[photo by Carlo Nicora]
[Note: You can also listen to this post as a podcast]
I've been enjoying a wonderful summer vacation the past few weeks. I spent most of the time in Utah, doing anything but thinking or writing. It was blissful, but then I got back and had to start thinking again. And now I’m back to writing as well.
I think it's funny when writers talk about how hard it is to write. Not because writing is easy but because talking about the difficulties of writing is too common to be interesting for anyone besides the writer himself. It's like a bank teller flopping down beside you on the couch and sighing, “I had to count money all day.”
“I’m like a child refusing to take his medicine.”
Yeah, that's pretty much your job. We all know bank tellers count money and we all know writers write. Writing is work, the “manual labor of the mind” as John Gregory Dunne famously observed. I find writers who talk about the difficulties of writing a bit self-indulgent.
This summer I was reading a bestselling author talk about the difficulties of writing and it occurred to me it's not really hard to write it's just hard to write well. Not even so much writing well by any objective standard as writing in a way that meets our own expectations.
Why We Think Writing is Hard
We can all put words down on paper. It's not much harder than speaking, which seems pretty effortless for most people. At least it’s effortless until you turn on a video camera. I can write at times with relative ease, but put a camera in my face and suddenly I’m an idiot.
I think talking in front of a camera is difficult for the same reason writing can be difficult; it's permanent. If done poorly it becomes a lasting record of our incompetence.
A friend of mine shot a short video while we were visiting Beirut a few months ago. While walking along the corniche I had been tossing out Robert Frost quotes like candy at a parade but when he unexpectedly pointed the camera at me and told me to recite “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” I completely clammed up.
Not that I don't know the poem—it's one of my favorites—but the thought of being captured on a permanent medium made me literally clamp my jaw shut. In the video I appear to be a child refusing to take his medicine. I looked down to get away from the camera only occasionally glancing back to see if he was still pointing it at me.
Our Fear of Looking Bad and Being Pompous
In some ways writing is hard because it's more permanent than simply talking. When we talk we can say whatever we want without fear of attribution, it’s usually forgotten so quickly it doesn’t even matter what we say. Even when it’s remembered it’s debatable what was actually said.
When there's no record it's easy to claim the other person is misremembering what we said or that they misheard in the first place. Once it's on the record however, recorded on tape or in writing, it becomes much harder to change our story.
“Let me tell you why your writing sucks.”
But there's another reason writers like to talk about writing being a lot of work; it's a plea for compassion. It's saying, you may not like this but I've put a lot of work into it so please don't be harsh. An author who declares writing to be a breeze or a particular piece to have been effortless is simply asking to be slammed by critics.
There's nothing people love more than telling a pompous blowhard he's not as good as he thinks he is. You think you can just whip off a blockbusting manuscript? Let me tell you why it sucks. If you think writing is easy, we feel like saying, it's because you're doing it wrong.
Getting Our Thoughts in Order
While in Utah I had many leisurely conversations with my siblings, all of whom live in the Salt Lake Valley. Talking with my family is a particular treat for me because we have similar interests and the same quirky sense of humor. It’s the kind of humor not everyone appreciates but around each other no explanation is necessary which makes for fluid and fulfilling discussions.
After a particularly enjoyable conversation with one of my brothers I told him he should be writing a blog so everyone can enjoy his unique insights. His response was typical of other people I’ve talked with about blogging. He said maybe he would start writing when he got his thoughts together. Right now they’re all works in progress.
“I think my writing should become outdated over time.”
I can understand that; most of my thoughts are works in progress too. But that doesn’t stop me from writing about them. In many instances it forces me to resolve inconsistencies and to tighten my thinking. His primary concern though, when it came right down to it, was that he didn’t want to be locked into a position when he hadn’t yet fully explored all the alternatives. He didn’t want to be on record as stating one thing when later he might reach a different conclusion.
The Fluidity of Intellectual Exploration
This is a fair concern; we all have the need to be consistent with our statements. Prominent psychologist Robert Cialdini cites this need as one of his six Rules of Influence. Once we say something aloud we’re more likely to defend that position and less likely to change our opinion in the future. Writing something down has an even more powerful effect.
But I don’t see blogging as a series of position papers. For me blogging is a discussion, a way to talk ideas through and develop my thoughts. I hope others find my blog useful, either as a mental diversion or a jumping off point for their own analysis of an idea. Even more than that however, I hope people provide other perspectives and interpretations which help me see an idea I’ve been thinking about in a whole new way.
Writing need not be the end of thinking. It can be, and in my opinion should be, a form of external thinking and an invitation for discussion. I think my writing should become outdated over time. I hope it does. Any person who has the same opinions at sixty as they did at twenty has wasted forty years of life.
If we want to grow intellectually, we need to be constantly reevaluating our positions and questioning our arguments and assumptions. Our perspectives should change with experience and circumstances. The world is ever-changing and our thoughts need to adapt as well. While there are many who value consistency, I would rather see growth.
We need to always be thinking, talking or writing about ideas. Otherwise we merely exist.
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