From The Road: On Writing
Permissions I wish I would have given my writer self years ago. (Someone probably said all of this to me, but I couldn't hear it. I hope you can.)
Hey everyone, because I’m a bit behind this week (prepping for a conference, and also writing for another publication) I’m sharing the post I’ve had in my drafts folder since August, saved for just this purpose. It’s a short reflection on writing that I penned for Frankie Rollins’s newsletter and business, the Fifth Brain Collective. Frankie is a writer, writing coach, teacher, and community builder—please check her out! Also, I feel compelled to say that I’m aware I keep writing about road trips. I guess it’s a trope that inspires my creativity … or, it’s forced, sustained time I’m not on my phone and instead can get lost in thoughts. Ha. Sad. Addict. Anyway, six of one. Hope you enjoy. — Steph
I drove through the vanilla-and-pine scented ponderosa forest of Flagstaff and descended the Mogollon Rim toward Phoenix, passing canyons, cottonwoods, and yuccas, keeping pace with the semis speeding along the concrete arteries of the Valley of the Sun. I stopped for tuna salad and salt-and-vinegar chips at AJs on Ray Road, then spilled out onto the wide, hot Sonoran Desert toward the barrios and neighborhoods that used to be my Tucson home.
I composed this in my mind along the way. It’s advice of sorts, a short list of insights that have become clear to me as I’ve returned to writing for myself in the past several years after a decade-long-plus break. I believe this is what many of you are endeavoring too, writing what matters to you? I’m not generally big on advice, but this for me as much as it is for you.
The other week I was at breakfast with some neighbors and friends, including a talented young man who teaches English in Los Angeles. I asked him if he’s also a writer? Yes, he said, glancing around the table at how the others might react. It was as if he didn’t want to seem better than anyone and, hey, I get it. We’ve all been there. We’ve all swallowed whole the myth of the writer, or someone has told us we have great stories to tell, or that we’re good at stringing words together. Maybe we’ve even written something brilliant, and if so, congratulations!
But in general, it is time to let this mindset go. Stop thinking of yourself as precious. It turns out that writing isn’t special, it’s just what you do, the same way others might work with wood as carpenters, or food as chefs, or data as analysts. I promise you—and I hope this makes you feel more free, not less—nobody cares whether or if you write. Ours is an ordinary trade.
Now that that’s out of the way, I want to say the opposite is also true: dedicate yourself to your craft and work as hard as you can, because your words matters. Invest in your reading, your education, your journaling, your note taking—whatever fuels your writing process, but take yourself seriously. You don’t have to know everything—you don’t even have to be “good” at this yet! But you do have to trust the doubtful and forceful voices in your mind that are telling you to do this thing. Get in the car and gas up. Drive through the landscapes that are familiar and those that are foreign.
It's true that some people have an aptitude for language (and if you’re going to be the best in the world at something, it’s certainly helpful to have talent.) But talented people still work at their craft daily; in fact, they probably work harder and longer than everyone else. No one escapes doing the work, so just do the work.
Lastly, stop waiting for permission to be fucking great at this. We are fearful of leaving others behind, I know. I know this. I ran a three-legged race for too many years because I didn’t want to run fast if it meant running alone. I wanted to fit in, to be loved, not to stand out. Similarly, I didn’t know how to be a writer and a worker, how to balance or blend those identities, so “worker” became who I was to the world, and “writer” became my secret self. I thought, there are no solutions to this; mine is a problem too complex to solve. I was wrong, it’s silly, and you do not have to suffer either. This harkens back to my first point—nobody cares. So write what you want.
You might be finding your way to a state of creative flow as we speak, because you are here, reading this now. If not, I hope this advice helps. Oh, and I hope you find your community of writers, too. We need each other to sustain this work. Be humble and self-respecting. Be focused and hard-working. Be bold. Go forth and write.