What Happens When You're a Writer, but You Don't Write
What Happens When You're a Writer, but You Don't Write
For every closet writer who is making their life harder than it needs to be
Paradise Lost
I was standing in front of an insurance agent who was explaining why I would have to make a fourth trip back to the agency because I was still missing paperwork that would allow me to insure my vehicle in Canada.
I lifted my gaze to avoid making my death stare personal to the woman behind the counter and zoned out while gazing at the sinister corporate logo of the insurance company on the wall. It had been carefully designed in color and line to project friendliness, ease, and trust—but at the moment I could only see ghost-buster-like demons streaming from the soul of this bureaucratic brand, clearly devoted to making my life a personal hell.
Snapping out of it, the only thought I had was, “What the heck is going on with me?”
Why was I so upset by a bit of extended paperwork?
Re-engaging with the agent I had to remind myself that it wasn’t her fault that I felt like setting a match to her kiosk in the department store. It was tempting to imagine this brusque form-sergeant was the source of my betrayal when, in fact, I had abandoned myself by letting the details of moving to a different country overrun my attention.
It was 2022.
Covid had devastated my capacity to earn a living as a corporate speaker when the meeting industry collapsed. Moving back to Canada from the US became a no-brainer once I started feeling like the monthly cost of my family’s health care had surely exceeded the GDP of Liechtenstein.
But prior to finally deciding to move, I had discovered the writing platform called Medium.
While out of work I published almost every day for four months and was ecstatic while writing with that degree of focus and commitment. Something was happening internally that was transformative. I was discovering myself and at the same time discovering my appreciation for humanity through other writers there—reading and commenting on their work.
I discovered that I am a writer at heart, a fact that I’ve sort of known my whole life, but have spent more time ignoring than embracing.
The decision to give my focus to writing for a while felt like deciding to use the bathroom regularly after convincing myself that a couple of visits to the loo a year were sufficient. It was an experience of massive relief.
As I see it, we have a very big problem in the modern world. We’ve turned the activity of writing into something one does to make a living rather than acknowledging its fundamental purpose—which is to make a life.
Which brings me to Alex and Rob, who I know will read this, because they’re part of my closeted writer’s tribe.
We meet weekly to talk about our writing and pretend that the other things we do in life are as important as letting our souls unfold through our fingers. We pretend that the possibility of being judged as we sing our word songs in public is a hundred-fold greater than it is. For some unknown reason we delay spreading our passion for transformational ideas, experiences, and stories by taking our own brains into our hands and twisting them up like a summer garden house until the sprinkler shuts down and the kids don’t have anything to run and play in anymore.
Like many other closet writers, we tell ourselves that writing is optional, when the truth is, for some of us, it’s as much of a physiological necessity as the aforementioned bathroom stops. It’s a painful and inconvenient fact that many of us are just not facing—we’re contributing to the suffering of the world when we don’t write. For some of us, writing is not an optional thing. You can no more turn it off than you can pause Niagara Falls.
The state I found myself in filing paperwork during our move to Canada was not about the stress of the move. It was about the neglect of the expression process that is essential to anyone who is a writer at heart.
When I’m not writing it feels as though every organ in my body slowly drifts out of place; like my kidneys get stuck in my throat and I’m trying to breathe through my knees. When I’m not writing I’m an out-of-order organism, going through the motions of each day in a dis-eased manner.
Are you also a writer at heart?
Do you literally need to pour your experience through the filter of words to have it make any sense, to draw nourishment from your daily existence, and to eliminate the waste material from your own perceptions?
If you’re a writer you have a second digestive system that only properly fires when you add the enzymes and juices of language to the stomach of your experience. Without writing, you’ll plod on with a kind of perpetual indigestion that, over time, you’ll start to believe you must simply accept as part of the normal tragedy of being human.
Imagine feeling this way and then discovering that feeling like a tragic and flawed human is actually optional! That you don’t have to live that way! That you can choose to commit to full self-expression and stop your mind from eating yourself alive and, instead, actually thrive from sharing who you really are.
The question is, how does a writer survive in spirit while trying to stay afloat in a sea of daily life distractions and administrative responsibilities?
