Six phrases from Anne Lamott about Writing

"Puns, for me, are not playful.  They are just about rage." 

I recently attended Donald Miller's Storyline Conference in San Diego and had the privilege of hearing Anne Lamott interviewed at one of the pre-conference events.  It was nourishment for my writing soul.  It was validating and encouraging and challenging.  She talked about the process of writing and how it involves wrangling all of your neuroses and paranoias as each one tries to distract you and dance on centre stage.  She talked about the unforeseen, yet inevitable hypochondria as well as the negative self-talk that can be crippling.  I felt like I had found a kindred spirit.  Someone who, like Dorothy Parker, can say with her tongue planted firmly in her cheek that she hates writing but loves having written.  And yet, despite all of these somewhat negative sounding characteristics of writing life, she talked about writing as a calling--a sacred trust--an honour.  It was the love-hate-love talk of real experience.

"Being a writer is a debt of honour.  Just do it, because otherwise you'll feel bad." 

Anne spoke frankly about the need for validation and how a writer will never find it 'out there'.  She talked about differentiating between the desire to be a writer and the desire to be published. It was a message that I desperately needed to hear once again because as much as I find fulfillment in the pain-staking process of writing--I also regularly fight the battle of justifying my work to my real and imaginary critics.  You think, "If I could just get published, people would stop doubting the validity of what I am doing and stop asking when I am going to 'start working'."  You think that publishing will be the thing that protects you.  Even if you make no money at it, you think that you'll be able to hold your head up because you can say you are published.  (At the very least, you imagine that people will stop feeling like they have the right to ask what you are doing for money.  "Prostituting myself.  Why do you ask?")

"You are never going to get the validation you crave.  It isn't out there.  It's in the writing."

Every publishing story you read to encourage yourself through the depths of writer's depression inevitably has the opposite effect.  They end up being about the debut author who wrote some story down on a napkin, never revised it, sent it unsolicited to some literary agent and wouldn't you know?  Six publishers had a bidding war for it.  The napkin story just took off and everyone loves it and the movie will star Meryl Streep and Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio.  Each of them will likely get an Oscar for their performance. (Everyone except Leo, of course, because he predictably gets shafted year after year.) It is hard to remember that those stories are the exception, not the rule.  It is hard to keep your perspective about the value of writing.  It is hard not to feel like a fraud and failure and not wonder if you've given yourself a case of carpal tunnel syndrome just for kicks.  (Because why else is your left hand feeling weird and tingly while your right hand is stone cold like a corpse's?)  Sure, those napkin stories exist but they are like those people who can seemingly take drugs without the addiction ruining their lives.  They are the goats that lure the sheep to their destruction.

"It's an excruciating industry because such great things happen to such awful people."

Writing, like anything worth doing, takes a lot of effort.  Just the repetitive act of sitting down to write is a battle every single day.  Why is it so hard?  I don't know. Why is it so hard to make yourself go workout? Why is it so hard to eat good things rather than junk? We know what we should do, but we'd rather not do it. We would rather waste our time doing anything else.  Every time I succeed in doing the right thing, I feel like I deserve a standing ovation--except, I'm usually alone but for the cats, and they aren't a species to waste praise.  But I keep fighting the battle, sometimes winning, sometimes losing and wasting my day on email and Twitter and despising everyone I know on Facebook.  Eventually, after a lot of hard work there is something to look at.  At long last there is evidence that you don't waste more time on the internet than the average cubicle dweller.  Here is a manuscript.  It is a heady accomplishment.  It feels like you've hiked to the top of Everest against all possible odds.

But it is the days after this victory that bring about a new variety of disconsolate confusion.  You thought that writing and reworking your manuscript into something coherent with structure and heart was going to be the most difficult part.  And it was, in a way.  However, you slowly realize that those were the challenges that you had the stuff to meet.  You can write.  You can edit.  You can heartlessly cut out great swaths of excellent material that no longer fits.  You can do those things even if they feel really difficult at the time.

But trying to sell your writing to someone else? Somedays I think I would rather just bleed out.  There is no passion; no sense of accomplishment in this process.  It is like applying on jobs that don't exist.  Querying makes you feel more insignificant than you ever imagined you could feel.  You might need a support group just to get through it.  You will certainly develop a thicker skin.  However, just when you think that you're untouchable, a form letter rejection will throw you into a pit of despair filled with the ugliest words imaginable.   And, worst of all, you are shouting them at yourself.

"You don't give up until the miracle comes."

After a few wasted hours of stomping about and saying that you're done, you quit--you sit back down again.  Stop chasing publishing.  Stop chasing validation and justification.  Just chase the words down.

"All freedom comes from discipline." 

 Just get back to writing.