bellascribe

Salon advice columnist Cary Tennis gives a suffering post-master’s in writing (non-writing) writer advice on how to start writing.

The connection between writing … and writing for money or writing for success has to be broken. You need a good, strong, regular writing practice. The ego has to be broken for the voice to come through. The voice is what you want. The voice that makes no sense at first is what you want. The voice that sounds a little crazy is what you want. Try it.

You have to break the connection between ego and practice. The practice is the thing. How can you do that? You find a model in your life. What activities do you now practice for their own sake?

… Regardless of whether you sell your writing, you do it. Regardless of anything, you do it. It has to be a practice. There are many ways to get there.

… And I am comforted. I need to be comforted because I am uncomfortable; I am a harsh self-critic. Others are not so lucky. I often hate my work. I simply detest it. I want to burn it. I think that it shows me in the worst possible light, as a whining, mewling infant, an idiot, a selfish prick. Yes, I am full of the most detestable self-hatred. And I am utterly transparent. This I take to be part of the job. Others do not. Others more successful have exquisite control; they write and do not feel the need to confess. What of it? Being a writer is permission to be disreputable: That is my chosen tradition.

So give your self permission. Give your self permission to be wholly reprehensible. This is what they call the dark side. The dark side is where images arise unbidden before the ideas and the words. There is something there when you are not doing what you are supposed to do. So give yourself permission to be reprehensible because that is what is interesting and writing is not good or bad but only interesting.

…Do it for these reasons. Keep doing it for these reasons. Do it for no reason. Keep doing it for no reason. When you are doing it because it is your voice, then it will not matter who is publishing you. It will have become apparent that writing is your friend. It will be what you would do in prison if they locked you up. It keeps you sane. It saves you. That’s what it’s for. Doing it for others sucks us dry. We have to do it for ourselves, for the love of it, for it. We have to give ourselves over to it like giving ourselves over to a lover or to the water, like giving ourselves over to the waves and sinking under. We just give ourselves to it. We surrender to it. We don’t worry about who will publish it. We do it because we need to.