Work Is the Only Real Training

Will I ever finish writing my novel?

I've always known I wanted one thing—to be a writer. Not necessarily a good writer, but simply a writer. I always had this fantasy of living in a big bright bohemian apartment with huge windows and books and paper scattered everywhere. When I imagine myself a writer, you see, I imagine myself a rich one — first editions, royal china, silk pyjamas and all. I am not a starving type of artist. Maybe that’s why I am not a very good one.

I have never written anything of value, or perhaps, I should rephrase it by saying I have never finished anything of value, at least by my standard; I find it interesting because in life I am anything but a perfectionist.

Will I ever finish writing a novel? I understand the simplicity of the process — putting pan on paper, writing a very bad first draft, editing it into a slightly better second draft, and so on an so forth until you have a manuscript that is as good as you can possibly make it. Sounds simple enough. Eighty thousand words is not that many words. The first draft could be as little as twenty. If you break it down into words per month/week/day it’s a reasonable amount. So why can’t I finish it? Perhaps, the process is the easier part, and the creativity is what’s stopping me. I’d like to believe I am creative enough, but maybe I lack that specific type of artistic ability that’s required in order to kill your darlings. Perhaps I lack “a disciplined effort in the development of fertile invention.” Perhaps I am just lazy.

A disciplined effort in the development of fertile invention are the words I always go back to when feeling uninspired. Not surprisingly, I am never uninspired to talk about things, only to do them.

One of the things I find most frequently missing in students as they arrive at CalArts is not imagination itself, rather the knack of making a disciplined effort in the development of fertile invention. Intelligent and critical students are all too apt to use ‘thinking’ as a substitute for the much harder work of ‘imagining’ at the intuitive, emotional and sensory levels. People who talk about things instead of doing them tend to use analysis as a substitute for creativity. But a statement about the kind of effect you want to achieve is never a substitute for the often exhausting labours that must go into actually creating that effect. Work is the only real training.

Mackendrick, Alexander. On Film-making: An Introduction to the Craft of the Director (p. 72). Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

These are good words to live by. It is the same in life: the wealth of experience comes from living, not thinking about life.

What is it about being a writer that attracts me so much? I don’t exactly find writing enjoyable. I don’t necessarily like the process of writing. Sometimes I don’t like how writing makes me feel. I write because I feet obligated to write by a compulsion. It’s not like I have a choice. Putting words down on paper is therapeutic as much as it is miserable. Even if I don’t write, and I don’t write often, I am thinking about writing constantly. Everything is copy, yes, but also everything is a chance to reinvent yourself — writing, I believe, gives you control because you are in charge of the story.

Joan Didion famously said: “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear. Why did the oil refineries around Carquinez Strait seem sinister to me in the summer of 1956? Why have the night lights in the Bevatron burned in my mind for twenty years? What is going on in these pictures in my mind?”

So often, I have a voice in my head telling me I haven’t done enough. I haven’t worked enough, written enough, made enough friends, read enough books. I sometimes have to pinch myself to stop. I have a subjectively wonderful life and I have an objectively wonderful life. Subjectively because I enjoy living it, objectively because I am a healthy woman without any unsolvable problems living in a free country.

I spent the last few days in Bilbao with a girlfriend. Tanya picked the most gorgeous flowers and arranged them into the stunning wilderness. We went on hikes along the rugged cliffs and green pastures, drank lots of beers in the garden. I dipped my feet in the ocean. I was truly considering going for a swim but the water was cold and the waves were high. We booked an Argentinian restaurant for dinner with a set menu: six tasting meat dishes that could have been manes and a sort of mascarpone ice cream cake. We drank a bottle of wine - delicious. The four days I spent with her were all filled with good food, good drinks and and great company.

Then, on Thursday, I had an early flight to Sweden where I met up with Fredrik. On the agenda — eating meatballs and shrimp sandwiches, taking long walks on the beach, polishing the boat, and seeing friends and family, of course. Sweden is wonderful this time of year, it’s proper spring — April like — with everything blooming and singing. The sky is cerulean blue and the water is calm. It’s quite hard to feel bad about yourself, especially when there is truly no reason to.

Yet here we are.

For years, we've all been in the same boat: kindergarten, school, university, and the occasional odd job. But at some point, it suddenly seems like someone in your life starts reaching milestones much faster than you. Some make a lot more money; others already have families. And that's fine. I have no issues reaching those milestones on my own timeline. What I thought was my issue— not quite knowing what I want when everyone else seems to have it all figured out—turns out to be something different. Knowing what you want, I believe, is one of the biggest emotional privileges in life. I know realise that I am one of the lucky people who knows exactly what I want. And do very little about it. And that’s an issue.

I must remember — work is the only real training. To be a writer, especially not a very good one, all I need to do is to write, as simple as that.