Why We Write

The other day, the devil came and whispered in my ear “anything you want, you can have. All I want is the usual.”

The usual? My soul? Okay, devil, take my soul – just gimme a few more of those juicy publishable things I call words.

And so the devil, satisfied with this renewed bargain, allowed me a few more minutes of computer time while I – ever so excited – spewed on about my life in general. I wrote about my parents and my girlfriend and myself. I chatted – to myself, because some things cannot be shared – about the state of my future and the decisions that await. I made everything seem so dark and hopeful and twisted because it felt so right, so justifiable, so true.

And then I come back to this essay. This is shot number three at “why we write,” my contribution to understanding the motivation of the working writer. And by working I don’t necessarily mean publishing – I mean a writer who is putting pen to paper regularly, dripping blood and sweat through the ends of fingertips worn raw with typing. That alone is the qualification for a working writer – the closer we come to this ideal, the more the words will match our lives, the less room there is for imagination and the more sway we give to truth.

As I write this, I feel like a fraud. I feel like a lamb with a shotgun about to hunt down his own cousin so Mary can have a little lamb with her sauerkraut. I’m not a writer by trade – I’m a struggling human being. Forget the artist part of starving – I’ve spent my entire life scrounging for money. So I tell myself the experiences will contribute to my art – does that make me a writer? If it means dropping engineering to study English? If I then enlist in the Army to get money for grad school?

Currently, I don’t have enough money to marry. Buying airline tickets to meet my girlfriend’s family isn’t in the budget. But writers aren’t collections of money – writers are people who put pen to paper. Writers are dedicated souls who search for the meaning in life and then – harder still – do their best to share what they’ve learned without spoken words, without hand gestures, without lights or camera or CGI or even a hint of sound.

Am I a writer? Some days I feel more like a sellout. I take the easy way out in the name of “literature.” When I could have toughed it out and demanded a desk job, I allowed an injury to get me out of the Army. When I could have taken on some debt for that fifth year to finish engineering, I decided to graduate and get out. I see people talking and I’m too afraid to meet them. I see politicians argue and I’m too quiet to show that I care. I’m not a writer because I love it – I’m a writer because there’s nothing else for me, there’s no other way to get my words out to be heard. I don’t talk loud enough. I’m a guy, a male American, and I’m too afraid of my own voice.

So here I am telling you, another writer, my friend the reader, what it takes to be a writer. If I charged you a dollar, it would be fraud. But since this is free, it’s ethos. It’s the mythology of writing. It’s my contribution to the lore of the professional wordsmith. And you read this because you want to know why you should keep writing, you want to know why we all keep writing.

I can tell you this – I began writing in the seventh grade. It was a journal we were assigned to keep, a page a week for an off-campus class I was lucky to take. I don’t know now how I managed to earn a slot in this class, or why anyone trusted a seventh-grader to ride the train half-way across Chicago once each week to take this class and miss half a day of school, but this class taught me to write. It taught me to put personal words on the page. The teachers taught me to staple the pages in half for the days when I didn’t want to share my words. Later, when I read about Arthur the King and Frodo the Hobbit, I thought I could write the same kinds of stories. I thought I’d be like other writers, taking my personal life and weaving it into the worlds of heroes and dragons. I didn’t know what I was doing – I was fourteen. I couldn’t tell the nominative from the jussive if you held a gun to my broadsword. But still, in the nighttime hours, when my parents went upstairs and there was no trusting a teenager to cross Chicago by himself to see friends, the pen was there. Without classroom assignments, there was no need to staple pages shut. The trick was saving these pages from the fate of spring cleaning, when every useless toy and outdated scrap of homework met the dumpster. They were my precious thoughts, those pages, my personal publication for the audience of one. And still I save these story notes and journal entries from back then. They sit in a box at the side of my desk, pages and pages of incoherent scrawl I’m afraid to read for fear of heartburn. I wrote that? Ick! Thank God I learned to write before our home had a computer – it’s harder to back-up loose leaf. And vomit goes better on paper than mousepad.

Still, the writing happened. Somewhere along the way I learned the feel and the sound of words written well. It may have been the long summer days stranded alone in the middle of Chicago – I had the choice of biking down to the end of the block and back or reading a book. Going around the block – and out of sight of the house – required special permission. My brother was autistic, my buddy from two-doors down grew up on Playboy in an attic that smelled of cat piss, and visiting my friends from school required a parent to drive. The books ate the time. I spent days on Treasure Island with the pirates. Black Beauty was a dear equine friend. King Arthur was more than my hero – he was my inspiration, my guide for how to live, how to act, how to be.

