As you stroll around the garden at The Poynter Institute, several inspirational sayings, carved into marble, greet you. One comes from the great sports writer Red Smith: “Writing is easy. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.” This quote evokes a chestnut from Gene Fowler: “Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.” The agony in the garden.
I’m about to write something you may not want to read, that The Writer’s Struggle is over-rated. The struggle turns out to be a con game, a cognitive distortion, a self-fulfilling prophecy, the best excuse in the world for not writing.
“Why should I get writer’s block?” asked veteran newspaper columnist Roger Simon. “My father never got truck driver’s block.”
Imagine these excuses for procrastination:
*Fire Fighter’s Block
*Paramedic’s Block
*7-11 Clerk’s Block
*Casino Dealer’s Block
*Ditch Digger’s Block
*Surgeon’s Block
*Postal Worker’s Block
*President’s Block
This little essay will not deny the periodic utility of The Writer’s Struggle, which I learned as a boy.
“Son,” said mother, “there’s a foot of snow on the ground. Go out and help your father.”
“Gee, I’d like to, Mom. But I’m really struggling with this book report.”
Let’s be honest, we writers are invested in the struggle. We become writers (or senior scholars) to avoid heavy lifting. Our hernias are mental. But because physical work aversion is considered unmanly, we’ve created a mythology about our craft. The writer’s life is so hard, Hemingway and his ilk taught us, that only drinking, drugs, and infidelity forestall the dissolution that awaits us.
Compare writing to reading. Although good readers may “struggle” with a difficult text, a metaphysical poem by John Donne, few would argue that struggle is the point of reading. The point of reading is fluency. Meaning flows to the good reader. Writing should flow for the good writer, at least as an ideal.
I come to this discussion as a recovering struggle-holic, having trafficked in the “woe-is-we” business for more than 25 years. I’ve been quoted as saying, “I don’t like writing. I like having written.” I don’t remember saying that, but it sounds like me.
As I become a more fluent writer, the more I enjoy the craft and the more productive I become. These days I sound like a Zen master: “The more I write, the more I write.” When I look back on my days of struggle, I see a young man trying to tread water while wearing a pair of work boots. I stay afloat much easier in my bare feet.
My path to fluency did not come from someone else’s map. Perhaps struggle is the toll we pay to find the path. Looking back, I can remember some trailheads. These guideposts transformed my negative thoughts into useful work, the way Lamaze mothers learn to re-imagine labor pains as muscle contractions.
To become a more fluent writer, try these strategies:
1. Trust your hands. Forget your brain for a while, and let your fingers do the writing. Your hand bones are connected to your brain bones. I had the vaguest sense of what I wanted to say in this essay until my hands taught me.
2. Adopt a daily routine. Fluent writers prefer mornings. Afternoon and evening writers (or runners) have the whole day to invent excuses not to write (or run). The key is write rather than wait.
3. Build in rewards. Any routine of work (or not-work) can be debilitating, so build in many little rewards: a cup of coffee, a quick walk, your favorite song.
4. Draft sooner. Many journalists use reporting and research to fill up the available time. Thorough investigation is key to a journalist’s success, but over-reporting makes writing seem tougher. Write earlier in the process so you discover what information you need.
5. Count everything. Don Murray’s favorite motto is “Never A Day Without a Line.” Not a hundred lines. For the fluent writer, every word counts. Learn to judge your own work by quanity, not quality.
6. Rewrite. The quality comes from revision, rather than from speed writing. Fluent writing gives you the time and opportunity to turn your quick draft into something special.
7. Watch your language. Purge your vocabulary (and your thoughts) of words like “procrastination” and “writer’s block” and “delay” and “sucks.” Turn your little quirks into something productive. Call it “rehearsal” or “preparation” or “planning.”
8. Set the table. When works piles up on my desk, I find it hard to stick to my fluent writing routine. That is when I take a day to throw things away, answer messages, and prepare the altar for the next day of writing.
9. Find a rabbi. We all need one helper who loves us without conditions, someone who praises us for our productivity and effort, and not the quality of the final work. Too much criticism weighs a writer down.
10. Keep a daybook. Story ideas, key phrases, a startling insight, these can be fleeting. A handy companion, like a notebook or daybook, helps you preserve the ingredients for new writing.
Finally, remember this quote from poet John Ciardi: “You don’t have to suffer to be a poet. Adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.”
