Getting the Writer's Edge

The study was Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. The assignment was offered. Write an essay about your perspective on writing. The gauntlet was dropped at my feet. I immediately knew what to do.

I lay curled on the couch, fetal position, rocking and thinking. Thinking about what to write. How to explain writing, to offer my perspective. How to explain me.

I am in that state again. That state of questions without answers, that state of doubt. It is, after all, a writer's constant companion no matter the circumstance of a writer's life.

You cannot feed anyone that way, they tell me when asked what I do. Right now, I do nothing. Therefore it stands to reason I contribute nothing.

I believe them. They are, of course, in the strictest sense, correct. I have no job.

A reporter, a journalist, a commentator? Not without a degree, they say. Sell fiction, non-fiction, poetry? Not without an agent, they will quip. And continue on to remind that today everyone is a blogger, a writer, a freelance journalist, a [insert writer subcategories here]. And no one is making money at it. With millions upon millions doing it all over the world, you cannot.

It is doubt, the writer's unwavering attendant, my nemesis du jour ad infinitum.

I give in, as I always do, and it stifles me. The creeping self doubt that can lay bear the heart of the greatest of foreboding giants or the soul of the most powerful country. I can feel its gritty flesh grip tight to my insides and squeeze relentlessly. There is no malice in the doubt. It just is. It does not intend me harm, but it does. It does not mean to stifle, but it does.

I sleep. The mind is freed from doubt, as it can now create without outside interference. The inspiration is set free in a realm of endless possibilities. Doubt may come knocking, but it can't come in. And even f it does manage a small foothold in the crack of consciousness, it is immediately vanquished with wakefulness. Therefore, there is no fear.

I awake. The fear is not gone, the doubt still lingers. But now a question forms. And it is the beginning of inspiration, it is the seed of an idea, it is a kernel of truth waiting for me to add the heat for it to pop.

What does a writer do?

They say a writer creates with words. But what does that mean? A dress maker fashions cloth and buttons and bows and zippers and snaps and stitches together a creation that can be worn to a fancy ball. A auto manufacturer welds together metal and plastic and pipes and rubber and builds a car that can be driven into one's driveway. A sculptor molds clay and chisels stone and plies wood and brings shape from shapeless to express art. But what does a writer contribute to the world? You cannot admire a book on the wall or on a pedestal. You can drive a book into a driveway and extol to your neighbors its fine attributes. You cannot wear a book to a fancy party and not expect to get arrested.

What a writer does is create thoughts and inspirations and weaves tales with magical, mystical patterns that pour from the printed page into the eyes or from the lips of the teller into the ears and inspires and offers wonders and nourishes and enriches the knowledge of the reader, the listener. A writer creates from nothing, brings forth something that was not there and still is not tangible to the senses, and adds to the harmony and song of the cosmos of human experience.

But what of it? What good could come of it. It cannot be tasted or touched or smelled, it cannot be heard or seen by others in a physical sense. What does the writer do to be deserving of attention.

The reader. The reader is the why and the who and the how and when and where of it all. Through the reader, the writer's contribution can best be examined. From the reader the writer offers joy and hope and mystery and excitement and fear. From the reader, the writer's work can best be observed, as it is the reader, the ultimate fulfillment of the writer's potential that we can see how knowledge gained is shared. The reader then is inspired to sculpt and build and stitch. From the reader comes all the things that can be seen, touched, heard, tasted and smelled. And from the reader we can see the furthering of the writer's influence as, in few cases, the reader becomes the writer; apprenticed through no more than words and thoughts and ideas.

And I conclude, that no matter what I "do" in life, what I am is easy to decide.

I am a writer.