Bad Writing Advice #3 About what?
I look at sunsets and worry that I don’t find them beautiful enough. I might say “It’s so beautiful” but my emotions don’t react like I think they should.
Yeah, they’re pretty. But I’m not floored. I’m not begging for a pencil and paper to begin writing a Wordsworthian poem. It’s just kinda nice.
I wonder if my beauty senses are busted, or maybe my heart is just hard.
In On Writing, Stephen King tells a story about buying a desk.
He had always wanted a huge desk, and after he published a few books and made a fortune, he bought one and put it in the center of the room. And he hated it.
His kids would come up while he was writing and watch TV, baseball games, eat pizza. His kids liked being with him, and he liked them there.
So he moved his desk to the corner of the room and wrote:
“Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.”
The first time I read it, I closed the book and cried.
Sometimes writing becomes too much for me. And I need reminding why I write in the first place. Reminders, little reminders of what is really going on here … maybe that’s what writing really is.
It doesn’t happen for me at sunsets, but it does when words come together to say something that bypasses my overthinking mind and speaks down my pulmonary valve into my heart.
We think writing is locking ourselves in a room, forcing ourselves to meet a word count and eventually something beautiful will pop out (and we’ll be paid millions). But that actually cuts off the source of good writing: all the beautiful moments happening outside our door.
I’m a Christian, and in my tradition, the book of James tells us “Faith without works is dead.”
I think I understand this now.
Faith, intimacy with the creator of the universe who’s best way of describing himself to us is “Father,” will inevitably lead to works, to doing what his heart desires: serving the poor, preaching to the lost, mending the brokenhearted: loving people.
Writing and life have an overlap here: writing without a good life is dead.
My family, my friends, my life, they don’t exist to support my writing. “It’s the other way around.”
That’s what we write about.
It’s so beautiful.
Today’s painting from Hendrik Willem Mesdag was painted at his favorite place to work: Scheveningen, a beach in the Hague
Wow powerful! I definitely needed this encouragement.
Love this, Sam!