From the Archive | Building piles and piles of words is not enough. Good writing has a raw, disobedient quality, a feral disposition. So how do we achieve that?
Thank you for this essay. I am printing it out and will keep it close by to inspire me and to remind me about why I love writing so much. I approach writing as I do meditation. I meditate not to be a “good meditator,” although that is a basic requirement. I meditate to be a better person towards myself and my fellow humans. I write for similar reasons. We are truly all in this together, so I might as well try to make our mutual walk down life’s pathway as bearable for all of us as I can. That is why I write.
That sounds like an excellent practice, Craig--to write as a form of meditation. To be honest, I think I do this sometimes without realizing I am doing it. One of the exercises Jeannine offered a couple of weeks ago had to do with writing about an object for five minutes, and I chose my left hand. It felt very much like a mindfulness exercise once I finished with all the details.
I don't know why, but today I awoke questioning whether I am this sort of writer you describe here, Jeannine--the kind that cuts to truth in a gripping, raw, and even feral way. (I love that word.) That wasn't my thought, exactly, more like, "Do I have what it takes as a writer? Is my work 'good enough?'" Today, it doesn't seem so. At least, I don't feel like it's true, and I know enough about myself and psychology in general to understand that just because that's my current mood or perception doesn't reflect any sort of objective statement.
Your section about how much prose writers can learn from poetry reminds me of a section I dog-eared in the book I'm currently reading by Jane Hirshfield called NINE GATES: ENTERING THE MIND OF POETRY. She writes on page 29, "Writers who have 'found their voice' are those whose ears turn at once inward and outward, both toward their own nature, thought patterns, and rhythms, and toward those of the culture at large."
I am learning through the daily incantation, as well as through THE BOOK OF DELIGHTS by Ross Gay and now this one by Hirshfield, how to zoom in to sensory details before zooming out to make a statement. Which is strange to write, since poetry was my first true love in literature, and when I was young and callow, I once thought I might become a poet. I scribbled poetry over nearly every one of my notebooks in high school. But I somehow lost that ability to describe, with sharp precision, the details that stirred something in me.
And now I question whether I have lost that ability altogether, or whether the voice I have homed for decades remains stilted and wooden. I just don't know, and I can't say I have fallen in love with uncertainty. Yet?
Also, I wish you had heard Dinty Moore speaking on this topic last night, but the point is a simple one: this feeling is part of it. We all have it. It's part of what makes us writers.
“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”
― Thomas Mann, Essays of Three Decades
And it ebbs and it flows. But it is the price of awareness. As we become more aware of language, its capacities, all the things it can do and the ways in which it can do those things, and the multitude of decisions behind all the things we read and love, we naturally grow doubts, more doubts than we ever had before we brought so much attention (and, yes, "capability to endure uncertainty") to the process of our art. But it is that very doubt that keeps us in beginner's mind, keeps us capable of always changing and growing and remaining fully alive to the mysteries of language, fully alive to the paradox that we can never, no matter how "good at it" we become, take language into our full control. That's not how art works.
Jeannie, anyone who can write this achingly about writing is a writer. This is so full of the yearning that defines writing that I can feel it all the way in my own chest. And as for uncertainty. Do we ever actually "fall in love" with it? Keats said we had to be “capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” So, maybe it's hard not to have any "irritable reaching after fact and reason," but, again, Keats said capable. I think we can try to fall in love, but we won't stay there. We'll always crave certainty. It's the *effort* and *awareness* of that that fosters artistry and the creative life, which you are living (and exemplifying) in spades.
You're right, Jeannine. There's truth to the yearning for certainty and the awareness and effort of striving for uncertainty. Your encouragement means a great deal.
In the comments over in Rita’s substack, Rootsie, we were discussing some aspects of all of this. I said the thing no one ever told me as I was growing up is how much of life is starting over. It sucks! Even every grocery list is starting over.