Still, I produced more tripe. Piles of tripe. Great bound piles of pages that weren’t fit for bathroom reading. Even in college, I did this. Somehow I found my way into creative writing workshops, and somehow the teachers liked me. I don’t think it was the work so much as it was the way I listened. When they said my stories needed conflict, I stared at them and waited for the punch-line. When I presented my eight-hundred-word masterpiece for Intro to Journalism, the professor cut four-hundred words and said the rest needed work. Again, I waited for the punch-line. I was barely twenty – I had no clue what I was doing.

Still, I wrote. I wrote because my girlfriend at the time wouldn’t have understood my leaving her the computer. I wrote because my parents couldn’t understand ne’er-do-well English majors. I wrote because I was too tired to study math or physics or any of those other subjects. I wrote because I wanted the bad guys to win. I wrote because I was only a phone call away from being the bad guy to someone, somewhere.

I’ve spent the past three weeks asking myself why we write. Twice I've tried writing the answer, but the words didn’t flow. They didn’t ring true. I was asking the wrong question. I wanted to explain why writers write – I should have been asking why I write. It’s pointless for me to fathom the depths of your soul – I might understand a bit, but I can’t explain why you should write. I have enough trouble understanding my own reasons. Especially this week, when I’ve written hardly a word aside from this essay. I tell myself I want to write fiction and that I want to publish novels, but then my own chapters make me nauseous. I get headaches and vision loss and a serious urge to “go outside” at the thought of editing my own work for mass consumption. And don’t get me started on the thoughts of finding an agent or, worse yet, publicity. It’s not my vibrant social life that fuels my writing – it’s the vibrant writing which fuels the little social life I have. Except with my girlfriend – she’s foreign, so her English isn’t the best. We hold entire conversations involving two syllables and a helping of curry-fried-shrimp. And where did I meet her? Online. Through e-mail. With the words we share beyond sound.

And so, when the devil returns again – when it’s morning, and the sun shines, and I’m late for work – I’ll look deep inside and ask what comes next. Is it the writing, this craft of my voice made audible through print? Or is it the daily struggle of getting out and saying hi and smiling back?

Ask yourself – before you forget – about why you write. Ask yourself the meaning of the words on the page.

I say this, now, because next semester I start a new phase in my writing. In the past, I’ve written in the dark, on hidden notebooks, majoring in the wrong subject, short on cash, in the middle of Afghanistan. But now, suddenly, I will be paid to write. A university has decided to trust this kid from Chicago. The professors see great promise in my work. They look forward to meeting me. They tell me that they are fascinated by my life experience. They believe I will be a fine addition to their MFA program.

So write. Write as much as you can. Write until it makes you sick. And then keep going. Learn from the authors you enjoy, learn from your mistakes, learn from everything you can. But remember where you came from. Fix your motivation in your mind – and in your writing – now. Because it does matter. Because it shapes who you are and what you write. Because the depths plumbed with words begin with the vast ocean we call life. And the minute you forget where you came from, you lose everything worth writing for.

1-2-Writing Workshops Online
About Ryan Edel

Inspiration for Creative Writing

I once asked my classmates in an online workshop about their habits for "finding inspiration." I think I asked "what do you do to get in the writing mindset." The first response I got back was "You should strike that thought from your mind." According to my classmate, no one who wants to be a writer should wait for inspiration or "the right mindset" - you have to just sit down and write. The next day, our teacher chimed in her complete agreement. Writing, as she pointed out, is a daily habit.

Unfortunately, those weren't the answers I was looking for. Mostly I wanted to start conversation, but also I was looking to get an idea of the sort of writers my classmates were. Writers come in all shapes and sizes, and the reasons for why they write reveal a great deal about their personalities. Some write for catharsis, others for the sheer joy of words on the page, a few here and there for the sadistic pleasure of writing a horrible end to people they don't like (not that any readers here would do such a thing...right?)

But most writers don't exactly know why they write. I can give ideas as to why I write, but no one reason is "the" reason. But the tricks I use for inspiration, those are facts. For a long time, I only had simple tricks. Sometimes I'd take a break and watch a movie. Usually I had a good book sitting by my computer. Every once in a while, when nothing was flowing, I'd play a video game - I don't know why, but it helps.

But then I took a freewriting workshop. For those of you unfamiliar with freewriting, it's a way to channel your unconscious thoughts directly onto the page. To freewrite, you sit down and set a timer for maybe ten or fifteen minutes (you can go for longer or shorter, if you like). During those minutes, you write. You write fast. You write the first thing that comes to mind and the next thing that comes to mind and you edit nothing. Just let it flow. Outlandish, unusual, uncomfortable - whatever the thought is, get it on paper and move on to the next one.

