I don’t hate writing. Actually, I love writing, in fact, I love it so much it feels self-indulgent to call it work. That’s when it’s going well. When it flows from the end of my fingers, onto the screen or off the tip of my pen onto the page in exactly the way I imagined: perfectly balanced scenes, realistic dialog, character traits both believable and interesting. Oh yes, writing is lovely then.
Then there are the times when writing seems like the most ridiculously arduous endeavor ever. When the picture in my head runs vivid and crystalline but on the page becomes opaque and plodding. When the words plaster themselves together in some weirdly awkward fashion that bears no resemblance to the magic I imagined. Then it seems there must be some special writer’s vocabulary that I am certainly not privy to. In those moments, the wicked naysayer in my head taunts: “You’ll never get it right. What makes you think you could even try?” And I think well, yeah, what did make me think I could try?
In those moments of paralyzing self-doubt, I make my way to the bookshelf or, abandoning my desk altogether, I walk into a crispy organized bookstore, shelves upon shelves of smart, thoughtful tomes. Among them I recognize all the titles that made some kind of difference for me. Be it escape or truth, between their pages I found something that stuck: “Hotel New Hampshire”, “A Thousand Acres,” “Perfume”, “Bastard Out of Carolina”, “The Power of One”, “Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant”, “February”, “The Gathering”, “The Sisters From Hardscrabble Bay”, “Let The Great World Spin”, “Revolutionary Road”, just to name a few – both old and new. I look at those books and it occurs to me they were all written by ordinary humans, people with troubles and worries, loves and laughs, people not so different from me strung those words together into a cohesive story. And that story carried me away for a day, an afternoon or several. Should it be so hard for me then? Shouldn’t I be able to find my way to the right word, the better phrase?
It reminds me of when I was pregnant with my first child, my stomach growing daily into some unrecognizable bell jar of human gestation. I remember thinking, “Oh my God, this baby is going to come out of me?” Then, I’d look around at all the people I could see and recognize that every single person who ever existed had come into the world through the labors of a woman just like me. Test tube babies, in vitro fertilization, sperm donors, regular old missionary style, no matter, every single human (to date) grew to full infanthood in the belly of a woman. And, those babies made it out into the world, natural birth, c-section, epidural, water birth, whatever, a woman’s body opened and out came new life.
Of course, no ever says: “Just open your body and let the baby out,” like they say, “just sit down and write”. It’s the “just” part. There is no “just” to birth. There is blood, there is sweat, there are tears. Oh, but when finally life is breathed into those small lungs and that lusty cry rattles the world, well, then yes. Oh, my yes. Then it was all worth it.
In that way writing is not so dissimilar, is it? Like the famous quote, variously attributed, “Writing is easy, you just sit down and open a vein.” Writing is hard, full of blood, sweat and tears. Because to create is to open one’s self up. Open up and let a little blood onto the page. Like those who’ve written before, like those who write now, like those who will surely write in centuries to come, as long as we open ourselves to whatever our creative endeavor may be, well, then, oh yes. Oh my yes. Yes indeed.
Jessica Ciosek lives in NYC with her family. She is working on a novel. Her first published short story appeared in the “Mothers” issue of Minerva Rising.
