Hello, Readers!
All the best writers take the time to reflect on the greater art of the written word. Whether that be to explore what it means to them or impart wisdom acquired from their years of experience, they jot down essays or even books on their craft. Many of them have established places because of their perspectives and serve as great inspirations today!
So of course, I had to try my amateur hand at it.
For my senior capstone project, I was tasked to write an introduction– or an "on writing," if you will– and lead into the greater work I planned to share. Below is that mini reflection on my journey so far and what I've learned at the keyboard... I hope you find a bit of yourself in it, too.
***
I wasn’t always a writer. I was a reader by day and a daydreamer by night.
Books were my map and I was rather lost, so young me would walk around my house, baseball games, and the classroom with my nose bent downward and eyes tracing ink. To me, that was contentment– absorbing someone’s incredible world so I could play ‘pretend’ in it. Who would I be? Did I have superpowers or a secret?
But eventually, there was too much in my tiny head and too little time, so I responded by keeping awake at night, scripting my own stories based on the book or game of the day. The next night I’d pick it back up, adding another chapter to my mental adventure before… zzz…
Eventually, my daydreams became so vast I had to keep track and flesh out every important idea. Little notebooks became my friends and I searched for them in drawers and asked for them on birthdays so I could fill them with unfinished short stories and character doodles. I’d say I was still a dreamer back then, needing to create lest I go mad.
I first became a writer when I woke up with the title of a book that must be written because it was genius. It was everything I loved at the time– phoenixes, dragons, and a legend. What more could a girl ask for? I slammed it into an old laptop keyboard over the course of many mornings and held my baby up to the light for all to see. They oohed and ahed appropriately, confirming the little voice inside me that said someone would need to hear what I had to say.
From that moment on I wrote not only for me but for the people I hoped would like it, too. I imagined myself in a library, my tiny 11 year old hands running along plastic wrapped covers in hopes I’d stumble upon my next great obsession. For almost eight years, this was my method: write what I would read.
Yet for all of my self starter energy, I’m terrible at geography– even the literary kind. I was all discipline and no foundation, mostly enthusiasm with a dash of skepticism. Everything I knew, I picked up from who I considered to be the greats: Christopher Paolini, Rick Riordan, Erin Hunter, Chris D’Lacey, Suzanne Collins, J.K. Rowling… need I continue? These long distance teachers were quite unaware of the little student who worshiped their work as if they were gods. I had to be like them! But how? I read so much it became commonplace to hear, “Marissa, put the book down!”
It wasn’t until I became a real student that I learned how to read the maps I’d been haphazardly piecing together. I walked into my first college creative writing class sure I had something concrete to share after all these years and walked out flabbergasted but more in love with it than before. I’d met others who pursued my same goals and even a professor who made his living doing it. Was this Heaven? It sure felt like it and almost made me forget all of the non-believers who asked me when I was going to get a real career goal to go with my “hobby.”. Thankfully, the friends inside my books taught me how to push past antagonists well enough, so I ignored their taunts.
I couldn’t ignore all of the questions I seemed to be facing as a creative writing student. I knew well enough why, but how did I write? Did I understand theory? What was my routine? Should I have one? Can I analyze these classics and theories? What’s the proper balance of showing to telling? Can I engage in a workshop? I didn’t know that to study writing was to wonder and never ‘know,’ but that’s it isn’t it? It is questions that teach us, not answers.
That very first professor of mine, that wise, ecstatic young writer anxious to engage my class, never told us what to write or what to remove. Instead, he began his commentary with the phrase, “I’m curious about…”
Curiosity. Inquisitiveness. No hard and fast rules, no black and white, no ten step process to peak writerly success– and I’ve found plenty of those. Write in the morning, write at night. Write for five hours a day, write in sprints. Be wordy, be succinct. Reflect real life, escape it. I could go on as any writer could, citing the deep magic of the talented authors of yesteryear. I learned these rules and tried to fit into them while squeezing my words and worlds into their cookie cutter shapes. It was uncomfortable to say the least, being so free you didn’t know which way was up and then so restrained you’d wish you’d get dizzy, but I fought tooth and nail to understand my syllabi.
Perhaps these rules were the key to understanding the maps of my youth I continued to cling to. But no one arrives at being a writer in the same way one arrives at being a doctor or a teacher or secretary or any number of great professions. There’s an endpoint, a time when you have achieved the thing or been licensed at the practice, a time to say “I made it!” I imagined that all of the authors I coveted had been sworn into some secret writer’s club I might qualify for one day. I’d need to follow in their footsteps if I was ever to achieve greatness, which surely was promised to me if I did so. Writing was just more narrow than I originally thought, was all.
Then, I was told to break that mold.
Learn the rules so you can break them, as someone said. I got married to a few of them and had to divorce them so surely it was almost as if I forgot them entirely. If you asked me to recount them now I wouldn’t do as well as I might have when I was knee deep in convincing myself I was too misshapen of a writer to be “great.” I think that’s a good thing because if I knew the rules better than the ideas in my own head, I’d have lost my ability to dream.
Writing isn’t completely freeform, of course. There are things to explore and experiences to have, which my map led me to in due time. I heard from countless lecturers with differing opinions, wrote papers on books I disliked, participated in workshops with people I loved and didn’t, wrote in genres I had no business attempting, published articles when I swore I’d never be a journalist, cried during poetry readings, stayed up till 4 AM writing embarrassing first drafts, pled my way into classes I just had to take, and signed up for still others I wasn’t sure would help me at all. Each one of these, unbeknownst to me, forced me to satisfy curiosities I simply hadn’t encountered yet. So what if I was a columnist? Well, it would be like that. Is literary criticism for me? Hm, perhaps not. Is flash fiction more my speed? Probably not, but it’s certainly fun.
If you’ll join me in closing my eyes for a moment, I’ll paint a picture. It was like this: I had my proverbial map, full of sketches and notes. None of the writing was in my hand and the paper was fresh, smelling like a new book and uncreased like one too. There was a lot of empty space on the edges and I was much more comfortable in the center of it all, where I knew what I knew and liked what I liked. Then, as surely as an overturned cup leaks across a table, I was unleashed onto my own map. I acquired a pen and filled in the places I liked alongside the ones I didn’t. I added to the empty space and fleshed out the familiar landmarks. My landscape grew up around me as I did and was altogether more colorful and wonderful and frightening than I expected it to be.
To study writing was to be placed in said cup, filled to the brim with knowledge, and released to take up whatever space my momentum allowed. Those who taught me which rules to break watched on, telling me of the times they went here and met them and got rejected and praised. Before, I poured from an empty glass, trying to be content with where my own faculties got me. Now, I run towards the horizon armed with questions and a thirst for the unfamiliar.
So in my opinion, the only rule, requirement, or religion to writing is curiosity. You’ll leave everything else behind– yes, even the broken rules– and forge ahead equipped with an adventurous spirit and the crayon map from your youth.
I’m still lost. But now, I’m vastly more curious about where I’ll go next.
