We Write Who We Are
And if we don't, the world will know it.
I came down with some sort of respiratory thing almost a week ago. I’ve had pneumonia twice and I’m in that age bracket where doctors get nervous if we even sneeze wrong, so I was a bit nervous at first, too, thinking those thoughts while living alone. No COVID—that was good—but I hacked and coughed and blew through two square boxes of tissues.
But no pneumonia signs and no wrong sneezes, so then I played the waiting game and here I am, still a little weak but telling you about it in past tense, which is as it should be.
I quarantined, I stayed indoors out of the snow (melting now), I ate mandarin oranges and avocados and slurped chicken soup, and, it goes without saying, I drank plenty of fluids. I binge-watched many, many, many episodes of Northern Exposure. (Ed Chigliak, played by Darren E. Burrows, is my favorite character, by far), and of course, I read.
I sneezed a lot and my eyes watered so I kept to short essay pieces, mainly from my Substack stash, and as I read, I came to realize something I might have known in the long, long ago but had forgotten:
I’m most comfortable reading those writers who are most comfortable in their own skin.
It’s not hard to detect ‘comfortable’ writing. It glides along from one sentence to another on a path that’s easy to follow. It skips from one paragraph to the next, enticing me to come along—to relax, to laugh, to cry, to think, not just as an observer but as a participant.
There are two of us on this journey and I’m along for the ride because, right from the start, I feel as if I’ve been invited by someone who has somewhere to go and thinks I’m just the person to have along. They’ve written something they hope will speak to me, but, more important, they’ve written it in a way that speaks to them.
I’m not the sole reason for their effort. They’re not trying to sell me anything. They’ve given me a gift. Without strings. And it feels right.
Now here I should be giving you examples of what I mean from the stories I’ve read this week. I’m not going to do that. I’d have to leave too many out. Instead, I’ll give you this example:
Go back to the top and read this again. Were you okay with where I took you? Are you hanging around to see where I’m going with this?
Oh, man, I hope so.
It turns out I’ve finally become one of those writers. I won’t say I’m the best (I’ve read some of the best and I’m not them), but I’m good enough to use as an example here. It took me long enough to get here, but I’m finally comfortable with writing what I write in the way I want to write it.
And this is how I want it.
I could never give lessons on how to do it. I wouldn’t know the steps, even if there were any. I only know getting comfortable has to happen at some point or neither of us—reader or writer—is going to be happy.
Getting comfortable with our own writing, no matter where it takes us, may well be the secret weapon we’ve been looking for. I don’t mean just personal writing, I mean writing in any form. It’s writing that’s uniquely ours. Nobody else could write what we write. It sings our songs.
That kind of writing comes from deep inside and it can take a while to dig far enough down to find it. Most of us, let’s face it, look for it from the vantage point of disinterested writers trained over a lifetime of reading to observe and cull out, on a quest for those absolute gems, those once-in-a-lifetime gems…
We’re not looking for it as us.
As writers we set ourselves up for ridiculous expectations, based on what we’ve come to believe the really good writers have mastered. We write a couple of lines and they look pretty good. For a while. Until we compare them to something a really exceptional writer has written. (Meaning any writer who writes better than we do.)
Then we hate what we’ve written.
That kind of makes us idjits. Don’t you think?
But we don’t have to be. We could just be us.
You and me. Just us.
So what do you think? I’m kind of tired and couldn’t come up with a zinger of a last paragraph, so this is it. Comments are open as always. If you’re still with me…
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Singing along with you, Ramona. You've identified the irresistible-ness of the best writing. It's not about the chops (necessary but in no way sufficient), not even about the voice. It's about knowing what you know and sharing the gift with authority, aka comfort. A multitude of writers, well published and not, are doing this every day on Substack, proving how many ways there are to tell a story as yourself. When I'm jealous of someone else's writing, I try to see this writer's work as a flag raised high for others--the you-ness of you, the me-ness of me and so on. I tend to find older writers more interesting, perhaps because I'm over 70 myself but also because they have a deeper site to excavate. Of course there are exceptions, but I'm with M.F.K. Fisher, who said, "The purpose of living is to get old enough to have something to say."
Makes me think of my getting comfortable with my instrument in voice lessons. That took a few years and a series of teachers who all offered different things. My latest teacher is the best, blending challenge with encouragement in just the right mix.