On Writing (1999)

I hear from many people who are just starting to write, and many of them ask my advice. Of course, I have no great advice, because there is no great advice to be had. Writing is not a hard science. It is like art and romance and sports. If there was one secret formula, then someone would have figured it out, and we would all be great artists, lovers, and athletes. Some people do claim a formula, and it works for some people, but it is just another postcard from the Grand Canyon--inspiring, but not complete. So, I don't mind throwing in my two little cents about how to write and become a writer. Of course, my ideas are just ideals to shoot for. Again, like Christianity, just because you can talk about something intelligently doesn&#x2019t mean you&#x2019re good at it. That&#x2019s me, an average writer and average Christian who is not afraid to share his thoughts on either topic, especially if it may help someone be better than me at writing or at Christianity. Or both.

A writer is, quite simply, someone who writes. It is not someone who wants to write, or someone who has good ideas floating in his or her head. A writer writes. It's that simple. It's that complex. First, you must write. Then, you must write some more. Don't wait to write something good, just write something. Slowly, you will gain a feel for how words can be used to communicate in songs or novels or non-fiction. This is the hard part. Many people think getting the idea is the hard part. It's not. Everyone has opinions and thoughts and ideas (even if they're not original). The hard part is actually piecing the words together and expressing it.

It's like that experience we all have when listening to a great song or reading something good. "It totally described where I was," we say. Or, "That's exactly how I was feeling," which is often followed by, "But I didn't know how to say it." This is a sign that you yourself have the ideas and the experiences that the writer is describing. The only difference between you and the writer is not who has the good idea, but who did the work of writing it down. It's like my one-liner about modern art; people always look at the simplistic pieces and say sarcastically, "I could have done that." To this I say simply, "But you didn't."

And don't be misled; writing is indeed work. I'm always suspicious of people who talk about how easy writing is or how they've written ten songs in a week. Most great writers have a love/hate relationship with writing. They got involved with writing for the beauty of it. Like all of us, they imagined that the writing life was all about sitting in coffeehouses writing down instant brilliance. However, those who remain writers soon learn that writing is like building a house. It takes creativity, but just thinking about a house won't get it built. You have to build it board by board and nail by nail.

On the surface, it doesn't make sense that a piece of art that conveys beauty and portrays a pure idea should take so much work to produce. But it does take work, and that's why writers hate writing. At the same tiem, once the work is done, there is something so transcendent about a thing well written. That's why writers love writing.

Often people don't start writing, or they give up quickly, because they don't think they're "gifted" enough. This is based on our false perception that artists produce work just based on their inspiration and their artistic gifts. This is completely false. All great artistic works are, as the saying goes, as much perspiration as inspiration.

Let us say that I was interested in playing golf. I've been bored enough on weekends to watch a bit of pro golf on TV, and so I assume that you can sink your ball with an average of three or four hits. I go out to the course with a bag full of clubs, I pick up a five iron (whatever that is) and swing at the ball set up on the tee. After swinging the club seventeen times, loosing nine balls, and not even nearing the hole, I give up. I declare that I'm just not "gifted" at golf, and there's no use in trying.

This is a ludicrous scenario. We all know better than to think that we can learn to play a sport instantly. We know it takes years of practice, learning the techniques, watching others, and trying. And we know that we won't be as good as the pros for a long time. But, and this is key, we don't let the skill of the experts intimidate us--we know that we can learn to play, and we can get good enough to enjoy it.

So it is with writing. As Rich Mullins once said, when you hear his album, it's the only profound sixty minutes he had in two whole years. I&#x2019d bet that for every famous Van Gogh there are three not-so-famous ones. And for every not-so-famous one, there are ten that never made it out of his studio. So, don't be intimidated by the good artists, and don't expect to write like Dostevesky, or even Grisham, the first time around.

Take the time to learn the techniques. Although modern artists are known for making odd looking images, all the masters also know how to do the basics. They once took the time to learn to draw. Picasso, famous for his off-kilter paintings, could do incredibly realistic drawings. An artistic friend assures me that Jackson Pollock, known for huge splatter-painted murals, was a great traditional artist as well.

The hard part is that learning means admitting our ignorance, and trying means failing. Don't be afraid of that. Perhaps that's why many successful artists were miserable failures at everything else in life--they learned to live with failure, and they didn't let it shut them down. Maybe it helped me that I was the worst little leaguer you ever saw. I just loved going to bat, swinging three times, and walking back to the bench.

So, if you want to write, then do it. Be fearless. Write a lot, and don't be afraid of even the dumbest ideas. Put them on paper and see how they look.

Read whatever you want to write. If you want to write melodramatic descriptions of biblical scenes, read Max Lucado; figure out how he does it. If you want to write poetry, read all that you can; figure out what the rules are. If you want to write songs, read songs; what works, what doesn't? Why does this thing touch you?

Write for yourself--that will free you to be honest. Whenever you do share something with a person, do so carefully and reverently. You are sharing yourself, which is intimate, and you are also inviting your listener into intimacy.

Finally, and most importantly, learn to be self-critical. All the great artists I know of are very self-critical, which may explain why artists are disproportionately depressive people. Being self-critical means being able to look at yourself and your work, and judge it well. I always say about songwriting that you should write ten songs before you dare think one is great. Songs, and other writings, are like children--if they are yours, then you are convinced that they are perfectly beautiful. The difference is that all children really are beautiful. But all writing is not.

If you want to be a great writer, you can't let yourself be blinded by sentimental love for your work. The fact is you will write some bad stuff. For every song of mine that you've heard, I have a dozen hiding in a notebook that I've asked to be destroyed upon my death. If you can recognize the bad things, then you are in good shape. It means you are objective enough to recognize the good ones too. So write and rewrite. Edit. Learn and re-learn. Press on.

If you do this, and you write, you will be glad that you did. All the passion of art is centered on this feeling--the joy of creating something, especially something intangible and beautiful. Artist of all religions recognize this. I personally think the joy is so intense because in creating, we share in the One whose image we are made in. God's first recorded act was creating. And, let's not forget, even the perfect one, with the flood, edited his creation. When we create, we are following the divine example, and somehow participating in Him.

--This essay originally appeared in Thirsty Plants, a webzine for the Caedmon's Call Guild