Do I Even Like Writing?

Quick update! Thanks to the incredible success of the first HOW TO NOT BE A MOTHER (my storytelling salon featuring work by women without kids), I’m doing another!

SAVE THE DATE for SATURDAY, JUNE 13th, 6pm at The Elysian Theater. And reach out to me directly if you’d like to submit a piece to share. Ticket link to come. Can’t wait (again)!

We were at coffee complaining about our confusing writing careers, our start/stop writing progress, the way writing controls our moods, how much we fear feedback of any kind on our writing. The usual.

Do you actually like doing it? He asked. I know we both love having done it. And what it leads to. But do you actually enjoy the writing part?

(He asked it much better than that, so now we can add how much we fear misquoting our friends in our writing to the coffee complaining list)

I could not answer the question.

I think I do? I said, but with a tone that would have convinced no one, least of all Adam.

I like coming up with ideas.

I also like envisioning those ideas in written form.

I really like the idea of those written ideas entertaining people if not changing hearts and minds.

But the actual writing part?

What even is the actual writing part?

That is how I would answer the question if Adam asked today.

Do you like the actual writing? / What even is the actual writing?

I’m going to answer the first question by way of the second. I’m going to make a list of everything that goes into the actual writing part and decide whether or not I like it. This feels risky, but it’s too late now.

• Turning an idea into a loose outline

  How loose? I like dumping all my ideas for a given project into a notebook, then starting to assemble those ideas into some structure. I do not love when it’s time to make that structure a story that makes sense because that involves a lot of trial and error and figuring out how to best format a notecard to describe a plot point. But, does this actually count as the writing part yet?

• Deciding what should go into a scene/chapter

  I lowkey like this part. It’s fun to envision things unfolding in my brain. I tend to have access to those kinds of ideas quicker than I do, say, the words to describe them in writing. I can see a scene in my mind. That is very fun. But I become immediately anxious when it’s time to get it from my brain to the page through my typing fingers… Also, I think we’re still not writing yet…

• Building rough sentences out of words to communicate a specific idea.

  Okay, now, this it writing. Hm. Do I enjoy this? It really depends...

  I like it when it happens quickly. I like it when a great idea for a series of words comes to me, and I can get it on the page in the way I envisioned (or, more so, heard in my head first). I really like when I write one sentence then somehow immediately know what the next sentence should be. I love it when that happens over and over again throughout a given writing session. Surely that’s writing. The feeling of being able to create a series of good sentence that communicate what I’m trying to express with relative ease. Yes. I love that. That’s literal heaven on earth for me.

  The problem is that the opposite of it - not knowing what words to put down, not knowing what I’m trying to communicate, not knowing what sentence comes after a good one I just wrote - is so hellish that it’s hard to say whether or not I like the whole thing. I feel the same way about cooking. I have enjoyed sessions putting ingredients together to make a delicious meal. Chopping. Measuring. Stirring. Tasting. But I have probably hated just as many cooks in my life. So, do I like or not like cooking?

  I feel like we’re getting somewhere with the cooking analogy…

  Do I feel the same kind of joy during a successful cooking experience as I do having ease with my writing? No. Do I think about cooking things when I’m in the shower? Never. Am I incredibly excited to share my ideas through my cooking? I don’t even really understand that question.

  To me, this says two things: 1. I like the highs of writing so much that they hold much, much more weight than the lows. This is a strange discovery because it does not often feel like that’s true in process. 2. A written product means more to me than a meal. So I’m not just making good sentences out of words. I’m striving to communicate something very important to me via the written word. Why writing and not painting, composing, or cooking? I don’t know. It’s just the form that appeals to me. I just…like it best. But, again, that’s writing as a concept not the act of writing as a task.

• Editing sentences/paragraphs to make them the best that they can be

  I should have started with this because according to Hemmingway, “the only kind of writing is rewriting.”

  Maybe that’s why the rough sentence process doesn’t control how much I love or hate writing? I hate, hate, hate re-reading rough work to determine what needs fixing. It’s so embarrassing. All those bad sentences and ideas came from my dumb brain! But I love getting into a flow state where I’m able to figure out how to make it all better. Finding the exact right description. Landing on the best line of dialogue. Oh god you know my favorite thing? When you take a wordy, run-on sentence and turn it into the perfect little series of words. Oh man when it sounds just right to my ear. Omigod you know what’s even better? When the perfect line comes to you, fully written, while you wait for your Nespresso to brew. Absolute bliss.

  So, shockingly, I don’t like writing; I like re-writing.

  But since no career can be reduced only to one of its parts (does a teacher like every single moment of teaching? does a scientist like every part of scientisting?), I’m going to make a list of things I like about writing that have nothing to do with the writing.

1. Being alone.

2. Talking about writing with other writers (especially Adam!).

3. Reading as a way to figure out how I can be better at writing.

4. Building a schedule for a big project and chipping away at it day by day.

5. Saying, “I’m a writer.”

6. Having a flexible work schedule.

7. Being able to take my work with me anywhere in the world.

8. Researching for my writing projects.

9. Sharing an artistic experience with some of my heroes.

10. Wearing blazers. This is optional for writers, but I don’t think it should be.

So, Adam, I like actual writing plus the other pieces of the puzzle of being a writer enough to keep doing it despite all the complaining.

But I don’t like cooking. I thought about it more as I delighted in re-writing this piece, and it’s a firm no.

XO, J

This week’s Brave Confession: when my husband is out of town I play a game of seeing how many days I can survive eating only the contents of our cupboards and freezer. I always win.

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