should I be a writer?

an investigation

I am in the midst of writing my last two chapters on a book that I received a contract for… a long time ago. Think 2-3 years ago. Much of this book came together quickly, but the heart of it has eluded me for a long time. This is not because I was writing on it and couldn’t get it right. It is because I was not writing on it at all.

I hesitate to say this, but I do not like being a writer. I do not like it at all. To me writing is an exercise in unearthing the things that I least understand about myself and the world (why would I write about something I already understood? I write in order to know). But if you don’t understand such things, it’s likely that you don’t yet know how to learn them. You sometimes have to become a different kind of person to even think the problem correctly. You have to take giant risks that feel uncomfortable and that push you up against what you already know. Right now I am reading about machine learning. I have no business doing so. The last time my computer stopped working it was because I’d been using the wrong cord. As a writer, you usually begin knowing something- but the things you already know are not the things you want to learn. The things you learn make you face your weakness. This is at least part of it.

For me, the process of this unearthing is disorienting. Every extra brain cell is processing information, even if I am not actively “thinking”. The house dissolves into chaos. I can’t decide what to make for dinner. I avoid going to Whole Foods because the parking spaces are too small and I just can’t bear to park, when I am thinking. I need to write down every appointment, including time to and from, so that I don’t miss another (fill in the blank). I frequently have to say to my children “no talking right now, please”. It feels like I have too many tabs open in my brain.

The self-diagnoses creep in. I have googled “adult ADHD” far too many times. I’ve considered an assistant (but what would they even do?) I finally got myself a studio outside the house, so at least the externalization of my mental process would not be on the dining room table. But the whole active process of “being a writer” makes me feel like Pig-Pen in the Peanuts cartoon. Everyone wants to be Lucy, for whom writing comes with great bravado and force. Sometimes I am, I suppose (these substack pieces come together quickly). But the big work, where you take actual risks? That, my friend, sends me into tatters. I’m the one with the mess trailing behind.

It’s the risk- that you might fail, that you cannot know, that its not worth the effort- that keep you from the work. This little book, which is frankly silly but also surprisingly moving, proposes that the inner resistance rises in direct relation to the degree of risk the artist is taking. That seems about right. If you are trying to do something even a little bit different, it will be that much harder.

Why, then, do I write? And should you? Here, a list:

Write if you everyone tells you that you have it wrong, but you can’t seem to quit the (idea, metaphor, story). Explain it to them, like they are 5.

Write if you can’t seem to find your people. If you are constantly being pigeon-holed, or told “if you would only”, ignore it. Unless it is a serious character flaw- greed, lying, lust- if you find yourself desperately alone in your taste/ vision of the world, write until it comes together, like a landscape painting.

Write to explain something to the people who don’t understand. Do people tell you that you come on too strong? That you need to stop being so disagreeable? That there is no market for a “Mrs. Frizzle for Theology”? Write to prove them wrong. What would be more fun, really, than metaphysics in a yellow school bus?

Write if you just cannot figure something out. Do you think that everyone has got it wrong about sin/ grace/ redemption? Have you found that your community needs to think about it a bit slant? Have you read all of the literature (key!), but still think something’s a miss. Write a handbook on how to think differently.

For me, I write to understand. I wish I could do almost anything else. But I am irritated by the gaps in the world, as I see them, and I’m increasingly aware that maybe others don’t see these gaps like I do. For a time, this made me feel like I was alone in the forest, or staring into the wrong side of a telescope. Everything just seemed so enhanced, so vivid, but only to me. This is its own wound. But it feels far worse to imagine that I’d never understand this problem/ circumstance/ territory. Someone should see what’s under that rock. It might as well be me.