The first and only time I told my mother I aspired to a career as a creative person was when I was 8 or 9. I remember she was washing the dishes when I said, “When I grow up I want to write and draw comic books for a living.” After some silence my mother replied, in a sort of ‘let you down easy’ way: “It’s really difficult to make a living that way. It’s probably not a very good idea.”
I don’t remember how I responded—I probably slunk away, ashamed. I do remember that shortly thereafter my boyhood friend was over to the house and, as ever, we were working on our sketching—probably from the ‘how to draw like the pros’ books I obsessed over. When we both showed my mother our sketches she looked them over and said, to my friend, “Why Charlie this is amazing. This is a great drawing. You have some talent Charlie. Wow.” She said nothing of mine.
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The summer of my 10th year I moved my mother’s old typewriting to my room and there throughout the days I read and wrote–or tried to write on that typewriter, the keys too stiff to press all the way down. I knew by then if one were to become a successful author that hard work and rigor was mandatory. My parents tried to force me to take up outdoor activities. They signed me up for events with the Parks and Rec. I locked the door. At family get-togethers I snuck away with a novel to read and a notebook to write in. I outlined stories. I worried about my ability. I worried about how I was not working hard enough to become a writer.
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My first brush with a professional writer—a true pro—was during a middle school career day (how remarkable to realize that “creative writing” was actually considered a career!) when a local YA author gave a half-hour long talk on how to best break into the ‘biz.’ It was a harrowing half hour for us young scribes. The message of the lecture? Success is improbable at best, most likely impossible. Most fiction writers and all of the poets generally died penniless, died working as insurance salesman, or died alone. “Beckett died alone,” he said. “Beckett died broke.” We were told that if did want to become writers that we could not be creative writers—text books, we were told, presented a fine concession. “You must let go of your dreams, your romantic ideas.” When questions were later invited from the audience, not one of us dared speak.
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As I entered high school, I wrote with greater intensity—a story a night, generally. And when I didn’t write stories I wrote poems—sometimes four, five a day. I wrote poetry in my study halls (I did no homework). On summer afternoons I curled under a tree with a notebook and worked on my writing—and when I did not I became depressed, guilty. When I did not write I became fearful that I would never succeed. Always, this fear, looming.
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Throughout high school I started projects—novels, mostly—and then stopped because I sensed I lacked talent—I had to get better before I could write a novel. I worked harder—although my methods were untrained, haphazard—My sophomore year creative writing teacher said, “You’re one of the most talented students I’ve ever had. Certainly the most prolific.” I thought of all of the high schools in the country and how all of those high schools no doubt had similar students with similar teachers. I thought about how I was “one” of the most talented but how none of the students from my high school had ever gone on to become a big named writer.
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In college I often wrote through the night. I was obsessed with my creative writing classes. A friend of mine dropped out of our Intro to Creative Writing class. “I can see where I use cliches and where my writing is general. But I like my poems,” she said. “It makes me happy to write a poem–I write for myself.” I thought, ‘How could you not want to get better? What’s wrong with her?’
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I again met that YA writer when I interviewed for a position at his wife’s assisted living home. I told him that I had attended his career day lecture and he laughed, “I always try to weed out the weak ones.” I got the job, maybe because of something I said about Woolf and Faulkner. I lived on the premises and word reached him no doubt that I wrote through the nights and I wrote through the mornings. I was 21 by then and I had set the goal of publishing a novel by 23–same as Fitzgerald. During this time, I showed an older co-worker a new story–a work that I believed represented a major breakthrough for me. A week later she sat me down on the porch swing with my manuscript and a pen. Very gently but firmly she told me that I had no talent—at least, not the sort of talent I needed to be a writer. “If I weren’t your friend, Robert,” she said, “I would not have finished the first page of your story.” The story was 20 pages long. She went on to catalogue the various ways my writing failed to measure up and, in detail, why it would never muster up. “You have a poet’s soul,” she said, “but you don’t have the ability.” My life, she assured me, would be a difficult one.
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A month later I found myself alone with that YA writer. He said, “If you have any questions about writing, feel free to ask them.” I said, “Does the doubt ever go away?” I had been staring at the blank screen lately. I had been dreading. He chuckled and said, “No. It does not.”
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I have still not ‘made it’ as a writer. I have not yet let go of my dreams. My romantic ideas.
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As a creative writing teacher (from time to time) now I do my best to encourage my students. I do my best to say things like, “This story has a lot of potential–let’s take it up a notch!” and “Wow, there’s really so much you can do here–there’s so much room to grow.” I tell them that fear and doubt are natural. That hard work is mandatory. That success comes only through experimentation and drive. I wonder if I should be harder on their work.
They look at me like I’m insane. “I don’t know,” they say. “I think my story’s pretty good like it is.”
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I don’t know. What do you think? Does the doubt go away?
Should it?
How did you become a good writer?
i identified with this article because in high school (in the 1960s), discouraging advice about writing was all i received. i let it detour me from my passion until i was in my late 40s. yes, the writing life is tough; it’s not for sissies — but if you are called to it, honor yourself by answering that call. and beware of the criticism handed out by well-intentioned friends/readers. trust yourself. educate yourself. and write.
I absolutely agree, Vickie. I think the “trust yourself” advice is the best for a young writer to receive … and maybe the hardest for most to take.
I remember my dad telling me something similar when I was in my late teens, sending novel manuscripts to agents and publishers, and especially when my short fiction began to get more “unconventional”. I had to “write for the market”, if I had any realistic chance to being a writer.
I didn’t take that advice.
I don’t think the doubt does go away, and I don’t think it should. Self-criticism seems to be to be fundamental to the creative personality, it’s what keeps us on our toes – re-evaluating, re-assessing. It’s important to keep asking the question “How can I do this better?” or “How can I do this differently?” I’m not entirely sure that being satisfied with your own talent makes for good writing – I’ve read novels by big name authors who are clearly very sure of their own abilities, and the results have been…unimpressive. To me, at least.
I was lucky in that I had a very supportive English teacher in High school, who encouraged me and gave me a degree of self-belief that I actually could write well. I’m not sure what she would make of my stuff now though. Like yourself I appropriated an old typewriter and battered out stories, then wrote novels through my teens on an (even then) ancient PC. I set myself a target of being published by the age of 21. I missed that target by about 12 years.
It’s worth knowing that as we page through poetry anthologies and see those epic names, so familiar and respected, that almost every last one of them had a “day job.” They wrote poetry that outlasted their lives, but they had to do other things to “make it.”
I’m not answering your question (as I am not a writer of the sort you mean, and I know it), but I guess pointing out that “making it” as a writer and being great as a writer are not the same thing, and that the former is not necessary for the latter.
That’s a good point, PV. As young people it’s difficult to understand that idea, I think. Growing up my idea of being a writer was informed by Stephen King and Hemingway stories–and we were told that after all the hardwork and some rejections that eventually a discerning editor notices your work and from then on you’re set. I’ve met a good many successful writers since that first writer in middle school, but he’s still pretty much the only writer I know who considers his profession as a ‘writer.’ I think the concept of ‘making it’ as a writer in 2011 would be an interesting one to define.