How to be a Better Writer: Attitude
Your disposition is of penultimate importance.
Writing is a craft, like any other. Simply because you can read and write does not in fact make you a writer. Practice, diligence, and respect for the craft will. I’m not suggesting that you need to be as stuffy as the English professors in your head, rather, I’m suggesting that you care about what you say and not spill words upon a page for the sake of it.
Attitude is your most powerful tool. After all, you’re aiming to elicit an attitude adjustment in your readers, so you must set your own attitude accordingly.
“Play it again. This time with feeling!”
Balance
The most important thing to remember though is that you are not your writing. This is a lesson I picked up from Writing Down the Bones
“Genius is one percent inspiration, and ninety-nine per cent perspiration.”
Thomas Alva Edison
“I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.”
Blaise Pascal
Brilliant men of staggering accomplishment agree. Write it, then rewrite it and throw out what you don’t need. If you find yourself in one of those unfortunate blocks, write the shittiest piece of prose you’ve ever conceived. The only cure for constipation is diarrhea.
Overcoming Creative Blocks
One of my friends suffered a enormous creative block that lasted for a long and painful year. He had written a poem that resonated with him in a way that none of his work had before — I read it, it’s that good — and he became crippled any time he tried to write after that. I listened to him tell me his tale of woe, and I told him exactly what I thought: “You’re afraid that you’re not going to live up to your own work.” He agreed, and I suggested that he not try to, and instead, he ought to write terribly on purpose. When I saw him again a while later, he told me that he wrote three poems that week after I gave him my advice.
In the end, what saved him was realizing that he was above his work, his work was not above him. This is true of all creative disciplines, and I’ve used that tactic — create terrible work — to overcome many blocks whether I’m writing or designing.
As a writer your attitude has to be one of diligence in order to persevere through the trials, and tyranny to cull the herd — there is no other way to care about your words.