Every time we decide to pick up a pen or power up our lap top we are starting over. Sometimes it is easy because the words demand we get them down , or we have a deadline, or we are writing with the hope of feedback. What find hardest of all is scrounging up the audacity to start over and write, even when I am not sure anyone will ever read it. Feedback is a bit of a hit- it is reassuring when we know someone sees what we are doing. But it is really hard for me to close that door and turn that off- it means starting over and writing for my own ears and eyes first. It is lonely to think about sitting with my own stuff in a quiet way, quiet enough to really hear my own internal taste at work. I like myself but I I like company and conversation, too. The starting is so hard, but once I am doing it, I quit imagining myself doing it and get into the work.
Anne Lamotte calls those times of doubt and overthinking “WFKD “ playing in your head. I find the constraints in the exercises here , the shimmer shard practice, all those ways of practicing the writing keep WFKD on a lower volume. Those are ways of moving forward.
I also find reading and commenting on the work of others, published, or in the comments, keeps my hands in the soil of the same garden and I learn so much about writing itself by considering work that way. It makes me think about someone else and in turn, I really get something out of it to, and it helps get my head out of my own derrière.
When the transition to submitting the work comes, I know I will be starting over again, but I am also beginning to trust the cycle of this whole whacked out creative process even if I can’t control it or schedule it or plan around it.
There is work happening below the surface that we are not aware of. And even asking these questions, feeling these things, looking at stuff this way means you are thinking as a writer. Just being here counts. It is all the process- this conversation IS the process. You are doing the thing! We are doing the thing! How cool is that?
Emily, more wisdom! "There is work happening below the surface" struck me. It's true. I know it. I just feel defeated, I guess, because this can be such a long, arduous road, and well, I didn't really grasp that when I was younger and first held aspirations of becoming a writer.
I hear you, Jeannie. I like to think my writing has more teeth now because I have lived more to write about. But to have the body of a twenty-four year old and the soul of a ninety year old is the dream, isn’t it?
Oh my, that's a perfect analogy, Emily - "to have the body of a 24-year-old and the soul of a 90-year-old is the dream." Indeed it is! I guess I'll have to accept this 44-year-old body, but I have always been called "an old soul" by many. Perhaps you have, too?
Ha! Yes! I can’t claim complete credit- the Jim Butcher urban fantasy series about a wizard in Chicago - Harry Dresden. He had a love interest and only when he realized she was not what she seemed he realized she was the ancient woman, disguised as the twenty-something- too perfect to be true. I would write it differently now! And I think at this point my body is catching up to my soul’s age….
Monica, I get this, in a way. I don't have a paid day job, but I am the primary caregiver of 5 growing children, one of whom has a rare genetic condition that requires (I'm estimating) around twenty hours of week in management of her coordination of care.
I say this, because I am depleted most days. I remain sleep deprived more than I should be, due to early wakeup calls from toddlers. Most of the time, I have the desire to write but zero energy. Or I might have a burst of inspiration in the middle of the dinner hour and mad rush to baths and bedtime.
My personal belief is that everything I manage to get on paper or screen counts as practice. When I began giving myself permission to suck and write garbage, I just wrote, even with mental exhaustion.
That's not to say I do this instead of sleeping or nourishing myself. I take care of my needs as well as I can and listen to my body. I mean that I squeeze in sketches and drafts while waiting in lobbies, sitting in the parking lot for school pickup, in between meals, whenever.
Life is draining for most of us. I believe that if you are feeling the nudge to write, it's possible to do it, even when it doesn't look exactly like we'd hoped (the process or the outcome).
My biggest frustration is 1) time and 2) this effort to write the thing that is hard and which I have not yet done, the novel, and endure the absolute onslaught of doubt that entails. But, endure I do. One word at a time.
Yeah, I have a non-hobby desire to write and hobby time for it. Damn sabbatical gave me a taste of something I won’t get again until retirement 😂. But yes, just keep going, whatever the conditions, to reach for that desire.
