What it Means to be a Writer
In the words of Anne Lamott, author of Bird by Bird
As a writer—and a person—deeply interested in perpetually learning, I’ve picked up my fair share of books on writing to continue my education of the craft. Advice passed along from seasoned authors such as Stephen King, Mary Oliver, Ray Bradbury, and Ursula K. Le Guin. The latest one is Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, and, though the subtitle of the book is Some Instructions on Writing and Life, what she has to say is less about what to do as a writer and more about what it means to be one.
I think that’s an important distinction because anyone who tries to tell you they know the formula for always writing the perfect novel and that you just need to follow a specific set of steps is selling you something you don’t need. Or people who have their eyes so singly focused on the road to publication think they just need to do x, y, and z, get published, and then that’s it; their career as a writer will take off and be set in stone.
Lamott’s main message, in her book, is that the reward isn’t about the success you can achieve or the fame you garner. It’s not about being published, not about being the cleverest author, most celebrated in reviews. If anything, she claims, “publication is not all that it is cracked up to be” (xxvi). A quick Google search says Lamott has twenty published books, so it would seem she knows what she’s talking about. It’s refreshing, actually, to read her perspective because it’s so obvious she’s stopped taking herself too seriously, that humor is a necessary part of her days and her process.
Young writers (myself included) seem to experience great angst with our writing endeavors and aspirations. We’re so earnest to get the ball rolling. We want to be one of the lucky ones, one of those who gets discovered by an agent and signs a great contract with a big publisher that sets us up to write for the rest of our lives. We want to be recognized and have people appreciate the stories we tell and reap all the benefits that come from being an established author. It makes sense that we haven’t yet reached that point of being able to not take ourselves so seriously because youth is the time when life hits you more intensely, by the nature of how our brains are developing.
Your teens, your twenties, are an emotionally tumultuous time, whether that’s relationship highs and lows striking us more profoundly, certain experiences feeling so new and novel, and it seeming like the world has fresh ground for us alone to tread. Psychologically speaking, your hormones are sorting themselves out, and your brain may not be fully developed until your mid-twenties. It may even take until the dawn of your third decade before you’re done and settled. So, rejection from a literary magazine you submitted a short story to, from an agent you really wanted to work with, from a friend who found some faults with the draft you sent them feels more dramatic than it might once we’ve figured ourselves out.
That’s not to say that rejection is ever an “easy” thing to deal with, no matter your age. But Lamott would suggest it can be easier once you reconsider what gives your writing life value. Is it that seeing your work in print means so much more than the day-to-day labor when it’s just you and your imagination? Do the accolades have a bigger impact on your life than seeing yourself getting closer and closer to finishing your first draft? There’s nothing wrong with getting your book out into the world, having readers, or getting positive reviews from critics, but those things are secondary.
Because you know what the primary thing is? Your writing—because “writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. The thing you had to force yourself to do—the actual act of writing—turns out to be the best part” (xxvi).
There are days when that feels so far from the truth, whether that’s because we feel stuck or we think what we wrote is absolute garbage or we’re just having a bad day where everything kinda sucks. Yet, when you stick with it, “you figure out that the real payoff is the writing itself, that a day when you have gotten your work done is a good day, that total dedication is the point” (215). So, you keep on typing out paragraphs that need serious editing. Or you people watch and listen to dialogue so you can better replicate it in your stories. Or you search your childhood for moments you want to make sense of by writing them out.
What it means, then, to be a writer is to be lucky enough “to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander” (231). It means to be deeply human because the things we write, in one way or another, are pulled from our lives, the things we’ve lived through and carry with us. Being a writer means to be in “the custom of taking in everything that comes along, seeing it all as grist for the mill” and letting your plots be driven by your beliefs and desires (151, 105).
You do not have to be published to be a writer. You do not have to have followers, fame, or fortune. You may aspire to those things, but whether or not you achieve them has no bearing on whether or not you can identify as this thing. Be a writer, lean all the way into your humanity, keep your sights on what’s important, and tell your tales. The rest will play out as it’s meant to.
And if you’re in need of more encouragement/perspective from Lamott, I recommend Bird by Bird. She includes some good tips for how to get around feeling “stuck” with your writing and fun exercises to get your gears turning.
As always, happy writing, friends, and I’ll see you back here next week!