I've been going about it all wrong, for nearly all of my life, really. I always thought I had to be a perfect writer, a prodigy, a genius at the age of twenty-seven. One who never makes a mistake or inserts a comma in the wrong place. Oh, how that perfectionist and proud fool in me has hindered my work.
I was reading this evening in my latest acquisition, a book on writing called
The Writing Life. Really, a collection of essays written by some of the greatest writers and minds of our time. I've been struck by their language, their seemingly effortless way of crafting words into thoughts of incomparable beauty. How I long to write like that!
Then I realized, after reading the words of Joanna Trollope, that I'm going at it backward: I can't expect myself to be perfect in writing because my pride is causing me to stumble. "But what [writers] forget," she says " . . . is that the writers who last, the writers whose writing is indeed their monument, not only have an essential benevolence, a fundamental affection for the human race, but also, more uncomfortably, possess a hefty dose of humility. Most writers—all but a very few in fact—are translators, not inventors, of language, and of life."
Even while writing this post, I mentally stumble over how I can place the words that would make it perfect, that would let people see how, in my humility, I possess the talent necessary to be a literary genius. But it is not so. I am no genius. I'm human, imperfect, and as flawed as anyone else. The only difference is I have a knack for writing, which doesn't even come from myself.
If I expect perfection in my writing I'll never attain it. It's a conundrum I'm finally seeing. I have to accept that my writing will have major flaws. That's okay. I won't say it perfectly every time. But if I keep at it, keep working without the expectation of mastering the art of the English language before I even reach my thirtieth birthday, then maybe—maybe—I might get somewhere, maybe even somewhere important.
But I have to stop trying to write the Great American Novel. I have to
quelch those daydreams of winning the Pulitzer or, goodness knows, being the youngest writer to capture the Nobel Prize. It's not going to happen, folks, so deluding myself—even only in my dreams—is hurting me with false pretenses of grandeur.
Humility. I really need to work on that. I also need to work on not knowing everything, or even pretending I do. I've noticed some of my characters speak as if they have the wisdom of the ancients, but they don't, not really. All they have is the collected experiences of my still young life. Honestly, it's good to share with others the things I've learned, but I can't pretend anymore that I can solve the world's problems with a few well-placed words.
What I can do is tell a story. I can share what's in my heart. I can pour my passions and hungers, my pains and hopes out onto the page, and if someday someone decides that what I have to say matters to them, I've done more than I could ever hope to accomplish.
This can't be about me or my ego anymore. It has to be about the words and the sounds they make as I write them out on the page. And about the need to write, to get these thoughts and feelings down on the page so they finally make sense to me.
No more pride, only acceptance that I can only do so much. And that much, for me, is writing.
