Is Writing the Sickness or the Cure?
What drives a writer to write
Is writing the sickness or the cure
As a university professor I started writing at 5am each morning, on the assumption that nobody could fairly demand I respond to emails before 8am. At 8am, the university workload could commence. By 4pm I would be flagging, but at least my writing was in the bag. I would work on at university admin or marking or whatever till bedtime at 10, then return to my writing early the next morning.
That regular burst of creativity kept me balanced. Academic life didn’t consume me.
Such was the notion. Till one day I was out walking along the narrow and winding River Hull, stopped on its bank and looked out across fields, and heard myself saying out loud “If you don’t get out of the university it will kill you.”
I listened to myself. I quit.
From inside each university, the experience of dealing with all the shifting demands and astringencies seems singularly bad, but in fact the problems pertain to the whole sector. My main goals in my university role were to take ample care of my students, teach with enthusiasm, build appealing courses, and maintain my own research (which in my case is creative writing). There was no point in switching out one university for another.
For me, creative writing is the pilot light. Without it, the rest of my life doesn’t ignite.
I used to ask myself the question, “Is writing the sickness or the cure?” – knowing that my world falls into place and finds its balance when I write. I put this question to the writer James Purdy. “Don’t think about it,” he answered with a smile.
Just write.
The other day I saw Jesse Eisenberg stand alone on stage and field questions after a showing of his excellent A Real Pain, which he produced, directed, wrote and starred in. Nobody ever asks him to write a script, he says, therefore all his writing is cathartic.
Writing can be that, some understanding bubbling forth into a stab at articulacy.
At one event I heard the writers Will Fiennes and James Salter admit that they both hated writing, that their enjoyment came in the editing process, in redrafting. That puzzled me, that they hated writing – I don’t. But I’m finding increased pleasure in redrafting. You’re no longer wrestling with the psyche, digging deep to bring things from unseen to seen. Instead you’re seeking clarity, crafting to achieve beauty. The goal is completeness, a piece realizing its potential.
A craftsman achieving beauty needs no audience.
I used to tell students to be happy with rejections, because it means the piece is returned for you to take as your own again. Re-enter it, play with it, it’s yours again for a while.
I no longer have the stamina to work from 5am to 10pm. Lately I’ve had to put energy into feeding new books into the world, both my own books and those of other writers. But some daily writing is returning – even on a Sunday as I write this (the short story writer V.S. Pritchet set me the bar years ago, when I read how he walked upstairs to engage with his writing every day of the year including Sundays. A good story takes a LOT of crafting).
Is writing the sickness or the cure?
Yes. It’s the writer’s condition.
I’m in Los Angeles now and return to England in January. My Head for a Tree launches there on January 23rd (if you’re near London, come along to the launch event: ). The hope while I’me there is for more media events on the likes of Radio 4. If they come, great. If not, then I have more writing time before heading to India to launch the book’s Indian edition at the Jaipur Literary Festival. And then back to California, set for the book’s April release in America. It’s a daft amount of flying and time zones and effort and expense but the message of the Bishnois is so powerful and urgent in this era of ecological collapse that it’s good to share it how I can.
My short stories are elemental to me, rising out of some unknown to then be crafted. For December, my collection Lessons from Cruising is a Kindle monthly deal in the USA, and price-matched in the UK. Feel free to explore it!
As a bonus, here is an interview with V.S. Pritchett - from the New York Times, but free to share.
Writing tip
If you don’t have time to put your work aside between drafts – maybe you’re on a deadline – then dive into a great movie. Spend a few hours in someone else’s world so your own surprises you when you return.
Writing, to me, is catharsis. If I weren't writing, I'd be wandering, drinking, drugging, or worse. In some ways it's an addiction to keep me from more harmful addictions. So in that sense it's a cure. But the more I write the more I crave writing. It becomes an incessant need - so much so that I purchased a new tablet just so I could write anywhere, any time. There it's a curse. But a welcome one.