Love Jane Hirshfield. Thanks for sharing this quote. I've noticed that when writers experience dry spells or doubts, or just aren't sure whether to keep going, they (we) often turn to reading the words of other writers. So it seems to me like you're on a good path!
I can certainly relate to what you have written here, Jeannie. Some days, I feel on top of the world about something I have written; not often, but enough to keep me going. Most days, I find myself comparing myself to other writers on Substack, who, it appears to me, are successful, riding high, and leaving me in their dust. I really do keep a copy of Dinty Moore’s “The Mindful Writer” handy at all times. I randomly open it and always find something in it that grounds me as a writer and person, and leads me out of my writerly blue funk. Then, I remind myself that I am unique; no other human before, now, or in the future is exactly like me. My writing is also unique. My job is to develop my unique writerly voice and use it to make the tiny little corner of the Universe I occupy better because of my brief passage through it. You know all this already. I am just reassuring myself.
It’s helpful to hear it from another writer, Craig. I am sincere in my expression of appreciation for what you offered here. I have similar helpful exercises, usually involving a book (I haven’t read “The Mindful Writer” yet, though), from which I take notes in a cheap spiral notebook that I can reference when I am feeling doubtful and discouraged, as I mentioned I am feeling today.
Sometimes I wonder if this type of ebb and flow is “just the way it is” in the life of a creative person? You know, flowing from confidence to doubt? I can tell myself I have my own voice, which I know I do, but the problem is that when I see what’s being published, I feel lost and alone, because the thematic elements are nothing like what I write about. So then I return to the question, what am I doing?
I love to write, and I must write, but I need it to be more than just writing for the sake of writing. I miss being published, to be honest.
"Just the way it is" see my comments above to you, Jeannie. And being published is a huge part of it for me! There's nothing wrong with wanting that, and chasing it. It's different from the writing process, but it absolutely is a healthy desire, if we desire it!
This will sound alarming, but as a surgeon, I had the same cycle of highs and lows, confidence and doubt. I think anyone who takes their work seriously has these cycles. In medicine, physicians have to act confident so their patients have faith in them. As a writer, the only one I have to act confident for is me. And, I am a profound perfectionist, so misery is assured!
Yesssssssssss!!!! Craig, this is it: "Anyone who takes their work seriously has these cycles." You, in one sentence, said what I tried to say in a whole essay. Yes, yes, yes to this. That's why Thomas Manne said writers are just people for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
I didn't know you were also a surgeon, Craig! I have a great deal of admiration for surgeons, probably because of Sarah's early craniofacial and neurosurgeries. What type of surgeon are you?
And, to your point, I do see how this cycle between doubt and confidence can apply to any profession. Thanks for pointing that out!
An orthopedic surgeon X14 years; hospital management X22 years; and hospital inspector X4 years. Retired almost 3 years ago. Now, a writer (at least trying to be a writer).
My daughter Sarah had a fabulous orthopedic surgeon who gave her fingers for Christmas when she was a baby, Craig! I say "gave her fingers" as a way of saying that he and his team skillfully and surgically separated her fused fingers in what you probably know is called a syndactyly release, due to her Apert syndrome.
All that to say, I feel a greater fondness for you than I even did before, knowing this about you!
So interesting you brought up being a surgeon while talking about your writing. My father was a surgeon, and he was with me for only ten years. (As a random aside, a few years ago, I came across a memoir of a woman who accounted Daddy saving her life and the life of her daughter Daddy delivered—an emergency C-section, as he was on call that evening). Daddy was also a private pilot, resulting in his and Momma's death. When I was finally sent the NTSB report of their accident—only in 2023— (someone snuck it out of my aunt's house) I did some research to discover a study, done in the 1960s, that pilots who were doctors in their professions, were dying while piloting at a rate four times higher than any other profession! How does this relate to my writing? It all goes back to that catastrophic decision Daddy made to fly that day—despite the bad weather warning. It makes me cautious in deciding stories, using words, taking chances, and hiding, for fear of making catastrophic mistakes.