From freewriting, I discovered a whole new meaning for the word "inspiration." Instead of waiting on an outside stimulus to "get my mind going," I learned that the greatest stimuli come from deep within, like the deep ocean waves you never see or feel until they come rumbling to shore.

I've taken a few freewriting seminars, but the course that introduced me was a week-long Amherst Method residency taught by Pat Schneider. Pat's Amherst Method is a complete package for learning to write from within - she incorporates freewriting with guidelines to maintain an open and accepting environment for her writers to share their work. If you can, I highly recommend taking an Amherst Method workshop with one of the many certified instructors nationwide.

If you can't make it to a workshop due to time and/or distance, Pat has two very helpful books on the Amherst Method. Writing Alone and With Others and The Writer As an Artist: A New Approach to Writing Alone & with Others are both great resources for getting in touch with your inner self through the Amherst Method. Also, I have heard very good recommendations for the works of Natalie Goldberg. Her most well-known book on this subject is Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. Written in 1986, this book explores Goldberg's own experiences with inspiration and how to capture it on the page - Pat Schneider recommended it to our class as a way to become immersed in the methods of freewriting.

If you have a chance, take a freewriting workshop or take a look at some of these books. And let me know what you think. What do you do for for inspiration? How do you get "in the mood" for writing? Or have you found a motivation that keeps you sitting at your writing desk every morning?

1-2-Writing Workshops Online
About Ryan Edel

The Beginning Writer Workshop

I'm trying out the free-lance writing life in Raleigh while bartending on the side. Ends don't quite meet, but I feel like I'm actually living my dream for the first time. It's a great feeling, even as I put in twelve-and-fourteen hour days at my self-imposed "office."

There's a drawback to "living the dream," however. After many years of trying to convince my parents that writing is what I'm meant to do, I've had accept that they don't quite understand. I'm sure it's a common problem though. For a beginning writer - as for the beginning artist in any field - it's hard convincing your parents that starving is the right thing to do. Starting this website, to my practical mother, would be an even more foolhardy endeavor. I'm attempting to teach writing while hardly established myself. I'm applying to MFA programs, but I don't have one under my belt just yet. From the perspective of the mother who expected her son to excel in engineering, I'm throwing away both time and talent to a lost cause.

Why, then, do I write? Why endure the questions? Why not give in and find something lucrative? I've always been decent at math, and chemistry never was very hard for me (at least not until I took engineering classes - that was fun...). Why should someone who could make a living in another field want to be a writer?

The simple answer is that I can't not write. When the chemistry became to hard, I used the structures to describe my science fictional space alloy. When the differential equations were incomprehensible, I wove the squiggles into the setting of a new story. When my own life stopped making sense, I wrote out what I could. It's become an unbreakable habit - incestuous, almost. When I get tired of working on whichever novel is in progress, I'll take a break by writing a short story. Sometimes I have to pry myself away from the keyboard just to make sure I get my requisite hour of air and sunlight. Somedays I don't make it outside before dark.

Naturally, I want to share this unusual passion for words on a screen - I'm launching an online creative writing workshop. The focus will be on helping beginning writers learn the fundamentals of fiction writing while building the confidence to really experiment with their work. It feels ironic, almost. I'm barely published - my first story will see print later this year. My other stories are still in the submission stages. My first half-decent novel needs a cover-letter before so I can hunt for an agent. And yet I want to teach others.

Like any writer, I know the milestones in my work. I have a feeling of when and why I learned certain lessons at certain times. And I've made some major breakthroughs recently - the writing is beginning to "click" like it never did before.

My "sudden" progress is a combination of thousands of hours logged at the keyboard and time spent in some excellent workshops. I've learned valuable lessons from other writers and begun applying these lessons to my work. These are lessons in writing that I can pass on directly. Just as importantly, though, I've taken a few workshops that didn't help me as much. I've met writers who provided bad advice. And I can apply the lessons from these less-than-helpful seminars to provide lessons that are better structured and feedback that is targeted to the differing needs of each writer.

I have two goals in these workshops. My primary goal is to lead writing exercises that will help writers see stories from the inside out. This involves critiquing the work of others, it involves writing stories to specific prompts, it involves viewing your own writing in new ways. My second goal in is to illustrate the key guidelines for teaching creative writing. I believe that anyone who can write well can teach, but teaching creative writing is itself an art. It is a complicated process that involves both an understanding of the art and a connection with the artist. Many of the best writers and teachers, unfortunately, are not both.

