The Writing Life: When Does it Begin?

We asked of the small group of self-selected “magazine project” students how many thought of themselves as a writer.

Most denied the claim outright. One said that she used to love writing, but had come across something she had written “long ago” and “it was awful.” She had been very proud of it at the time it was written, but she was embarrassed by it today. So she had “given up” the notion of writing. How do we bring such writing agonies into perspective?

I am not equipped to talk about the broad topic of writing with any group–much less a mixed group of 8th to 11th graders. I can only tell my story. Tomorrow, another local writer, blogger and poet will speak to the magazine group.

So without teaching writing, the two of us will be showing them the writing life–as it has found its way unexpected into the lives of two adults who “became writers” much later than the ages of these students, and from very different urgencies and needs and hopes.

Both of their teachers will emphasis a special attention to the shape, feel and power of language. They can learn best to write by reading; by paying a little extra attention to the way authors craft character, place and narrative form. Even non-fiction is about story.

At the end of the day and of the few days I’ll have an hour with these students, it is their own story I want to them to feel growing every day, even now. I would hope that a few of them might go on to learn the power of words, the joy of the senses and of intentional memory, and the special way the notion of writing will make them attend to and “frame” the details–not unlike the eye of the photographer for composing in light.

At their age, I wrote when my teachers told me I had to. It was an assignment–never an outlet, never a megaphone for a passion. But then, nobody–even my teachers–ever mentioned creative writing. I no idea that skill set was even on the menu.

I pulled some writing quotes from the first few of many pages at goodreads.com. If we should run out of things to say about writing, I’ll recruit ideas from those who have known the joys and terrors of the craft.

“A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips; – not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself.” — H D Thoreau

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”
― Robert Frost

“If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write, because our culture has no use for it.”
― Anaïs Nin

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”
― Anton Chekhov

Show don’t tell.

“Write the kind of story you would like to read. People will give you all sorts of advice about writing, but if you are not writing something you like, no one else will like it either.”
― Meg Cabot

“Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.”
― John Steinbeck

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”
― Jack London

“Write what should not be forgotten.”
― Isabel Allende

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