I personally knew several physician-pilots who met untimely ends flying in bad weather. Many physicians are used to being in control, and some mistakenly think that span of control includes the weather. I know one such physician who crashed his plane twice with his family onboard before finally giving up flying. Luckily all survived both crashes. As someone (Jeannine?) has said, writing isn’t neurosurgery, and nobody dies if a writer writes a bad sentence or two now and again. It is a matter of practice, mastering the craft, then writing to suit yourself. Those who like what you write will seek you out.
Oof this is the best best best conversation. Earlier up there in the comments I talked about this, Craig, this issue of control! You and I are having a mind meld! About the doubts and this illusion of control, I said:
[The doubt] ebbs and it flows. But it is the price of awareness. As we become more aware of language, its capacities, all the things it can do and the ways in which it can do those things, and the multitude of decisions behind all the things we read and love, we naturally grow doubts, more doubts than we ever had before we brought so much attention (and, yes, "capability to endure uncertainty") to the process of our art. But it is that very doubt that keeps us in beginner's mind, keeps us capable of always changing and growing and remaining fully alive to the mysteries of language, fully alive to the paradox that we can never, no matter how "good at it" we become, take language into our full control. That's not how art works.
Yes, I've come to believe that what makes surgeons good in the operating room makes them risky pilots. And yeiks, that physician and their family—crashing twice!
About my 'hiding,' for me, it's the liability concerns—I'm not concerned, at this point, writing about my MIL (she's dead) or really about my aunt and uncle (ages 97 and 101), it's the story I want (need) to tell involving how my SSN was used and involves my two older sisters (they tied me up in court for four years), so I've shied away from those topics.
This is wonderful and something I want to return to read often. Thank you.
Jeannine,
Thank you for this essay. I am printing it out and will keep it close by to inspire me and to remind me about why I love writing so much. I approach writing as I do meditation. I meditate not to be a “good meditator,” although that is a basic requirement. I meditate to be a better person towards myself and my fellow humans. I write for similar reasons. We are truly all in this together, so I might as well try to make our mutual walk down life’s pathway as bearable for all of us as I can. That is why I write.
That sounds like an excellent practice, Craig--to write as a form of meditation. To be honest, I think I do this sometimes without realizing I am doing it. One of the exercises Jeannine offered a couple of weeks ago had to do with writing about an object for five minutes, and I chose my left hand. It felt very much like a mindfulness exercise once I finished with all the details.
I don't know why, but today I awoke questioning whether I am this sort of writer you describe here, Jeannine--the kind that cuts to truth in a gripping, raw, and even feral way. (I love that word.) That wasn't my thought, exactly, more like, "Do I have what it takes as a writer? Is my work 'good enough?'" Today, it doesn't seem so. At least, I don't feel like it's true, and I know enough about myself and psychology in general to understand that just because that's my current mood or perception doesn't reflect any sort of objective statement.
Your section about how much prose writers can learn from poetry reminds me of a section I dog-eared in the book I'm currently reading by Jane Hirshfield called NINE GATES: ENTERING THE MIND OF POETRY. She writes on page 29, "Writers who have 'found their voice' are those whose ears turn at once inward and outward, both toward their own nature, thought patterns, and rhythms, and toward those of the culture at large."
I am learning through the daily incantation, as well as through THE BOOK OF DELIGHTS by Ross Gay and now this one by Hirshfield, how to zoom in to sensory details before zooming out to make a statement. Which is strange to write, since poetry was my first true love in literature, and when I was young and callow, I once thought I might become a poet. I scribbled poetry over nearly every one of my notebooks in high school. But I somehow lost that ability to describe, with sharp precision, the details that stirred something in me.
And now I question whether I have lost that ability altogether, or whether the voice I have homed for decades remains stilted and wooden. I just don't know, and I can't say I have fallen in love with uncertainty. Yet?
