How to Make Writing Fun Again. – WN 016

This is The Write Now Podcast with Sarah Werner, Episode 16: How To Make Writing Fun Again.

Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps aspiring writers to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and to write every day. I’m your host, Sarah Werner, and today, we’re going to time travel back to the good old days. I’m not talking about the Leave It to Beaver 1950s or Victorian era Britain or William of Orange’s Bloodless Revolution, or whatever else you might consider the good old days. The good old days I’m talking about are, as befits this podcast, writing specific.

I’m talking about those days where you used to wake up before your alarm went off because you were so excited to sit down at your desk and start writing. I’m talking about those days when you would begin to write and you would write and write and continue writing. And the words that would come out would be full of purpose and they would fit together so nicely and they would sound so great. When you felt that outpouring of joy and that sweet, silent affirmation that, yes, this is what you were meant to be doing. Now, I speak about these good old days as though you’ve experienced them. And I am really hoping that you have. However, if you tenaciously try every day to write and you struggle and strive to find that place of joy every day, but you’re just not feeling it, that’s okay. You’ll get there. If you have enough drive in your soul to do this every day in search of that joy, you will find it.

Small side note. It is currently 91 degrees Fahrenheit outside. It is humid and the sun is beating down relentlessly, and yet my next door neighbor feels compelled to mow his lawn very loudly right next to my office. You may also hear a chainsaw in the background. I live on the border of a graveyard, which most of the time is very peaceful, but sometimes after a big storm and a lot of trees come down, the owners get out there with their chainsaws and start cleaning up the place, which I can’t blame them for. But if you hear a chainsaw in the back of this recording, don’t be freaked out. It’s just the very nice gentlemen who run the graveyard that I live behind.

So we’re talking about essentially finding joy in writing or being in love with writing. And it’s not something that we feel all the time. In fact, I have good news for you and I have bad news for you. And I’m the type of person who likes the bad news first so then at least I have the good news to look forward to. So the bad news is writing is hard. You might know this already, but I don’t think there’s anybody, even the most prolific writer who is in love with writing 100% of the time, 24 hours a day.

No matter how much you love to do it, no matter how much you are driven or compelled to do it, a lot of the times writing is simply hard work, whether you’ve finished that first draft of your novel and you’re about to go through the editing slog, whether you’re several hundred pages into your novel and you feel like you’re swirling down a, we’ll call it a metaphorical toilet of despair. Every writer goes through a funk. And whether it’s simply a loss of joy or a furious wrestling or a deep down despair, there will probably come a time in your writing life when you dread writing just a little bit. When you stare at the screen and all you feel inside you is loss into emptiness. I know. I’ve been there. So that’s the bad news.

The good news is that I believe that it’s possible to fall in love with writing again. To make writing fun again. To reignite that spark that you first felt back in the good old days. In a way, I feel a little bit like this is marriage counseling because the very first question I’m going to ask you is what is it that made you fall in love with writing in the first place? I know for me, it was several things all mushed together. First and foremost, I was a huge reader, but it was such a struggle to find the perfect book, the perfect adventure, the perfect story that hit all of the right notes. And that was really what compelled me to create my first stories.

I was a weird little kid as I think that many of us who end up being writers were weird little kids, and I had this obsession with the visceral nature of things. And the stories that I’ve read when I was little were just so sickeningly clean and sterile and proper and appropriate. And so my very first stories that I wrote were about a giant crocodile and a princess/mad scientist who fought. And there was lots and lots of blood and test tubes and plants and weird things happening, but for me, no matter how weird it seemed to anybody else and no matter how much it freaked out my teachers, I was finally writing what I wanted to read.

And I’m going to pick that apart for a couple of seconds, because I think there’s some very interesting and pertinent points within that. First of all, I loved the sense of being able to get lost in a story. And I mean literally lost. Every story I had read up until then had a certain ending, and if I wanted to see it, I could flip through the back and read the ending. But when you’re writing your own story, you can’t just flip to the back and look at the ending. It literally does not exist. And there is just this amazing sense that as you are in the midst of writing, there are infinite paths you can take to the ending. Those possibilities. And the sense of those possibilities, all arrayed in front of you, is heady and intoxicating.

