What we talk about when

We talk about the weight of writing

Every time we write, we honor the people who told us we’re good at writing. Why then is it so difficult to write sometimes?

Well, we never talk about the weight of writing. Yes. We ramble about what writing means to us, and about our personal histories. Many of us wrote our first stories in Crayon. Or we were encouraged by a kind teacher or relative. But everything becomes more fraught as we move up the age ladder from child to teen to young adult to whatever it is we become when we’re responsible for ourselves. The reckless abandon we wrote with in our youth dissipates along with our best imaginary friend. Goodbye carefree, storytelling. Toodle-oo, Bing Bong.  

As adults, too often, the weight of writing sits on our shoulders, tugs at our elbows, grabs the wings on our writerly ankles. I’m resisting the urge to compare that weight to a monkey or parrot here. So, I’ll say the weight is our self. Every writer observes the world twice. Through our lived experience, and again through the version of us who sits on our shoulder and takes it all in at a clinical remove. This second self is smart and powerful and talented. They’re us at our best, and we long to spend as much time with that version of us as possible. Life has other plans.

You’re at work and you think, “wouldn’t it be nice to go home and write for the first time in ages? After I make dinner. After I put the kids to bed. After some TV. After sex. After social media. First thing in the morning. Promise.” We could fill stadia with good intentions. With all the books, plays, and scripts that could have been written. But, actually, you can’t because there’s nothing there. Except for a hunched version of yourself sitting on your own shoulder, flicking your ear, and telling you there are higher priorities than writing. Or that you have nothing to say. Or, worst of all, that you’ll never say it well enough to live up to your own expectations. There’s a perfect story in your head. You don’t know how to get the words onto the page. You’re not alone. How do I know that? Because I’m having those thoughts writing this. After all, I wrote this.

I just wrote that the version of me on my own shoulder is my best writer self. So how can I turn around and say that my writer self is trolling me when I want to write? Honestly, I wish I knew. But I suppose that’s part of the mystery of the art. Why it’s so enchanting. Like a cat, it’s purring one second and scratching your arm the next.

Listen, I really wanted to start off this first illustrious post with something big and profound. A succinct and pithy homily. A profound set of discoveries. The kind of word/advice/encouragement you want to tattoo on your forearm. But this newsletter is about the opposite of that. I came here to think on the page about what I love: the written word.

There is little I love more in life than story. I love to consume stories in books and films. I adore story songs and surprising stories on social media. When I watch football or linger on a food program, that’s what I’m staring at: stories. I don’t usually care who wins the ballgame. But I want to see if the perennial underdog will finally overcome the smug dynasty. And too, I’ve watched countless hours of cooking shows. Yet, I’ve never once made a dish based on one of those recipes. I’m watching the story. A bowl of white powder. A bowl of chicken protein. Several portions of spices. You’re telling me that if you mix those items and put them in a cauldron, we get cake? That’s magic. And magic is the essence of story.

When my mother was young, she started writing the beginnings of a book about her life. She had quite a few adventures. Romance. A shotgun wedding. A baby (my brother). A failed marriage. An escape to Harlem (it was that or the convent) to live with distant relatives. Whereupon the country girl got a fast education in big city life. Someone went through her things and stole the money that was meant to have been her college fund. A suave drug dealer with a giant luxury care took an interest in her. But she was not interested in him. She ran/fled/returned to New Orleans shortly thereafter with her hair tied in a ponytail, my brother on her hip, and no prospects other than…

Well, that’s a story for another time. But she did keep that memoir fragment in a box in a cabinet under the armoire in my childhood home. And the box remained there until the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina came and churned them into mush. I never actually read those pages. I didn’t know they existed until much later. But stories want to be shared, so Mama told me the story one day while riding in my car.

Long before, my mother’s mother once told her a story about a handsome man who offered to take care of her. She was pregnant with my mother. He was heading east and planned to become a doctor. My grandmother turned the man down. So there, just like that, you have two generations of matriarchs turning away from becoming Kept Women and charting their own courses. What am I to do with those stories other than pump my fist in pride?

Still, with my mother, especially, I think of all the stories she might have told in another life where fate would have, say, misdirected her into the Toni Morrison’s editorial offices. (Yes, Ma’s early 1970s adventures were around that time Mama Toni worked as an editor for Random House.) Perhaps Ms. Morrison and Mama would have become friends and Mama would have shared something with the woman that was praiseworthy. But Ma and Grandma’s stories haven’t really been told.

In some ineffable way, every writer carries the unspoken weight of self, ancestor, community. The weight of stories that float in the ether. Perhaps that’s what writers block really is. Maybe it’s why we once valued the griot and the shaman and the oracle so highly. Those who could call the trapped words down from the attic of the heavens and provide catharsis.

Sometimes I sit and the words flow out with a kind of spiritual force. Other times I sit, pecking keys with sore index fingers. The mustard refuses to be squeezed from the bottle.

What do I know and why am I writing this? Same answer for both. I love to write. Writing can be difficult. Those two opposing facts are true. Cognitive dissonance is a big part of what makes literature work. Every writer travels to an unseen place while also sitting in silence in a real-life bedroom, café, carrel.

To make my best work, I must come back to the writing page often. And sometimes even that doesn’t work. When it doesn’t work, it’s painful. Paraphrasing that old joke about visiting the doctor: you bend your elbow and say, “it hurts when I do that.” The physician says don’t do that. So, you say, “thanks,” pay the co-pay, ride home and try to write anyway.

This is my way of saying hello to you, fellow writer, wherever you are. I hope you’re quite well.

In these pages, I’ll talk about the writing life, craft, and publishing. I’ll sometimes share interviews by amazing writers. And sometimes I’ll just do what I just did for last 1,200 or so words. I’ll even delve into pop culture. I encourage questions or topic suggestions about all the above.

Let’s be together and have a good time. Welcome to the first one. This isn’t my best writing, but I never said it would be. Let’s try for better next time. Shall we?