Also, I wish you had heard Dinty Moore speaking on this topic last night, but the point is a simple one: this feeling is part of it. We all have it. It's part of what makes us writers.
“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”
― Thomas Mann, Essays of Three Decades
And it ebbs and it flows. But it is the price of awareness. As we become more aware of language, its capacities, all the things it can do and the ways in which it can do those things, and the multitude of decisions behind all the things we read and love, we naturally grow doubts, more doubts than we ever had before we brought so much attention (and, yes, "capability to endure uncertainty") to the process of our art. But it is that very doubt that keeps us in beginner's mind, keeps us capable of always changing and growing and remaining fully alive to the mysteries of language, fully alive to the paradox that we can never, no matter how "good at it" we become, take language into our full control. That's not how art works.
xoxoxo
Incredible wisdom, Jeannine.
Jeannie, anyone who can write this achingly about writing is a writer. This is so full of the yearning that defines writing that I can feel it all the way in my own chest. And as for uncertainty. Do we ever actually "fall in love" with it? Keats said we had to be “capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” So, maybe it's hard not to have any "irritable reaching after fact and reason," but, again, Keats said capable. I think we can try to fall in love, but we won't stay there. We'll always crave certainty. It's the *effort* and *awareness* of that that fosters artistry and the creative life, which you are living (and exemplifying) in spades.
You're right, Jeannine. There's truth to the yearning for certainty and the awareness and effort of striving for uncertainty. Your encouragement means a great deal.
I woke feeling similarly, Jeannie. Just saying you have company in these wilds.
In the comments over in Rita’s substack, Rootsie, we were discussing some aspects of all of this. I said the thing no one ever told me as I was growing up is how much of life is starting over. It sucks! Even every grocery list is starting over.
Every time we decide to pick up a pen or power up our lap top we are starting over. Sometimes it is easy because the words demand we get them down , or we have a deadline, or we are writing with the hope of feedback. What find hardest of all is scrounging up the audacity to start over and write, even when I am not sure anyone will ever read it. Feedback is a bit of a hit- it is reassuring when we know someone sees what we are doing. But it is really hard for me to close that door and turn that off- it means starting over and writing for my own ears and eyes first. It is lonely to think about sitting with my own stuff in a quiet way, quiet enough to really hear my own internal taste at work. I like myself but I I like company and conversation, too. The starting is so hard, but once I am doing it, I quit imagining myself doing it and get into the work.
Anne Lamotte calls those times of doubt and overthinking “WFKD “ playing in your head. I find the constraints in the exercises here , the shimmer shard practice, all those ways of practicing the writing keep WFKD on a lower volume. Those are ways of moving forward.
I also find reading and commenting on the work of others, published, or in the comments, keeps my hands in the soil of the same garden and I learn so much about writing itself by considering work that way. It makes me think about someone else and in turn, I really get something out of it to, and it helps get my head out of my own derrière.
When the transition to submitting the work comes, I know I will be starting over again, but I am also beginning to trust the cycle of this whole whacked out creative process even if I can’t control it or schedule it or plan around it.
There is work happening below the surface that we are not aware of. And even asking these questions, feeling these things, looking at stuff this way means you are thinking as a writer. Just being here counts. It is all the process- this conversation IS the process. You are doing the thing! We are doing the thing! How cool is that?
Emily, more wisdom! "There is work happening below the surface" struck me. It's true. I know it. I just feel defeated, I guess, because this can be such a long, arduous road, and well, I didn't really grasp that when I was younger and first held aspirations of becoming a writer.
I hear you, Jeannie. I like to think my writing has more teeth now because I have lived more to write about. But to have the body of a twenty-four year old and the soul of a ninety year old is the dream, isn’t it?
Oh my, that's a perfect analogy, Emily - "to have the body of a 24-year-old and the soul of a 90-year-old is the dream." Indeed it is! I guess I'll have to accept this 44-year-old body, but I have always been called "an old soul" by many. Perhaps you have, too?
