Hurley House Fine Books

Great Advice from a Great Writer

I got a late start. I don’t know why, exactly. I always wanted to be a writer, yet I didn’t really write much, besides pointless academic papers. Then I wrote a couple of bad novels and several bad stories and some pretty mediocre poetry. That’s what writers write, right? Meanwhile, I was teaching college students composition, and in the texts we used, there were lots of great essays. Of course there were classics from Montaigne to Orwell, but also new writers who focused on the essay rather than fiction. I finally realized what I really wanted to write was the essay.

But as much as I try to focus on my work, it’s easy to get disillusioned. I’m too old to be a writer now. Look at all the time I wasted. It’s too late. Vague excuses. It’s nice to read some very blunt words that remind us to quit whining and keep writing:

Writing is hard for every last one of us—straight white men included. Coal mining is harder. Do you think miners stand around all day talking about how hard it is to mine for coal? They do not. They simply dig.

You need to do the same, dear sweet arrogant beautiful crazy talented tortured rising star glowbug. That you’re so bound up about writing tells me that writing is what you’re here to do. And when people are here to do that they almost always tell us something we need to hear. I want to know what you have inside you. I want to see the contours of your second beating heart.

So write, Elissa Bassist. Not like a girl. Not like a boy. Write like a motherfucker.

This was Cheryl Strayed’s excellent advice to Elissa Bassist, who was struggling with writing as a young woman.

I need to keep this in mind. I can’t write like a young man and I don’t need to write like an old man, I just need to write like a motherfucker.