As you’re exploring that story and what those possibilities might lead to, you’re also exploring yourself. I’ve talked before about the healing that can come out of writing or the catharsis that can come from journaling, from processing whatever is going on in your mind onto paper and seeing it clearly laid out there in a physical form. Two more things. For me as a child and now as an adult, I was and always have been an introvert. An introvert is someone who draws energy from being alone, from having lots of me time essentially, whereas an extrovert is someone who takes energy or draws energy from being around other people. Both introverts and extroverts can be excellent writers. But for me as an introvert, writing gave me permission to be alone and to enjoy being alone and to not feel like some sort of a social weirdo finally.

And I’m not saying that I’m an amazing writer to any extent, but I think that any of us who are drawn or compelled to write do have an innate talent for it. We have a gift. And when we are using our gifts and our talents, I think there’s just a natural joy that comes from living out your purpose. And so, engaging with an infinite number of possibilities, processing my emotions, getting lost in a story that I’d never read before, being alone, and using an innate talent, I think those are probably the five things that I loved most about writing. These might not be the same things that you love about writing. For example, I know there are some people who just take great joy in crafting a well told story. There are people who look at writing as a challenge, as a puzzle to be solved and take great joy in fitting together words like puzzle pieces and see plot holes as riddles or puzzles to solve. Other people love to write because it allows them to play out a fantasy or an imaginary scenario.

Other people simply love the creative expression. They see writing as an art and a way to truly express themselves. Other people love to write because it helps them to relax. It’s fun. It’s a hobby. It’s something they sit down to do to pleasantly pass the time. Still, others write because they have a message to share. There are so many books that have changed the world because of their ideology, because of the powerful social message conveyed by the story. There are some very passionate people with very passionate ideas and sharing those ideas are the most wonderful thing to them about writing.

I could probably go on for quite a while about why people love to write. And if I missed the reason that you love to write, let me know. You can add a comment beneath the show notes for this episode, episode 16 on my website, sarahwerner.com, S-A-R-A-H-W-E-R-N-E-R.com, or simply shoot me an email at hello@sarahwerner.com. I would really love to hear what you love most about writing.

Okay, so it’s pretty clear, right? We love to write and that’s all there is to it. Writing is fun and wonderful and lets us do everything we’ve ever wanted to do. But then why is it so hard sometimes? Why do we struggle? Why are there days where we sit here staring at a blank page or a blank screen racked with anguish not to overdramatize it? But, yeah, what changes? What changed for you? Did someone, perhaps a teacher, a parent, a friend, a colleague tell you that your writing wasn’t good enough? Or to even more subtly twist that knife, that your writing was okay, but not as good as this person’s or that person’s? Did someone make you ashamed of what you had written, someone you respected or loved or valued or admired?

This has certainly happened to me. When I was in high school and decided that going to college would be probably a good decision for me with the careers that I wanted to pursue, I went on a bunch of college visits. And so what that consists of is your parents drive you to a college and sometimes they stay with you and sometimes they drop you off, or maybe you drive up with a friend, but you essentially, it’s like trial by sleepover. And you stay in a dorm room and you spend the night there and see what dorm life is like and go on a tour of the campus and eat the food and attend a class or two. For me, I always needed to tour the library as well. And then finally you do a sort of one-on-one interview with an admissions counselor or a professor or however the school has it set up.

So I went on one of these college visits to Hiram College in Ohio, and the campus was really lovely and small, and they offered all of the history classes because, of course, I was going to be a history major back then. They offered everything I wanted. And when it came time for my interview with, I believe one of the deans of the Honors College there, somebody very important, I made a mistake. And I think that a lot of us feel like we have made this same mistake before. But the mistake I made was the mistake of being honest.

This gentlemen said, “So, you like to read.” And wow, if you ever want to get me talking about something, let’s talk about books and reading. And I said, “Oh, I love to read.” And he looked very pleased. And he said, “Tell me about what you like to read.” “Well,” I gushed, “I love science fiction. I own every single one of the Star Wars novels, every single one. I love mysteries. I grew up reading Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie and right now I’m in the middle of this, oh, I think it was James Patterson thriller that I couldn’t stop reading.”