Most of us put the writing on hold to handle the life stuff, but not without a gnawing sense that we’re living backwards, prioritizing what feels like bullshit and despairing that we’re perpetuating the Great Lie that life is found in paying bills, making it on time to doctors’ appointments, and keeping the front lawn looking good for our neighbors.
I’m not exactly sure I know the way out at this point, but what I do know is that the pretense—that all is okay when I’m not writing—is unsustainable.
There’s no hiding the awkwardness of my existence when life piles up like unsorted vacation mail—the junk mixed in with the love letters, because I haven’t taken the time to look at what Reality has been sending me. When I’m not writing I’m not processing any of it and I feel cranky and lost. Before long, I’m little more than an ambulatory complaint, a silent broadcasting system of dissatisfaction.
It’s not a pretty or pleasant experience to be around me when I’m not writing. I should know, as I’m around myself quite a bit. Life only works when you can get over yourself quickly in the moments that count.
Writing is how I get over myself.
Not writing is the torture of being constantly around myself and unable to get over myself. I walk like an alien who’s never had to deal with gravity. I talk like a criminal who’s hoping to get caught. Our dog skulks around me like I’m an earthquake that’s overdue.
Paradise is lost when I’m not writing.
Writing is the cessation of suffering
Even just intending to write starts to tame the inner chaos in a way that feels magical. Sitting down now with the intention to write fills me with rightness. Which is why I feel like I’m entering a cathedral right now, even though I’m just sitting here at my messy desk facing the gray stucco wall of the neighbors house.
Writing is the old friend I can say anything to and be fully received. It’s like a treasured familiar armchair, or a favorite pair of jeans—climbing into either one soothes my spirit.
I do not claim to understand why or how writing has this effect on me. But I also cannot pretend that I function well without writing.
I crave the adventure of syllables like a whitewater rafter needs the thrill of the rapids. Paddling on a real-life river requires skillful choices and distinctions, moving through space by surrendering to the current while defying it at the same time.
This is my experience of navigating words—that I’m floating on top of an infinite flow of perceptions, ideas, and possibilities and that I could easily drown in them if I’m not paying attention. And yet, leaving the river is not an option, because if I am not in its flow some part of me ceases to exist.
When I’m engaged in writing I am solving every known problem in the universe. I’m doing my part to keep the cosmos together. Existence is sustained by the gravitational force of attending to my purpose for being here.
That’s what it feels like when I’m writing.
How about you?
What does it feel like when you’re writing?
What does it feel like when you don’t?
Writing has everything to do with being an honest human. It might be the best means possible of keeping an eye on oneself. And it’s important to keep an eye on oneself, because otherwise one is bound to wander off and spend a lot of time doing things that mean fuck all in the grand scheme of things.
And there’s just not enough time for that.
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Love to
and for having conversations about life and writing with me and inspiring this post.
Man. So grateful to you for continuing to share yourself and your stories and for lovingly nudging folks like Rob and me to do the thing that we desperately need to be doing.
I have spoken a version of this sentence out loud many times, and it continues to ring true: "I discovered that I am a writer at heart, a fact that I’ve sort of known my whole life, but have spent more time ignoring than embracing."
"The decision to give my focus to writing for a while felt like deciding to use the bathroom regularly after convincing myself that a couple of visits to the loo a year were sufficient. It was an experience of massive relief." -- I laughed so loudly at this!
I find a few things for me.
1. It's not the writing that's the issue for me -- although sometimes that is too -- but the editing. Thoughts flow out, but when I re-read the word vomit, it's often just that -- vomit. Trying to parse out the good stuff from there is so very challenging for me. Do you have that issue? If so, how do you solve it? If not, how do your words Just Flow Magically?!?
2. After reading so much awful writing (you know it's out there), I am convinced that writing and publishing that writing are two very different things. Sure, everyone should probably write more than they do. But we also don't need to be subjected to everyone's diary entries. Thankfully, those mostly remain on the usual social media platforms these days, and people who take the time to Substack generally have some writing sense. But also, the only way to get better at writing, is to first suck at writing, so there's that...