How to write - it is like teaching a lesson, giving a presentation, being a marriage partner, being a parent. Do the work, as honestly and thoroughly as needed plus a little extra. Have faith in yourself and your audience. Be patient. Don't expect or require yourself to you hit a home run each time you try. You won't and you can't and neither can anybody else. Want to know why you can't? The basic reason is not some special talent you don't have. The basic reason is the individuality of all minds. What you have to say is just not what most people are looking for at the time they notice your writing. You are interested in why writing is difficult, why you don't want to write, why taking a walk is so much more attractive than another 1,000 words. But today, I am interested in finding a good book to read, finding a good price for a Christmas gift. Today, you just don't interest me. But you hit my nail on the head yesterday and I will return to see what you have to say tomorrow.
Take my wife. I just read her a blog post from Mind Hacks about how the brain MAY respond to anger-making experience differently if the person is sitting up or lying down. After I read her the gist of the post, she said one word," May", emphasizing the post mentioned something that is only a possibility and is not very certain. I was delighted with her emphasis, seeing it as quite apt, quite on the very most important point. But I remember other times when the very same word from her hurt and upset me. Say, I had just told her that I spent $50 to enter a contest because I received an email that I may be a winner. If I hoped she would be supportive and impressed and she said the very same word, "May", I might be upset and depressed. Writing goes into readers and the writer cannot control what they will make of the symbols and meanings.I was charmed and enthused about Natalie Goldberg's comparison of good writing and other good art to the leftovers of a meal. That is why her wonderful and inspiring book is titled "Writing Down the Bones". Whether it is a note to the milkman (what is a milkman?!) or a letter to posterity, the writer has a message, an inclination to go to the effort of assembling some scribbles that seem to express the message. It is the inclination and assembling that count, the scribble are just the leftover bones after a good meal. It is the activity of the artist that relieves the pressure in his soul, that temporarily satisfies the drive in her, that count. Once down, the art itself is on its own, as it sails through the world and into others.
