fame and writerly superiority would follow close at hand.

It didn’t.

I wrote on this site then in fits and starts for the next few years, always thinking that if I could just write every day I’d eventually be an amazing writer. That was how it worked, so I thought. But I found some things weren’t really clicking. It was hard to come up with stuff to write about. It was hard when I accidentally wrote something good to maintain the quality. And it was hard to stick with it.

Two days ago ironSoap.org turned ten years old. If I’d decided to have a baby instead of start a website, that child would be as old now as when I learned my first lesson on writing. And in all that time, the time I was supposed to be using to become a phenomenal writer, I’ve only learned one thing: Just writing may be the key to being a writer, but writing alone does not improve your writing. Improving writing takes effort. The word I’m reluctant to say is “work.”

I’m allergic to effort. I seriously take a pill every day to combat this allergy (some people call it “coffee”). But in the last six months I’ve started dedicating myself to improving as a writer. Little steps, that’s what I’m working to take. I read grammar sites and listen to a grammar podcast. I research tips pro writers offer (and they loooove to offer tips). I read books about writing. I read books. I edit my work (that this is novel to me should tell you a lot about my “progress” as a writer thus far). I try to stay away from the TV. I keep notes of the ideas that pop into my head (thanks, Evernote!) and I try to keep an eye out for new ideas (sometimes you have to look for them if they aren’t just landing in your lap). I think it’s working. I have more ideas than time. I’ve finished a novel, a few short stories, and I completed NaNoWriMo last month (during the busiest month at work I’ve had in probably seven years, no less) which means I have 50,000+ words in a brand new story that I’m still developing.

And, amazingly, I now write every day. Oh, I don’t do it here. Not always. It’s scattered around. Some of it I’m even keeping, because maybe it’s worth more than a jettison into the void of the Internet. As in, maybe I could sell it some day, if I put some more elbow grease into it. But don’t get all jumpity for joy on me. I’m not a success. I’m not even a decent writer yet. But what it took me 34 years to learn is that if I want this to work, I have to work for this, allergy or no. Writing ability doesn’t happen (for me; I’m not trying to tell you what you can do) by magic, but for a long time I thought it would.

I guess I thought that having a blog and keeping it updated was the magic formula for becoming a great writer. It turns out, I was wrong; it took me longer than I wish it had to realize the truth of that. The formula for being great at anything, I suspect, is to work really hard at being great and when it seems like you never will be and you want to quit, redouble your efforts instead and work even harder.

Honestly, I kind of hate this lesson.

Ten Years On

Fifteen years after learning a valuable lesson about not being lazy, I still struggle to put some work ethic into my passion. One of my best novel ideas is one that requires a mountainous amount of  research work to pull off, which has prevented me from starting on it. I still hate editing and proofreading and rewriting. But: one step at a time, because the writing doesn’t make itself better, but the writer must. On the cusp of official middle age (at least by US Census standards), I examine my life and realize that the one constant, unflagging desire throughout it has been to write. That I haven’t spent the time in pursuit of that goal particularly wisely is frustrating, I admit. But I can either waste more time moping about it, or start now.

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