The WAY

The writing life continues...

I’m not sure where to begin. What I’m about to write is pretty raw and personal, I suppose, and probably of no interest to anyone else, but that’s ok. Maybe that’s the first step to learning to write for myself for a change.

I remember we’d debate in college—is a writer writing for an audience or themselves? The answer is both, obviously. If they want to be read, yes, they write for an audience. Nothing is more difficult. But there is no high like finding that flow state where the world slows and the pieces fit, and you’ve made sense of your chaotic experience and existence. Life makes no sense—we try to hang things on whatever structures we can find. It’s easy to blame others, throw a pity party, etc. Ultimately, so much is left to chance, but the way we are wired we don’t want to believe it.

I had an amazing experience writing American Fire. It was a book I believed in, about the core of my feelings and beliefs. I spent about fifteen years on it. My writing style is often a searching one. Malcolm Gladwell has a great article I always recommend about Late Bloomers. Our instant-gratification society celebrates prodigies. Late Bloomers have a different approach to the page. But that’s neither here nor there.

Towards the end of writing American Fire, there was a six-month period or so where everything clicked into place (after 15 years!!). It was just nips and tucks. Rearrangements. It was as though it happened on autopilot. It’s a common experience for writers, I’m told, but that doesn’t make it any less magical.

I’ve come to accept this long-term searching style. I have four or five uncompleted novels that just don’t quite exist yet because they are missing that spark. The spark that brings dead words to life. The urgency. You know it when you see it.

I’ve been deeply unhappy for a while. I know that happiness is transitory and relative. But I’ve spent so much of my life between everyday reality and writing the new fire book in my head. Trying on phrases, scenes, amalgamating. I am wondering if it is becoming a problem. I am hardly ever there.

It may be an understatement to say that I’ve been writing my ass off lately, to no effect. I have been trying to write another fire book, which may be a mistake. I’ve written thousand of pages by now without finding its form, or where I need to be. I will end a day sometimes in joy only to see the utter crap I wrote the next day. I also know this is part of the writing process.

The question is, if it is any different this time?

It’s easy to romanticize “the struggle,” or in our culture, say, “work harder.” But that’s really not working. Writing has always been a way for me to feel closer to life, closer to the truth. Digging.

But how do you do that when life is out of balance? Or if there is no such thing as balance?

There is no crowning moment. Applause and awards and money etc. are nice, but writing a great book is not going to make you a whole person. It isn’t going to fix the past. People miss the mark that writing is the way certain people compulsively interact and make sense of the world and bring some beauty into it. This is why a finished book is ultimately for the audience and not the author. It is the message that is looking for the right listener.

I’m an adjunct professor, doing my dream job. Teaching writing. I’m good at what I do, but with small children in the house, it’s hard to not feel used up, burnt out. I turned forty last week. It’s been my experience that if you have your shit even minimally together so many people reach out to you as though you’re a life raft.

I’m a people-pleaser by nature, having come from a dysfunctional home. So many interactions are transactional in life. That’s the nature of life. I don’t begrudge people. Even as a lowly adjunct I receive so many emails each day of people who are looking for some form of help, mostly transactional. As I said before, that’s life.

It’s finally summer, and I’ve worked so hard and so long to be here, and now I’m just empty. I feel that for those thousands of pages I’ve written towards this new book, they have been transactional as well. With an audience in mind. Audience should not be considered until the revision stage. Otherwise you just sound like a parody of yourself.

I’m trying to find joy again. The authentic sense of self and life. When that raw material of life becomes the stuff of poetry. When it’s dark and late and your body is thrumming with the worldflow like the Universe just rewarded you with that life-promising spark.

I don’t want to romanticize. It takes time. If writing were easy, everyone would do it, and discomfort is a large part of the process.

Every book whether you’re a reader or writing asks and tries to answer the same questions: Who am I? Where am I going?

The thing that keeps me grounded is knowing that if one person can find the way, that means there is a way.

We can still find it.