How To Write like a Writer Who Writes
Or Create Something of Any Medium. Teaser: Just Pretend You're Good!
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If you’re wondering how to write or create something of any medium, I have found it handy to follow the below steps. For me, writing is self-indulgent, a life force of its own, the only way to make the meaningless have meaning. It’s like a way to pay witness to your own shitty behavior that you do unconsciously and then coming to that a-ha moment. Writing is a way to belong to society that is tolerable, it’s a timeline of growth. But what I especially love about writing is that it’s a way to describe the common experience, in whatever way you choose to describe it.
Find a human who loves you.
For reasons completely unbeknownst to me, the human I married actually loves me. He endures the halitosis that thrives in my breath from wake to sleep. He makes the rounds with me at Zara and actually sits in the dressing room to hear me moan and complain about how nothing fits my body right, or how the fabrics are so itchy and the sizing is never right, and how we’re never coming back here! Yet he follows me back there the following week. In my 25th week of pregnancy, my bladder control is at an all-time low, and to my surprise, this human actually reaches for a fresh pair of undies and helps me change. I have somehow convinced this human to split his life with me, he chose me to be the one to share our wins and losses with each other, to collaborate altruistically in all forms: emotionally, financially, spending time with the other by one’s own admission. When creating art by way of writing (or any other medium), I have found it helpful to have a human that encourages it and enables you to keep going. He supports every word I put to the page and praises me for it. He will wrangle the tyrant of a toddler we are raising so that I can be alone to sit uncomfortably with my thoughts. He will read what I create, he’ll be excited when I send him updated versions, and he’ll say its “beautiful,” “so good,” “it’s so much better than the last draft,” or my favorite, “you really drove it home with this one.” I’m not exactly sure what the last one means but it feels good to receive that as commentary to something I created. I’m sure he thinks I’m a bad feminist, since I will go absolutely nowhere near a leaky pipe in the apartment or that I can rap almost every line from every song out of Rick Ross’s Teflon Don album. Nonetheless, he will encourage the red paint I aim to throw at the patriarchy on a daily basis by my way of words.
Find a routine.
Thanks to aging, coupled with the fact that I no longer drink to the point where I have to nurse a hangover every 2-3 days, my internal clock wakes me up aggressively early. I have come to find that 6 am is a beautiful time to sit down at your desk and handwrite in your spiral-bound Five-Star journal about all the shit you withstand on a daily basis. There is no wrong way to do this, you don’t even have to consider it '“writing.” Just write stuff down. Anything. It’s also the only pocket of peace I will have for the remainder of the day so sometimes I’ll even use said journal to make lists of all the shit I need to buy at the store. I’m surprised at how clear it’s made me.
Sit still (both physically and figuratively).
Well, this one truly sucks. Not only because I’m at the stage of pregnancy where sitting too long means my circulation slows and blood pools in my legs, but sitting to pay mind to something you love (no matter how passionate you are) kinda sucks. It sucks because the voices will start to creep in and aim to convince you that there’s no business between you and this writing thing, that it’s already been said, much more eloquently than you could ever say it. But if you sit long enough to work through imposter syndrome, stare at the page, and wonder what the fuck you even want to say and why you want to say it, sometimes you will enter a stream of consciousness and write whatever comes out. And that alone is the goal, to reveal things you never knew were there, cause all your life you've put in work to subdue it.
Don’t pursue it too far.
Not only do I live and co-parent with a supportive human (see #1) but I also feel lucky to be part of a writer’s community where we lift each other up. We share the darkest shit imaginable (all at once beautiful, raw, poetic, 100% of everything I’ve read deserves to be seen and published and awarded with all of the accolades) with one another. For me, it is comforting to know that I will always be supported by them and be critiqued in a positive way. I couldn’t imagine the masochist one must be to pitch something to an Editor or pursue an MFA, wherein my fantasy feels like a place where people sit around in a circle and talk about how much better they are than you. It’s like entering a room full of arrogant skeptics who refuse to acknowledge your writing is of any worth. Start small, stay safe, protect yourself. My wimpy soul can't handle much. If you think my writing is bad, no you don’t ❤️
Pretend you’re Jack Nicholson.