Ha! Yes! I can’t claim complete credit- the Jim Butcher urban fantasy series about a wizard in Chicago - Harry Dresden. He had a love interest and only when he realized she was not what she seemed he realized she was the ancient woman, disguised as the twenty-something- too perfect to be true. I would write it differently now! And I think at this point my body is catching up to my soul’s age….
And I feel frustrated that my job so often leaves me too depleted to really dig in the way I want to with writing. But alas, we write.
Monica, I get this, in a way. I don't have a paid day job, but I am the primary caregiver of 5 growing children, one of whom has a rare genetic condition that requires (I'm estimating) around twenty hours of week in management of her coordination of care.
I say this, because I am depleted most days. I remain sleep deprived more than I should be, due to early wakeup calls from toddlers. Most of the time, I have the desire to write but zero energy. Or I might have a burst of inspiration in the middle of the dinner hour and mad rush to baths and bedtime.
My personal belief is that everything I manage to get on paper or screen counts as practice. When I began giving myself permission to suck and write garbage, I just wrote, even with mental exhaustion.
That's not to say I do this instead of sleeping or nourishing myself. I take care of my needs as well as I can and listen to my body. I mean that I squeeze in sketches and drafts while waiting in lobbies, sitting in the parking lot for school pickup, in between meals, whenever.
Life is draining for most of us. I believe that if you are feeling the nudge to write, it's possible to do it, even when it doesn't look exactly like we'd hoped (the process or the outcome).
My biggest frustration is 1) time and 2) this effort to write the thing that is hard and which I have not yet done, the novel, and endure the absolute onslaught of doubt that entails. But, endure I do. One word at a time.
Yeah, I have a non-hobby desire to write and hobby time for it. Damn sabbatical gave me a taste of something I won’t get again until retirement 😂. But yes, just keep going, whatever the conditions, to reach for that desire.
Emily, your generosity is such a gift. More soon.
Xoxo
My heart is with you, Monica. ❤️
Love Jane Hirshfield. Thanks for sharing this quote. I've noticed that when writers experience dry spells or doubts, or just aren't sure whether to keep going, they (we) often turn to reading the words of other writers. So it seems to me like you're on a good path!
Agree wholly with this.
That’s very true, Sarah. I appreciate that encouragement and perspective today!
I can certainly relate to what you have written here, Jeannie. Some days, I feel on top of the world about something I have written; not often, but enough to keep me going. Most days, I find myself comparing myself to other writers on Substack, who, it appears to me, are successful, riding high, and leaving me in their dust. I really do keep a copy of Dinty Moore’s “The Mindful Writer” handy at all times. I randomly open it and always find something in it that grounds me as a writer and person, and leads me out of my writerly blue funk. Then, I remind myself that I am unique; no other human before, now, or in the future is exactly like me. My writing is also unique. My job is to develop my unique writerly voice and use it to make the tiny little corner of the Universe I occupy better because of my brief passage through it. You know all this already. I am just reassuring myself.
It’s helpful to hear it from another writer, Craig. I am sincere in my expression of appreciation for what you offered here. I have similar helpful exercises, usually involving a book (I haven’t read “The Mindful Writer” yet, though), from which I take notes in a cheap spiral notebook that I can reference when I am feeling doubtful and discouraged, as I mentioned I am feeling today.
Sometimes I wonder if this type of ebb and flow is “just the way it is” in the life of a creative person? You know, flowing from confidence to doubt? I can tell myself I have my own voice, which I know I do, but the problem is that when I see what’s being published, I feel lost and alone, because the thematic elements are nothing like what I write about. So then I return to the question, what am I doing?
I love to write, and I must write, but I need it to be more than just writing for the sake of writing. I miss being published, to be honest.
"Just the way it is" see my comments above to you, Jeannie. And being published is a huge part of it for me! There's nothing wrong with wanting that, and chasing it. It's different from the writing process, but it absolutely is a healthy desire, if we desire it!
