Things a Writer Needs to Know

Things a Writer Needs to Know

1. What it feels like to mess up a project, relationship, or situation beyond the point of redemption.

Not that you’d ever do any of these things yourself, at least not now, from this particular vantage point in your own story arc.  By now, your experiences and observations have imparted to you a kind of detached sense of Zen-like, ride-the-waves freedom.  For the sake of drama and dramatic encounters, you should be able to access this information, the better to portray it in your stories.  Perhaps there are some glimmerings of memory from your callow youth, some metaphorical presences of candles guttering in the darkness from which you can extract the visions and feelings resident in the still unfinished you.

2. What it feels like to believe you can swoop down on the situation like

Captain America or Wonder Woman, draping your cape over your shoulder as you repair the breech in the project, relationship, or situation with a word or two, saving the day.  Or you try to repair the breech but in your efforts adding a word or two too many, then seeing the breech begin to widen in logarithmic proportions, getting farther away from you.

      3.  What it feels like when you have had a picture of some circumstance               

of wrenching intensity, presented to you in such a way that you first begin to understand the true nature of humor, whereupon you write in that slanted, almost deadpan way nearing objectivity, but in the process implying the sadness and the trickiness of relationships and commitment to ideals and persons and craft, only to be asked by those who’ve read the work when you’re going to settle down and write something serious.

    

4. What it feels like when you have tried to write something serious  

that you discover on rereading it to be totally without humor.

 

5. What it feels like when the opposing political parties of your psyche  

Filibuster your stated agenda.

  

     6.   What it feels like to read something you’ve written, then not believe

it.

7.    What it feels like to read something you’ve written that lifts you out        

of your seat and make you want to cheer because, after all, you’ve made the right choice of professions.

8.    What it feels like to miss something you once had.

9.    What it feels like to think something you once regarded as easy in its true difficulty.

10. What it feels like to discover something you once regarded as

something infinitely more difficult than you realized.

11.What it feels like to be moved to tears by something beautiful in its simplicity.

12.What it feels like to be moved to tears by anything.

All these things ultimately allow the reader to feel the audacity and happiness he requires to start out on his journey.