I saved this one for last because I find this one to be the most important. As I sit down in my chair and pray that I can be still for an extended period of time (see #3), I imagine myself as Jack Nicholson’s character, Melvin, in As Good As It Gets. I have found it to be a good way to fight imposter syndrome, by temporarily channeling yourself to be a completely manic, arrogant, introverted son-of-a-bitch. Every word your jackass fingers form on the keys turns to gold, trying to keep up with all the rhythmic word-gold your high-handed mind streams without breaking a sweat. You surround yourself with all of your best sellers (since you’re a world-renowned novelist), you drown out the noise with Tchaikovsky or Debussy (or Rick Ross), and you have a cute little lap dog who lays on top of all of your esteemed work, a dumb psychotic little creature that actually loves you and reveres you enough to support your contemptuous self.
Melvin thrives off of routine. He is OCD, he won’t step on cracks on the sidewalks and he turns the lights on and off about 5 times when he enters his apartment. He washes his hands with burning hot water with a bar soap that he only uses once to then replace with another. He eats breakfast at the same diner, sits at the same table, and expects the same waitress to serve him every day. If one part of his routine gets thrown off, his entire day is thrown off and he cannot function. He becomes panicked and aggressive, leading to spewing insults. As I see it, all of this is to prepare the groundwork for his writing. Ultimately, he falls in love with Carol (Helen Hunt), his waitress, which motivates him to seek treatment and get better.
It’s important to channel your idols. And as for me, I wonder who I’d be and what I’d produce if I was a misanthropic obsessive-compulsive cretin who just lured in my lair and typed beautiful words into a large outdated Gateway computer. The places I’d go, the work I’d publish. It’s good to channel that in the early morning hours. Just me and my spiral-bound journal, pretending I’m Jack Nicholson. If anyone believes in himself, it’s Jack Nicholson.
Let’s try to put this thought process into motion.
This is me when I tell my husband I am going to take a shower and shave my legs and put on a hair mask but in reality, I’m just taking up space on Rihanna’s internet and creating low-tier memes:
This is me when my son goes to bed and I should be on my Kindle highlighting one-liners from Emily Dickinson but have to know if J*st*n T*mb**l***’s publicist took away his phone yet:
This is me when both my son and I could use a bath but it is more important to write about the time he opened a box of cereal by himself, poured some into his bowl, and used a spoon the way it’s meant to be used and articulate what that did to my emotions:
All of this to say, just believe in yourself. What I produce may not be any good, or there may be better versions of it elsewhere. But if I rewire my brain to enforce these habits, who knows what it could turn into and where it could lead. If there’s enough word count in my daily routine, maybe this jargon can lead to some kind of a breakthrough. Or worst-case scenario, I’ll be simply living doing what I love.
Sometimes I’ll flash forward to my seventies and imagine what I want to say from now til then, assuming this word jargon actually took my life down a successful path. What does it look like? Well, I’d have an Olympic-sized infinity swimming pool where I’d produce all of my work; sitting on a plush chaise, on my laptop poolside. I’d be known for all my literary masterpieces as well as my sun damage. My backyard will be landscaped with wild, lush exotic plants, which would require me to hire an assistant equally savvy in admin work, having my cosmetic surgeon on speed dial, and a bachelor’s degree in Botany so that they can cater to the special needs each exotic plant would require. At noon my staff would prepare me my daily Tomate Fresca, which is basically a richer version of a Bloody Mary except it involves a thousand more unnecessary steps like filtering the tomato juice and peeling each individual caper to muddle in a mortar and pestle until it forms a paste. The human I married would be off to a golf course wearing a polo too tight for him and talking aggressively loudly into his Apple Watch while his surrounding lame friends all side-eye each other. My kids would probably have written me off at that point, crazed by life, living their independent lives with another person they have chosen to do it with. I’d call them and they’d roll their eyes to the aforementioned significant other - It’s her, she’s probably drunk by the pool again.
Yes, dreaming is good.
Okay, hope you’re somewhere dusting off that old journal. Signing off now with your daily reminder that misogyny never sleeps:
Yours always,
“And that alone is the goal, to reveal things you never knew were there, cause all your life you've put in work to subdue it.” WHEW.
This post has been bookmarked for the days my alarm goes off and I roll around in bed debating what’s more important to my life, another hour in bed or writing. Thank you for reminding me it is always the latter (even when my tired brain wants the former).
Amazing Article.. you're writing is just incredible! I can see you doing the same to me when I call (last paragraph).. love you!