Yes to all this, too.
This will sound alarming, but as a surgeon, I had the same cycle of highs and lows, confidence and doubt. I think anyone who takes their work seriously has these cycles. In medicine, physicians have to act confident so their patients have faith in them. As a writer, the only one I have to act confident for is me. And, I am a profound perfectionist, so misery is assured!
Yesssssssssss!!!! Craig, this is it: "Anyone who takes their work seriously has these cycles." You, in one sentence, said what I tried to say in a whole essay. Yes, yes, yes to this. That's why Thomas Manne said writers are just people for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
Way to point the laser at this one point, Jeannine. I think I have greater clarity and insight now. Thanks to all of you.
I didn't know you were also a surgeon, Craig! I have a great deal of admiration for surgeons, probably because of Sarah's early craniofacial and neurosurgeries. What type of surgeon are you?
And, to your point, I do see how this cycle between doubt and confidence can apply to any profession. Thanks for pointing that out!
An orthopedic surgeon X14 years; hospital management X22 years; and hospital inspector X4 years. Retired almost 3 years ago. Now, a writer (at least trying to be a writer).
My daughter Sarah had a fabulous orthopedic surgeon who gave her fingers for Christmas when she was a baby, Craig! I say "gave her fingers" as a way of saying that he and his team skillfully and surgically separated her fused fingers in what you probably know is called a syndactyly release, due to her Apert syndrome.
All that to say, I feel a greater fondness for you than I even did before, knowing this about you!
So interesting you brought up being a surgeon while talking about your writing. My father was a surgeon, and he was with me for only ten years. (As a random aside, a few years ago, I came across a memoir of a woman who accounted Daddy saving her life and the life of her daughter Daddy delivered—an emergency C-section, as he was on call that evening). Daddy was also a private pilot, resulting in his and Momma's death. When I was finally sent the NTSB report of their accident—only in 2023— (someone snuck it out of my aunt's house) I did some research to discover a study, done in the 1960s, that pilots who were doctors in their professions, were dying while piloting at a rate four times higher than any other profession! How does this relate to my writing? It all goes back to that catastrophic decision Daddy made to fly that day—despite the bad weather warning. It makes me cautious in deciding stories, using words, taking chances, and hiding, for fear of making catastrophic mistakes.
I personally knew several physician-pilots who met untimely ends flying in bad weather. Many physicians are used to being in control, and some mistakenly think that span of control includes the weather. I know one such physician who crashed his plane twice with his family onboard before finally giving up flying. Luckily all survived both crashes. As someone (Jeannine?) has said, writing isn’t neurosurgery, and nobody dies if a writer writes a bad sentence or two now and again. It is a matter of practice, mastering the craft, then writing to suit yourself. Those who like what you write will seek you out.
Oof this is the best best best conversation. Earlier up there in the comments I talked about this, Craig, this issue of control! You and I are having a mind meld! About the doubts and this illusion of control, I said:
[The doubt] ebbs and it flows. But it is the price of awareness. As we become more aware of language, its capacities, all the things it can do and the ways in which it can do those things, and the multitude of decisions behind all the things we read and love, we naturally grow doubts, more doubts than we ever had before we brought so much attention (and, yes, "capability to endure uncertainty") to the process of our art. But it is that very doubt that keeps us in beginner's mind, keeps us capable of always changing and growing and remaining fully alive to the mysteries of language, fully alive to the paradox that we can never, no matter how "good at it" we become, take language into our full control. That's not how art works.
Yes, I've come to believe that what makes surgeons good in the operating room makes them risky pilots. And yeiks, that physician and their family—crashing twice!
About my 'hiding,' for me, it's the liability concerns—I'm not concerned, at this point, writing about my MIL (she's dead) or really about my aunt and uncle (ages 97 and 101), it's the story I want (need) to tell involving how my SSN was used and involves my two older sisters (they tied me up in court for four years), so I've shied away from those topics.