I believe that much of the problem is an issue of focus – the best writers often never teach until after they’ve become successful authorities in their field, and then they have no one above them to guide them in how to run a workshop. The curriculum I'm assembling now is designed to overcome this. Starting young, I believe that beginning writers can quickly grasp the essential rules of teaching craft. By mastering these rules, a writer becomes both better with words and develops an affinity for helping other writers. And it is this bond - the ability to see and understand a human being through the words on the page - that defines a true writer.

1-2-Writing Workshops Online
About Ryan Edel

Light-Hearted Look at the Hazards of Being a Writer

Light-hearted? There is nothing light-hearted about the hazards of being a writer. Every day, I hear voices in my head and feel compelled to talk back.

“No you don’t.”

What? Dag-nabbit, there goes another one. She’s a protagonist, I think…I’ve been trying to delete her.

“Don’t even try, bucko.”

So yes, it’s a serious condition, this mental deterioration which results from writing. The longer you work with the words, the more they begin to seep through you subconscious mind and take over the rest of your life. You begin to think of freedom of speech as a right and you try to enforce it, but then you have characters who begin to say terrible, horrible, unpublishable things.

“What, you think I’ll be like Jane Fonda? She only said the c-word. And it was only national television.”

Dagny, stop it – I don’t need to get banned from Helium because of you.

“What, you’re afraid of a fictional character?”

I’m not afraid of you, just afraid of what you’ll make me write.

“Well fudge,” Dagny mutters, planting hands on hips, glancing down at the polished handle of her plasma disintegrator, “how in the gosh-darned heck am I going to express myself? What, you call yourself a writer? More like a two-bit cyber-punk wannabe trying to drive traffic to some cheap-skate website.”

Like I said, it’s dangerous being a writer. Just when you think you’re safe, your fingers start typing out the n-word and the f-word and then all kinds of social norms get shattered in the name of literature. Before you know it, the Catholic Church is pounding at your front door while Homeland Security goons drag you out the back.

“Oh, you wish,” Dagny adds. “That only happens when you’re popular. I don’t think you have enough friends for that.”

Great. There it is, the greatest hazard of all, true death to the writer – self esteem so low that his own imagination fails to believe in him.

Dagny rolls her eyes. She would tap her foot on the ground, but I’ve been taught to never write in clichés.

“Oh, it’s not that I don’t believe in you,” Dagny says. “It’s just that we’re tired of your whining.”

We? Who’s we?

“We, us, the rest of the voices. What, you thought it was just me down here?”

Ah crud. I suppose I could just go ahead and ignore the physical hazards, then – carpal tunnel, eyestrain, mental disfigurement.

Dagny crosses her arms. “Mental disfigurement? Are you making up words again?”

No, I’m trying to describe the act of jabbing a pair of scissors through my skull. Man, can’t I get even a few moments without you crazy inner monologues? I’m trying to express a serious point here about the hazards of being a writer.

Another voice pipes in – Jonathan. He sounds tired again, as usual. “Hazards?” Jonathan asks. “I think you have it pretty good.”

Right. Listen, Jonathan, I know you don’t understand that you’re fictional, but you should at least know that you’re only some dude in a novel. It’s your job to face down fire-belching dragons and homicidal robots. It’s called poetic license.

Jonathan and Dagny exchange looks. Dagny mimes the act of jabbing a pair of scissors through somebody’s skull – probably mine.

Listen, I tell them, sitting at a keyboard all day isn’t as easy as it looks. I get migraines from neck pain, and my wrist still hurts, so if you buggers could just go back to whichever part of my brain spawned you, then I’ll go on back to work.

“Um, correct me if I’m wrong,” Dagny replies, “but, ah, aren’t we your work? Aren’t you, well, kinda unemployed when we’re quiet?”

I said can it!

“He’s bitter,” Jonathan tells her. “He thinks he’d rather be fighting the dragons himself.”

“Oh really? Why don’t we let him, the ingrate.”

“Trust me,” Jonathan tells her, “if real live dragons were a hazard of writing, our wonderful author would have a lot more than scissors sticking through his head right now.”

Right, right…moving on, let’s see if there’s something else to write about…something safe…a nonhazardous channel. Maybe politics. At least there I can express an opinion without overruling by myself.

“You wish.”

“Shh! Come on, Dagny, we gotta let him pretend. He’ll stop writing if he gets depressed.”

“So?”

“If he jabs those scissors through his forehead we’re dead.”

Dagny again rolls her eyes. “Whatever.”