And so I talked for a while about all these books that I loved. And when I was done, I still remember this so vividly, he said, “Now, Sarah, I think one thing you’ll really like about this college is how your tastes will grow and mature. You’ll stop reading things like James Patterson and those Star Wars books and you’ll begin reading Faulkner and Shakespeare and Jane Austin.” And I remember I looked at him and I said, “I’ve read Jane Austin and Shakespeare.” And he said, “Good. Then you’re on the right path. When you come here, Sarah, I think you’ll finally see what reading can be.” Now, on the surface, his response sounds pleasant and encouraging, but I was a 16 year old girl who had just gushed about something that she passionately loved and then had insinuated back to her that it was immature and silly. And that when she bettered herself with a higher education, she would realize what a fool she had been to love these things.

For the first time, I felt ashamed of what I had been reading. I didn’t go to the greatest public schools growing up, and so the fact that I read it all was usually praised like, “Oh, you’re reading? Awesome. Keep reading.” I’d never been told that what I was reading wasn’t good enough. And I felt even worse because I truly enjoyed these books. I had read Jane Austin and I had read Shakespeare in school, and I had nothing against Jane Austin or Shakespeare. In fact, I got really into Jane Austin when I went to college, not that college, but a different one. And I do realize the literary merit. And I would never look down on somebody who loved reading Jane Austin more than anything else.

But I was a 16 year old girl who liked spaceships. And when I got home from school from laboriously reading through Canterbury Tales or The Rime of the Ancient Mariner or Tess of the d’Urbervilles, when I got home, I wanted spaceships. I wanted gory murder mysteries, and that should have been okay. Now, I tell you that story because I think that a lot of us, when we go to college or expand our reading horizons or take a class or go to a seminar or anything like that, we’re told that we’re learning better. That we’ve read or written things that we should be ashamed of. That with the help of this class or this seminar or this conference, we will soon learn what great fools we used to be and how ashamed we should feel of what before had brought us such great joy.

This is not a rant against higher education. I went to college and I read a lot and I learned a lot and I loved it. But while I was there, I was perhaps gently coached toward writing more in the style of John Cheever or T. C. Boyle or Flannery O’Connor, the greats. And I’m not disputing their greatness. Their writing was pure genius. But what I picked up from that for my own writing did not align with those things that I had first loved so much about writing. Reading Faulkner and O’Connor and Willa Cather, et cetera, sure, it gave me a great taste for what was considered good literature, but it also gave me this list of rules, new rules that I had to follow. Rules such as no spaceships, rules such as suburbia is corrupt, rules such as magical powers are for little kids books.

So I want you to ask yourself what has changed for you? For me, the change or the falling out of love with writing came when I started to incorporate those rules in my own writing. I was confused about what would work and what wouldn’t work. And I used my classes as a testing ground. I was told that in order to be a successful writer, I would have to submit pieces to journals like the Mid-American Review, which didn’t care so much for the kind of stories that I used to love to read and write. And so I stopped writing what I loved and I started writing things that I thought would impress other people. In essence, what changed was that I stopped writing for myself and started writing for other people. And so I want to ask you, whom are you writing for? Are you writing for yourself? Are you writing for others? Or to pose that question in a different way, what is your goal when you’re writing? Is your goal to impress others or is your goal to satisfy yourself?

I don’t do this a whole lot, but this is one of those cases where I’m a very strong advocate for selfishness. I truly believe that the best stories and the most impassioned writing and the most genius writing comes from within yourself. And if there is something that you love that you are writing about, or a reason that you’re writing that makes you love writing, then putting a damper on that isn’t going to help anyone. Taking away the thing or things that you love about writing and that make writing fun for you, taking those away is not worth it.

So here’s the ultimate question that I’d like you to really take some time to think about or maybe journal about. And that is, what would it take for you to feel real joy and satisfaction in your writing again? For me, the answer is very simple and yet very difficult to do. And that is, to write precisely what I want to write. To still gently use those techniques and insights that I learned in classes and et cetera, but to still make sure that what I love comes through. So let me know your thoughts. Let me know. Write down what it would take for you to feel joy and satisfaction from writing again. And you can share that with me or you can just keep it to yourself, but think hard about that because I think deep down, you know what it would take to make writing fun again.

