How Writers Write: How to Write
Image Courtesy: The Help / DreamWorks Pictures
How Writers Write: a parting gift from me, to you.
People often say they lack connection with words, which subsequently hinders their relationship with writing. While there are a plethora of ways to express information or sentiments, writing supports the array that displays both nuance and directness, beautifully.
But why bother? What’s the use? In a technological age where our thoughts can be manifested into script through a chatbot, why hone the skill now?
The value of words is their power; where they come from is their power. And that power is you. They open more worlds for you when you’re made aware of their weight. So fear not, I have cracked the code for you– please do, read on.
It's simple, really. If you can think, you can write. If you love, you can write. If you speak, dance, walk, and read, you can write.
If you can exist in a plane of consciousness, saturated in thought and feeling, then writing will most certainly settle into your repertoire of capabilities.
Though you may feel as though feelings get their wires crossed with expression, and that writing isn’t always secondary. That in and of itself is an expression, is it not? The struggle to emote on a page is something to grapple with, inked pen in hand.
How writers write, well, how do you speak?
There is a structure, of course, a skeletal system that is colored in with veins and arteries. Skin and bone. The bones are your words, and everything else is your respective nuanced thoughts.
It is everything you say between the lines, or don’t.
You first pre-write, for nothing is set in stone. The things you say can’t be taken back, but they can be amended. Editor’s choice, of course. What are you trying to say? What is the message?
The message itself is often found in feeling. Creativity spurs most ardently from the furthest end of the spectrum of any emotion. After a fit of rage clears, inspiration is sure to follow. Same with intense love, or grief, or heartbreak; sometimes it is the feeling we are left with, the subtle silence that wades in, where true art is created.
Though sometimes, it sits with us quietly– the art that is. Like a shadow of a person who is not really there, but as any kept presence, it keeps us company, paying its due diligence, demanding nothing more of you than your perfect existence. This can arguably be the most challenging time to channel creativity and rectify an empty page. Or that’s what we may have been led to believe.
Whether it be fact or fiction, you won’t always know what it means in its preliminary stages, but bless the process of pen to pad. You learn it as you go. What do you feel when you think about it? Whatever it may be, that is your message.
This belongs to none other than yourself. I think oftentimes the biggest misconception about writing is that it needs to resonate with a certain archetype or audience. You must know, and I’ll tell you the industry secret now, you must love what you write for any person to love it the way you do. Simultaneously lifting sanctions from the knowledge that your thoughts and interpretation thereof won’t always be palatable to others, but again, that’s not really the point.
The second it becomes about other people or their opinions, you lose your art.
Think of any relationship. You can only provide and care for others truly, with the means you do yourself. You will only be able to extend yourself to the lengths you desire once you first place those desires and their destinations within yourself.
So you must fall in love with it, the same way you would a lover or a moment you know you exist within that will never be experienced again. Written word breaches the limits of ephemerality. Fall in love with it as something that could last forever. In the way words do, even after a moment has met its expiration.
Sometimes this takes longer to hone and curate, discerning feelings from undeniable truths.
So how writers write, well, hell if I know. Clearly, I have no bylaws to share. Just an ‘industry secret’ that says it all comes from within, but I do know I’ve loved what I’ve written, and will continue to do so. So I urge you to do the same, and maybe words can too be your muse as they are mine.
Find what you love, sit with it, explore it. Even if only a couple of sentences are produced as a result, it is not about the quantity. Unless, of course, you need a minimum word count, but this kind of writing I speak of is a skill for life, for you, bound by nothing but you.
So, perhaps this isn’t a parting gift, but a simple ‘a bientôt’, bidding you an impermanent adieu.
For some things in life will always be certain. Death and taxes will, too, draw their curtains. And it is despite this that ‘how to write’ will serve you forever.
(Dedicated to someone whose texts alone could be published.)
Strike out,
Rosemary Aziz
Boca Raton
Rosemary Aziz is the Editorial Director for Strike Magazine Boca. A health and wellness junkie who finds leisure in writing, all things coffee, and observing the human condition– but people-watching is better with friends. Or in her next article. You can reach her by email at r.m.aziz0204@gmail.com or on Instagram @rosemary.aziz.
