Forget about writing as art or writing as a way to earn your living. Both come from the first step: making writing a habit. It has to be something that’s ingrained inside you so that you do it as an essential part of the way you are. It defines your identity.
You have to establish the habit. Many people express the desire to be a writer or to write that book, poem, piece – without ever getting around to it. You’ll find it sneaks up on you and becomes part of your being if you just start writing regularly. Of course we all write anyway as part of everyday communication or ‘social networking’. But I’m talking about something different: writing for yourself, not for sharing with others (at least not until you wish to).
It’s not a habit I’ve always had, although for the last thirty years I’ve set aside Friday evenings for more personal writing. That’s now so deeply embedded that I miss it when I’m on holiday. But the really regular, almost daily habit of writing began perhaps only a dozen years ago when I started carrying around a Moleskine notebook. It looked so practical, felt good in my hand, that I had to use it. Again and again. I now have a used Moleskine storage problem.
I watched an interview last week with Alexander McCall Smith, writer of dozens and dozens of works of fiction (the Scotland Street series is my favourite of his). He talked about writing his books entirely by habit. The stories appear daily in a Scottish newspaper as he writes them. 1100 words a day. After a few months he has written enough to make another book. I don’t suppose he could survive happily without writing regularly, but there’s probably a part of him that resents the need to do this.
That’s why I replied to Megan on a recent Dark Angels www.dark-angels.org.uk course at Highgreen, Northumberland: “Writing the weekly blog is a pressure because it hangs over me until it’s done.” So it seems best to end this post with the words of a couple of Dark Angels participants from that course who have since written to me to say these things.
“I’ve been trying to keep the Dark-Angel spirit in me alive by doing a piece of automatic writing every morning – and usually a short poem to follow on from it. I’m not keeping it up every day, but I am keeping it up. And it’s doing me the world of good when I do it.”
“My little creative writing endeavour I set up for myself since the course has brought me huge contentment. It’s like I am going back to my creative roots. Amazing how when you start writing (I am trying the very short story approach) ideas come out of nowhere. There’s some sort of well of creativity in all of us I think if only we’d take the time to tap into it.”
So unlike other habits that are harder to kick, the habit of writing gives you a deeper contentment. Let’s hope so. Keep it up.
And let me know how different your writing habits are.
Lovely comments, John. Imagine what might happen in education if the school day began this way. Really, everyone should be doing this, whether they consider themselves a writer or not.
It’s a way of life. I can’t begin the day without letting some of the dreams out onto the page of a note book.
It keeps me human. It helps me remain humane.
Creating is part of being a human being and we deny it at our peril. We have denied it and look where it’s got our society and our education system.
This is really timely for me as I’m doing some work about the benefits of participatory arts for people with long-term health conditions. Although the particular focus of the project is steered more towards participation in a community sense, in a group, this connects with the whole idea of arts habits for wellbeing. We seem to find it easier to consider sports habits as essential for wellbeing.
It also reminds me that I’ve not kept up the habits I began at Dark Angels – slap on the wrist and an early creative start for me tomorrow! Thanks for another inspiring post John.