The Writer – Beat Writer’s Block

The process of writing is infinitely easy. Twenty years ago, writing for me was like
pulling teeth, every word an extraction, because I thought my writing had to look like a
writer’s writing. Why didn’t my words look like Hemingway’s? Why can’t I create the
same images that Steinbeck creates? Do I have to project an image of being a writer?
Once, I put my desk in front of the living room window with my typewriter and books
and I could look out the window as the world went by: people driving by, people
walking by, people bicycling—and I was going to write about this world because I was now TheWriter, whatever that means.

I wasn’t talking about the writer inside me; I was thinking about an external persona. When I walked down the street, I wanted people to see The Writer. When I went to social functions, I could hear people whispering, “He’s The Writer.” When they passed my house, I wanted them to say, “The Writer lives there.” You could go so far as to say that wherever I went I wanted people to think, The Writer is among us . I wanted to be that good at projecting an image of myself as The Writer .

It would be nice if you could push an “Easy” button and walk down the street all full of yourself, but there is one thing I couldn’t overlook and that was the task at hand—writing. Writing is a task A task that requires an immense devotion to loneliness and work, work, work. You need to read a lot, and you need to write a lot, even if nothing comes of most of your effort. But the payoff— even if it’s an acceptance for something small—is joy indescribable.

There is a nice little website called
Into Wine Shop
that features a painting called Wine Bar by someone I’ve never heard of before—Nicole Etienne. It’s a fine painting, and it’s for sale, but more to the point, in the “About the Author” portion of the website, Nicole is described as a “fourth generation artist” whose “work mirrors her personality: high spirited and contemporary, with a dash of humor.” Then it says that “Etienne lives by the words of her favorite philosopher, Henry David Thoreau,” who said, “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.”

Nicole has certainly seen herself as an artist and the proof is on the pages of Into Wine Shop , as well as other websites. Her dream is being realized as I speak, and I’m sure it hasn’t happened without a lot of inspiration and effort, unless of course she’s a prodigy, which may very well be the case. Her works attest to a great talent, the same kind of talent the writer wants to project, except in a different milieu.

But I’m not Hemingway, or Steinbeck, or Jane Austen, and neither are you. That’s one realization you have to come to. You are different. You are an individual. You are bringing different experiences, attitudes, and opinions to the table—and quite possibly a new style, and who’s to say you couldn’t invent a new genre. Sure you should read lots of other writers, even imitate them, but the idea is for your own style to emerge. Other writers will inspire you and teach you about form and structure, setting and character, theme and its development, etc.

Take a graduate course in English composition not because you think someone with a PhD can teach you to be a writer–that’s not likely–but because you want to improve your spelling, vocabulary, punctuation, grammar, and improve your ability to be clear, concise, and logical.

Essentially, Shakespeare said there is more to the world than meets the eye. Yet everyone can read and understand and appreciate his tales because they are for the most part concerned with the human condition. So in some form or other your writing will be about the human condition. If you’re writing about a product, the product was invented, produced, and marketed by human beings—and so as a writer you cannot escape the human condition.

The key is your audience. Who are you telling this to, and do you really care to hold their interest? I imagine I’m talking to someone who cares about what I have to say. If your audience isn’t listening with rapt interest, why are you saying anything at all. I often talk to my therapist in my mind as if he was conducting a session with me. I’ll bet you’ve lain in bed at night and talked to someone in your mind who you feel is at your level and is interested in what you have to say. I’ll bet your mind raced and you thought your thoughts so original that no one else had ever thought of them before. Well, why not talk to this person all the time, like you’re writing a journal, or you can tell him or her a short story, compose a poem, let this person (in your mind) help you write your novel. If this person is real, you don’t have to tell them, unless you think their input would really be useful.

It’s like you’ve got a higher power to communicate with. This higher power may not say anything especially, but he or she is very interested in what you have to say. They hang on every word and are impressed by your intellect. They don’t have to say anything because you know what they are thinking. If you allow them to open up they may guide you in the production of a novel or book of some kind. Someone once told me to put a pen and a pad beside my bed as if I could really capture these thoughts as they burst forth in my mind. Fleeting, aren’t they? You wish you could reach out and grasp them and put them on paper. Well, I guess the best thing to do at that time is to write. Don’t try to keep up with what’s going on your mind; just write. It’s hard to type at the speed of thought, so we only get a fragment of what goes through our minds. Thank goodness we can retrace our steps and pick up some information left out.

If you have decided on an audience—something I carry in my head, even if I’m standing in front of a group of people—all you have to do is write your opinions or do the research that’s necessary to support your claims or provide historical data and organize whatever it is you want to say. An instructor can tell you it’s a “white house” and not “a house that is white,” but he can’t define your style for you. He can’t be looking over your shoulder twenty-four-seven unless you carry him around in your imagination, which might not be such a bad idea. Perhaps it would make you pay more attention to what you’re doing.

I imagine all kinds of people helping me out. I’m going to make mistakes, but I’m a stickler about errors, especially spelling errors. I have this dominatrix standing over me with a whip in case I misspell a word. Typos occur, and I hate to see them in print, but they’re unavoidable because I’m only human. So use your imagination to get what you want to say on paper. Writing is easy once you escape this idea that you have to present a certain image of yourself or that what you write has to look like somebody else’s writing.

Be yourself. First and foremost, put yourself on paper and go from there. Free write a lot and get those original ideas that keep rushing through your mind down. Read a lot and you will develop a sense of style that is your own, and who can say that one day someone will not be imitating your style. Remember what Hamlet’s uncle instructs him to do: “To thine own self, be true.”