This week’s book of the week is Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. This book is often categorized as the New Weird. It’s this movement of really outside the box thinking and non-traditional takes on traditional storylines. And it’s weird, so I love it. This book had been recommended to me by several people, all of whom I trusted and respected and had recommended good books to me before. And so I said, “All right.” And I said, “Wow, that’s a pretty cover.” So it’s got that going for it. It’s actually my church pastor who was one of the first people who recommended it to me. And he’s a big Lost fan, back in the good old days when Lost was on TV, and none of us could get enough of that mystery that was so unsatisfyingly resolved in the end. But this is not about Lost and I will not go into my disappointments at this time. But he said, “Oh, it’s like Lost. There’s secrets in the jungle and you would just love it.” And I was like, “Oh my gosh, yes.”

In addition to being a member of the New Weird, Annihilation is also a horror story. And it’s not like the Saw movies where it’s like, I’m going to cut people up and it’s super gross. Rather, it’s a psychological horror and it’s getting Lost horror. And it’s a really lovely and well thought out and well-planned horror that is both truly awful, but also truly beautiful. It’s so hard to do that well to balance that correctly, but Jeff VanderMeer does a wonderful job. So essentially, the premise of the book is that there’s four female scientists, a biologist, an anthropologist, a psychologist, and I think a surveyor. These scientists are sent to survey this mysterious area X in the Southern United States. They are told simply that they are the 12th expedition and that the previous 11 expeditions either never came back or came back changed. That’s all I’m going to tell you because I don’t want to spoil the lovely twists and turns that this book takes because it truly is an experience to read.

I was looking through different reviews on Goodreads, and it seemed to me that people either loved this book or deeply hated it. And no matter which camp you would fall into, I really would suggest that everyone read this book. It’s technically beautiful. The writing is excellent, the insights are wonderful. It’s a very good, without spoiling too much, a very good example of a naive narrator. So if you read it, let me know your thoughts, your contentions, your dissatisfactions, or your joys in Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation.

So the Write Now Podcast is now available to subscribe on. That’s a weird sentence structure, but hey, you can subscribe to the Write Now Podcast in a variety of ways. You can come to my website and listen to it. You can stream it from there. You can subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, Overcast. Whatever it is you like to use to consume podcasts, please consume mine in that way. If you do subscribe or listen via iTunes, or if you have an iTunes account at all, I would be deeply honored and grateful if you were to leave a review for the Write Now Podcast on iTunes. That really helps my podcast to gain visibility and it really just helps spread the word and build a larger audience. And, oh my gosh, I would absolutely appreciate that so much.

iTunes listener, Kate Brennan said, “Five stars. Practical and encouraging thoughts on writing. I recommend particularly to those who want to be writing, but find themselves short on time.” Thank you, Kate Brennan, for your kind words. iTunes listener, Violets and Wolves said, “One of my favorite podcasts. Five stars. Very inspiring and helpful, especially when I’m procrastinating and needs some motivation to get started or work through a difficult piece. Definitely check this one out. It’s a great podcast.” Violets and Wolves, thank you so much for your kind words.

I want to leave you today with a quote from Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club, The Bonesetter’s Daughter and other lovely works. She says, “Writing what you wished was the most dangerous form of wishful thinking.” So I want to encourage you to be a wishful thinker. Remember what you love about writing, take the challenge, live dangerously and write what you wish because you are a writer. Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. Special things, go out to all of my Patreon supporters, including Sean Locke and Rebecca Werner. By helping to financially support the Write Now Podcast, you help me to cover hosting fees and other expenses. And in doing so, you help enable me to produce this podcast and to share my message that everyone can write.

Thank you also to my husband, Tim, for his ongoing support, by which I mean thank you for vacating the house so I could record. And finally, thank you once again for listening.

This has been episode 16 of the Write Now podcast, the podcast that helps aspiring writers to find the time, energy and courage you need to pursue your passion and to write every day. I am your host, Sarah Werner, and this week, it is my wish for you that you find satisfaction once again in your writing.