You do the work and the joy is in the doing
This morning I saw a post on Bluesky by Gretchen Falker-Martin.
"I have such a great idea for a novel, how do I--"
Sit down and write it. If you can't produce finished work, your ideas aren't worth the neurons you had them with. Do it, do it, sit down and do it, or it doesn't get done.
— Gretchen Felker-Martin 🍉 (@scumbelievable.bsky.social) February 9, 2025 at 6:41 PM
At first maybe it seems a little blunt but it’s really just good advice told in a direct, straight-forward way. If you want to be a writer you have to write. It’s simple. It’s like being a painter: you have to paint. Or a chef: you have to cook. The title comes from the act of creation.
And yet, and yet. I’ve been in writing circles for over a decade and I keep running into people who tell me they’re a writer and they have all these great ideas. And when I ask to see a sample I get bupkis. They’re too busy or they have some life problem that keeps them from writing. Okay, I get that. I have a busy life too: a day job, a side job, family commitments. I would love to be the kind of person who sits down every day with a cup of coffee and can bang out 1,000 words of fiction. I’m not. That’s okay.
But the thing is, I do the work. I have multiple notebooks around the house for different purposes and I write in them daily - a journal, one for ideas, one for notes for whatever I’m working on. And when I have things where I want them, I sit at my laptop and I start typing.
That is the work. There is no reward for doing it. I don’t get a gold star, a paycheque, even a word of kindness from my loved ones. The reward is in the doing. In looking at what used to be a blank document and seeing the words on the screen, words that I’m happy with and that reflect what I’m trying to get across.
This seems to be something of a sticking point with some people. Namely those who use ChatGPT to help write essays or who think that reading video-game dialog is a substitute for reading literature. But they’re wrong. They want to be a writer but don’t want to do the work. I can sympathize with them: I want to be a jazz guitarist but I don’t really want to spend hours a day practising scales. But then - I don’t call myself the next Joe Pass either.
Years ago I read an anthology of Charles Bukowski’s poems in my hometown’s old public library, a white brick building of right angles and clocks straight out of the 1970s. It’s gone now and so is the book, but I vividly remember one of his poems: “so you want to be a writer?”
if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
Don’t do it. If you can’t get the words out or if you want it for the wrong reasons, then don’t do it. Like Falker-Martin’s advice it’s bold, simple, and effective. Don’t waste your time. You time is precious and every second counts. Don’t go chasing wild dogs.
And the thing is that writing is hard work and it’s lonely work. When I deleted my Substack a while ago, I deleted probably millions of words and years worth of stuff. And nobody noticed and the world kept spinning. But it’s fine! It really is. The joy is not in the recognition (although that is nice) but in the act of creation. I do this - book reviews, music reviews, little essays and missives, occasionally short fiction - because I like doing it and because it comes naturally to me. I would love to be able to do it for a living, but until then I will continue to do it here, and there, and elsewhere.
A final note. You have to read to write. Jeanne Thornton once told me once that you have to breathe in to breathe out. You need to know how words work. So here’s some places to get started:
The King’s English - Kingsley Amis (Penguin Classics)
Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage - HW Fowler and Sir Ernest Gowers (Oxford University Press)
Complete Plain Words - Sir Ernest Gowers (Penguin)
Craft In the Real World - Matthew Salesses (Catapult)
Dreyer’s English - Benjamin Dreyer (Random House)
Now go breath in and start working.
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