Letter to a young writer

Dear young writer,

First, I should say I’m not an old writer, I’m a journeyman with much to learn. There are more capable writers out there with something bettur to say and les typos.

But here’s what I can give you: I’m 33 and still doing it. I survived being in my 20s and thinking I had something important to say without any of the chips in the paint from craft and life that give a writer what he needs.

I’m mixing metaphors here (like I said, I’m still learning) but a writer is like a book: not useful if it isn’t beaten up a little, worn around the edges, full of markings, spills, and looking like it has traveled many miles in a backpack or even a pocket.

I didn’t start writing consistently until I was 30. I had a Xanga (it was Substack 20 years before Substack), I had a Blogger (Substack 10 years before Substack, and I wrote notes on Facebook that I hoped my crush would like (she didn’t, it turns out high school girls still like baseball players in pinstripes, not chubby fellows writing about Lord of the Rings).

I’d read about writers who were cranking out stories when they were 6, published at 15, getting interviewed on the Today Show at 18 and I thought “I’m so behind.” Which was true. I was behind. But I’d also add that I was only behind in a little craft and a lot of success (both great things). I wasn’t behind on voice.

In your 20s, you don’t know who you are, let alone what your voice is: you haven’t yet learned about the dishes.

When I was 25, I moved in with a family from my church. The dad, Jeff, felt sorry for a single chubby guy who talked about Lord of the Rings, so they offered me a room in their house. For the first 3 months there, I was a ghost — I came home from work, dropped my bag in the foyer and went up to my room to play video games or stream a show I’d already seen a couple of times for comfort. And I needed comfort because I was pretty miserable. Life wasn’t going where I wanted it to. I was lonely and no pretty girls were reading my WordPress (Substack 5 years before Substack).

One night, Jeff just said it “You could help out some, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know … mow the lawn? Help with the dishes?”

He was critical, but he wasn’t, if that makes sense.

“I mean, I will … I don’t know how to use a zero-turn mower though.”

“It’s not hard,” he said. It was, but he was nice about the missing grass from where I spun the wheels.

“I also don’t know how to wash a cast-iron,” I said.

“It’s not hard.”

The next night, I did the dishes. Their middle-school aged daughter helped and Jeff’s wife, Michelle, told me how to take care of the cast-iron. They asked me questions about me; I asked them questions about them. And then we all watched America’s Got Talent.

The next night, we all ate dinner together. Another night we watched The Three Amigos. I mowed the yard (tore up more grass). I learned how to use Crisco. We went to get ice cream with their friends from Poland who came to visit.

Who knew: the dishes.

I don’t know what the dishes are for you, but they’re whatever “meaningless” thing that becomes a doorway to life, to friends, to joy. It’s doing the little things like going to Buffalo Wild Wings with your parents (Dad chose it because they have TVs and the ball game is on), learning to carve a turkey from Dee Daw on Thanksgiving, and mowing the yard.

Before you protest, this has everything to do with writing. Because what is craft but the summation of learning to do little things well — like use an m-dash for effect. What is voice but the little nuances of language that are built from your hometown, your mom and dad, and your life shaping into the way you talk? What is writing but learning to sit every day, to see those little places, people, and crevices of life that open up the whole thing to you?

I’m not saying you’re a writer when that happens, but I am saying you’ll have something to write about.

Do that and you’ll be on your way to be being a gud writer like mee.