Writing is a Job

In a recent Washington Post article, Ann Patchett made a New Year’s resolution. She discovered a “radical concept — time spent working equals output of work.” It dawned on her that writing is a job, and therefore not to be taken lightly. You mean… it’s not something that I squeeze in between jaunts to the supermarket, dry cleaners, hair salon, and doctor’s appointments? Not to mention laundry, scouring the oven, and cleaning toilets?? All of which I do to avoid sitting down at the computer and facing my Inner Editor, by the way.

It’s not that I’m actually afraid of my Inner Saboteur (who, when my writing instructor asked the class to put a face and name to it, turned out to be an annoying Leprechaun, utterly devoid of the power and magnificence of The Great and Powerful Oz).

The fact is…I buy into pretty much everything he has to say. And it turns out that I’m not the only writer who does.

According to Ann Patchett (who, incidentally, is the author of five novels, including Bel Canto (winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize),

“Writing is an endless confrontation with my own lack of talent and intelligence, because if I were as smart and talented as I ought to be, I would have finished this book by now. I would consider avoiding work the better plan were it not for the fact that to have written a book, to have finished it, is such a glorious thing that it is worth whatever suffering is meted out in the process.”

The trick, I think, is to see the Inner Editor for who he (or she) truly is: the man behind the curtain, whose sole purpose in life is to keep us safe – protected from even a glancing blow of failure.

Once I managed to see his true colours, I took great delight in throwing back the curtain, and showing him the door. Not that he doesn’t skulk into my office whenever he can get the chance. But, he’s an intruder, and ever since the day I stood up to him and stripped him of his title of General Know-It-All, I was ready to accept a new voice into my creative hub room. A voice that gently guides me through the miasma of creating something even vaguely readable.

So, who knows? Maybe, now that I have a new boss, and I take the time each day to actually work on this novel that’s been taking up every square inch of space in my brain for the past two years – actually see it as a job – the results won’t be half bad. Or, as Ann Patchett said, it “may well be brilliant. Now there’s a beautiful thought.”