"How did you become a writer?" nobody asked me the other day, when I needed an opener for this blog entry. As it was nobody, my advice fell on absent ears of course, but I will nevertheless impart once again the ancient knowledge I have acquired as a man of the pen. The first and most important step on your journey to becoming a writer is that you must believe you are a writer. Research from multiple surveys shows that 93% of people who when asked "Do you believe you are a writer?", and answered 'no' were not in fact writers. This demonstrates how imperative believing yourself to be a writer is if you wish to be a writer. If this initial step proves difficult, try saying you are a writer to everyone you meet, or read and share inspirational quotes about writing online. Depreciate yourself in a disingenuous fashion, blaming your character faults — such as laziness, refusal to engage with even basic numeracy or logic, forgetfulness, fits of rage, melancholy, and substance addiction — on the writerly aspect of your personality that ultimately defines you. If all else fails, you can always smoke a cigarette in an evocative, monochrome photo.
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| Something like this. |
Before you go lighting up that cigarette, however, you should know that true literary genius requires more than just believing you are a writer. Believing is a pre-requisite, but great writers are also creative, a skill that requires years of being a creative person. As a novice writer, you should try to develop your creativity by being creative. The real trick of course is to be creative. All the best writers in the pantheon of literary greats were creative, had been creative, were being creative, and had been being creative. For the aspiring writer, this primarily involves entering the confines of your mind and berating yourself for not being creative. It also involves valuing creativity as a master virtue, the well-spring of all humanity. Creativity is featured in all our myths regarding the origin of our universe. God created the world from nothing, yet you cannot create as much as a short story without help. How then can we go beyond this impasse?
Fortunately, there is a loop hole: writers are allowed to find inspiration for their work. There are many ways of doing this, such as taking a walk in nature and watching people from a cafe terrace. Best to get comfortable with these kind of activities, as most of your time will comprise of finding inspiration. Any writer will tell you the difficulty in trying to write when you are not possessed with inspiration. If conventional methods of inspiring oneself fail, you may have to resort to more drastic measures, such as engaging in disturbing sexual activities or taking heroin and listen to More than a Feeling by Boston on loop for 24 hours. Having strong opinions and falling out with people regularly will give you the angst and anger to bring new stories to life. You may be concerned about the effect this will have on your mental health, but in the deadly game of writing you must embrace pain rather than shy away from it. Indeed, many writers recommend cultivating pain to help churn the creative cement mixer. Go to pain-cultivating group meetings, where you mostly talk about your pain and encourage others to develop a sturm und drang emotional life. It's mostly young men standing in the corners, despondent faces buried in a forlorn arms, but it works.
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| I was going to put Munch's The Scream here, but I think this stock photo works better. |
One surefire way of finding inspiration is falling in love. You may make a fool of yourself and people may regard you a creep, but the more tragic and uncompromising the love the better. All the great love songs ride the fine line between innocent passion and obsessive psychosis. Romantic love is not the only avenue a writer can take, as there is also self-love. Love yourself, because doing art is loving yourself. (The opposite is not true, no matter what the pretentious amateurs say.) Sadly, loving oneself is not as easy. On the treacherous road of becoming a writer, one must confront their Jungian shadow and assimilate it. How one does this remains unclear. Apparently, it involves making a lot of deferential remarks about the power of mythology and keeping a dream diary. Sitting alone in a dark room aghast at your personality and existence seems to help too.
If and when you have invested the many years required to face the demons lurking in your soul, and assuming you have survived the many fatal pitfalls on your journey, you may finally and deservedly call yourself a writer. You have permission to now start writing. Any further obstacles can be overcome by just trusting your (infallible) instincts. Write what you know, especially if what you know is topical and can be read over the course of a sun holiday. Make broad statements about the human condition without any regard for their veracity or applicability to any situation. You are the quotes now, and you should feel at liberty to tell yourself as such in the mirror every morning. Oh, and for the love of God, get the ending right. For example: if your protagonist is a young man at university, desperate to find an opportunity to masturbate surreptitiously, it should end with him running naked in wilderness, screaming wantonly (no matter what your dilettante writing partner thinks).
What's that? Nobody reads anymore? Quick, everybody, start a podcast! Or run to Youtube and start up a channel. Video essays, gaming, a patronising video about an academic subject — it doesn't matter. Run to Youtube before it is impenetrably saturated!
