A Writer Writes

Ever since I started writing this blog, I've been thinking a lot about writing: Why are humans compelled to write things down? Why am I, in particular, compelled to write? What makes good writing—and what makes people want to read what's written?

In the movie Throw Momma from the Train, Billy Crystal plays a writing teacher who, although he regularly has to listen to and give feedback on some truly awful writing, encourages his students by saying, "Remember: A writer writes, always." I suppose the point of that is that writing is something that takes practice, just like any other skill. And just like any other skill, it doesn't develop overnight.

Part of the reason I started writing this blog is that very quote—there are a lot of details about that movie that I've forgotten, but that exhortation has stuck with me. You can't be a writer if you don't actually write. But more than that, I wonder if you can be a writer in the truest sense if nobody reads what you've written. John Cheever said, “I can’t write without a reader. It’s precisely like a kiss — you can’t do it alone.” 

It's certainly true that Anne Frank wrote in her diary with no thought of anyone ever reading what she wrote. But what gives her words power is not just that she wrote them down, but that she wrote them and we read them.

Writing, it seems to me, is a lot like singing. As long as you went to school, you can probably do both to at least a rudimentary degree, but your voice needs to be developed if anyone's going to want to hear you. 

I've written a lot over the years that I've gotten paid for (and in fact, I should be working on an article right now), but the type of writing I've gotten paid for is the kind of writing where you're really not supposed to notice the writer: catalog copy, marketing blurbs, factual articles, press releases. That writing, sticking with the singing analogy, is like singing in a choir, where the point is to sound like a choir, and not a bunch of individual voices.

I used to supervise a writer who had a very distinct (if a little rough technically) writing voice, and he always wanted to write in that voice. No, no, no, I had to tell him over and over—you need to write in the voice of the organization, not in your own voice. It's a press release, not a poem. But it was a bit like having Bono or Bob Dylan in a choir. It's always going to sound like Bono or Bob Dylan surrounded by choir singers.

But the non-choir writing—the solo stuff—is a very different thing. It is your voice, and your voice alone that is heard. 

It used to be that if you wanted an audience for your words, you had to convince someone to publish them. Submissions, proposals, rejections...blood, sweat, and tears. But in today's micropublishing world of the internet—the blogosphere—anyone can publish his or her own words. And blogging has become the karaoke of writing—you don't have to be original or good to do it, and there is plenty out there that is mediocre at best. And I've thrown myself into that karaoke pile, grabbing the microphone and belting it out and hoping it's decent.

Or maybe karaoke isn't the right analogy. Maybe, since my audience is mostly made up of people who know me, it's more like being a church soloist. There are a very few people who still know me who know that I used to occasionally sing in church. I don't have a showy voice, or a powerful voice. What I have is a nice, competent singing voice, and in a small church, it was fine for a solo in the Christmas service or the occasional Sunday morning. But certainly no one was telling me I should try for a recording contract or anything like that.

On the other hand, a church soloist is most often asked to sing—or, in any case, there's a slot in the service that needs to be filled, so even if he or she offers to sing, it's not really a weird thing to do. But with blogging, the process does feel a little weird, honestly. You write something, put it on the internet, and then, to make sure it gets read, you tell your friends and acquaintances, "Hey, I wrote this thing if you want to check it out."

There's a nakedness to singing or writing, too. Any time a person sings in public or writes something for other people to read, it's exposing oneself to the possibility of criticism or ridicule or indifference—but more than that, you have to be willing to be a little naked, and sometimes not be so good.

When my son was in elementary school, he started taking band in the 5th grade, and they played their first concert at Christmas. You could tell it was music, but it was pretty spectacular in its awfulness. But it was a K-12 school, so after the 5th graders played, you heard the middle school band, and it was amazing the difference a year or two made in their skill level. And then, at the end, the high school band played, and by that point they were actually very good. It was really good to see that your child had the potential to progress to that level and it wouldn't always sound like that.

Now, don't misunderstand—if I felt like my writing sounded like the 5th grade band concert, I wouldn't share it. I do, I'm pretty sure, have a nice, competent writing voice—certainly, given what I do for a living, I have a good grasp on the mechanics of writing. But competence isn't a very lofty goal for a writer, I don't think.

In order to be a good writer, you have to write, and write, and write some more. And I have to admit, the existence of blogging helps in that process, and I'm grateful to have a few people who want to hear what I have to say. I want to be able to call myself a writer, and a writer writes. Always.