Writers Flow

Sometimes writing flows, sometimes it stops. The idea of “writer’s block” is well known—the writer who wants to write but can’t. Writers like Harper Lee, who only ever really wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, are popular stories that support the myth of the tortured artist, crippled by their genius. But this is a well known tale, what about the stories we do not know, possibly your story?

Firstly, there are many highly talented writers we never meet or know. A combination of wrong place, wrong time, wrong situation, and wrong circumstances means they write for their own satisfaction. Writing becomes part of their journey in life—a means to navigate, make sense of things, and feel ownership (and power) over their place in the world and what it means. One would hope that outstanding writers eventually rise to the top and that we find out about them posthumously or their real name rather than their psuedonymn is revealed (as can often happen).

Often when someone possesses a strong passion for the arts, it burns so bright, fierce, and ongoing that such people often know from a very young age that this is what they need to do. This becomes integral to what they do through the symbols of letters and language everyday and this begins early in life.

Often, a writer who becomes known also has support from family, peers, friends, or colleagues—someone who believes in them. Some say this is luck, others say it is destiny, but mostly it is the innate understanding that language is communication, and communication needs to be shared.

We should support and herald people who choose to spend hours, weeks, days, or months alone in a small space, dedicated to their craft of words! We need these people. Most would not care for such a confined and isolated life.

Through this isolation, sometimes other habits that come with isolation—such as depression, alcoholism, and anxiety—take hold.

We see the writer, unwashed, hunched over, completely absorbed in their inner world of language, where their mind puts together previously unthought ideas.

Connections are made based on experiences, knowledge, culture, and history, which fuel their imaginative potential. They make these connections, and their ten fingers strain to keep up with this neural firing.

Lost in a state of connected imagination, like level 5 of a video game, every thought and neural fiber must attend to the narrative they are within. A writer must pay complete attention to the letters they are trying to form in order to represent the story they wish to share. They are reliant on the word craft they have been exposed to and taught in order to eloquently and sophisticatedly represent their themes.

A writer focuses to catch these ideas, order them in their mind, and then commit them to the page through these symbols.

It is not easy. Most of us would not wish for this. So, we commend the writer who does, and we are fortunate to have their voice written on the page.

Yet, we all have this voice, this lived experience. We all have the ability to be a writer. It is simply a writer who desires to have their voice committed to a more permanent form, and they dedicate time, skill, endless hours, and isolated sacrifice to do so.

We form these symbols into stories and know that it is this thread that defines our humanity and our identity. We need people who are passionate about words to help orient us through the narrative of our human history.

We are all writers if we dare to be.

Until next time,

Mon xx