Week 1 - 8/24-28

"Is today the day you become a writer?"

This question forms the title of Susan Shaughnessy's three-page introduction to her book Walking on Alligators: A Book of Meditation for Writers.Here's an excerpt from that introduction:

The only way to write is to write today.

I struggled with that reality for many years -- first as a professional copywriter and editor, more recently as an emerging novelist.

I wanted the truth to be different. I wanted to plan to write. I wanted to get just the right pen, just the right computer, just the right workspace, just the right time magically freed up for me. I built castles in the air, but no books ever materialized on their shelves.

This exhausting dance with denial went on for years. Finally, very fearfully, I set aside two early morning hours each day to just write. I pasted on my computer a sentence from Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones: "Just write, don't think."

Bit by bit, I wrote some short stories. Then I wrote a novel. Then another. Then the proposal for this book. But it never became easy.

Throughout, I continued to work a full-time day as a freelancer, tapping out brochures and newsletters and articles. And I found all sorts of creative ways to dodge my creative writing time.

...

You will find your own rhythms as a writer. But unless you are one of the very few, you'll face resistance every day. Why? Nobody really knows. It seems to be an integral part of the drive to write -- a shadow you can never shake.

Shaughnessy, Susan. Walking on Alligators: A Book of Meditation for Writers. NY: HarperCollins, 1993. 1-2.

What if? What if you were to pay attention to your resistances to writing... When you bump up against them, don't bury them -- write them down, give them voice. As I typed in the last words from Shaughessy's introduction -- "a shadow you can never shake" -- I wanted to highlight and delete. "Don't write that. That's much too dark and depressing for English 101. Certainly not the kind of tone you want for the first week of class." And while I believe shadows teach us about our creativity, this phrase still contains a sense of fear and threat that doesn't encourage me to write. Here's my rewrite: Yeah, resistance hangs out with us most of the time we write. But it's not a shadow we can never shake. Rather, I think of resistance as the yeast of writing, a catalyst that teaches us about our own process, helps us to "find [our] own rhythms as a writer," as Shaughnessy says. Just because I think of resistance as this great teacher doesn't mean I have to like it -- because I don't. When I don't want to write, then I write about not wanting to write. Like these sentences about an article I recently finished: "It's monsoon season in Tucson. The rains feed the desert. I try to write this article all the while feeling the pressure, just like the buildup before the torrents. I think I have to say all things to all people and that I must say it just right, very beautifully."