I am no expert writer (far from it) but I have found it is an outlet that comes naturally to me, in that I want to do it without trying, similar to Charles Bukowski. Here are little bits of advice I’ve picked up on writing, which probably carry over to other creative fields as well:
The trick to writing is to not think about writing. The more you think about writing, the more unnatural it becomes. It’s kind of like trying not to think about pink elephants. Just speak. Christopher Hitchens, known for how quickly he could write, says “if you can talk, you can write.”
Forget about being an author, just write. To paraphrase Alan Watt, ‘To be an author is to be authorized to speak. Author, authorized. It’s no coincidence’. There’s a whole lot of gatekeeping in the publishing world and even beyond that there’s enough insecurity within ourselves that we’ll prevent ourselves from speaking. Just forget it. Authorize yourself to speak.
When it comes to inspiration, look to who gives you “permission to speak”. This was a phrase Leonard Cohen used to describe how the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca inspired him, not to be like Lorca, but to use his own unique voice as a poet. Leonard saw a freedom in the way Lorca expressed himself, and that freed Leonard up, too. This is healthy inspiration, when someone’s creative style resonates within you. As opposed to imitating what’s popular, or what you may even admire, but simply aren’t cut out for.
However you write, “try to make it look like you did it that way on purpose.” advice given by the editor at The New Yorker to his writers. Featured in Wes Anderson’s film The French Dispatch.
“You don’t write a novel, you write two pages”. You’ll get overwhelmed if you think about writing an entire novel. Just take it two pages at a time. Or one page at a time. This is advice I picked up from the author of Doublespeak, William Lutz. It’s also how Stephen King claims he writes so many books, by committing to simply finishing six pages per day (not two). Go at your own pace.
Plain language will do. George Orwell was fond of plain, simple English that everyone could understand. Joe Bageant, who also wrote for the working class, said, “I’m so damn average that what I write resonates with people”.
Don’t get too hung up on grammar. Rules are made to be broken. Don’t let the fear of writing something the “wrong” way prevent you from writing at all. “Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar",” EB White.
Don’t be afraid to edit your own work. “Kill your darlings” as the old saying goes. Rewriting for the sake of improved clarity is important. Come back to what you’ve written in a day or two so that when you read it you have a fresh perspective.
Don’t be embarrassed of bad writing. Failure is part of experimenting. Experimenting is part of the practice (and creativity itself). And practice is how you learn. Create more junk, not less. Bukowski said, “I’m not one to look back on wanton waste as complete loss—there’s music in everything, even defeat.”
Writing fiction, particularly novels, is subtractive, like carving a sculpture out of marble. You carve out the story from the world you’ve imagined. You’ll know details that will never make it into the story. This was true of how JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter, but it’s also how many novelists write.
“Writer’s block” could be a sign you’re trying to say something where you have nothing to say, or it could just be a sign you need to take a break. As Charlie Parker said, “if you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn”. Don’t overwork yourself and think all you have to do is write, in other words. Part of being a creative means having enough life experience that you have something worth expressing.
Don’t try. Bukowski’s famous advice. Good advice, if understood in its context. In other words, write if you’re passionate about it and it comes naturally to you. “We work too hard. We try too hard. Don’t try. Don’t work. It’s there. It’s been looking right at us, aching to kick out of the closed womb.”
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