Must Writing Be Hell?

You don't often find people who dislike writing asking themselves this question. For them, it's a foregone conclusion that the less time spent writing the better. Those who love to write, especially those who write for a living, seem to enjoy one-upping each other over the question of whether writing is primarily pleasure or pain. 

Ben Yagoda, a regular contributor to the blog Lingua Franca, collects some of the most searing laments about the writing life in a recent post titled "The Agony (or Not) of Writing." If you're one of those who has experienced the special stress of trying to get something you need to say in print, imagine yourself asking newly retired novelist Philip Roth how he views writing, as quoted in Yagoda's post:

I would quit while you're ahead...You write and you write, and you have to throw almost all of it away because it's not any good. I would say just stop now. You don't want to do this to yourself.

One can argue that Roth can afford to be dramatic about writing precisely because he has made a life of it, lives being held to be more noble when marked by suffering. Certainly, when we take any writing task seriously it becomes challenging work because it is cognitively and therefore emotionally demanding. Writing is not just copying down what we hear in our heads. It is social behavior requiring attention to the poetics of the medium (written language) as well as to the politics of creating messages that escape our control once they are published. Then there's that ideal reader we have to conjure in our writing brains if our message is to reach our intended audience.

Committing messages to print is risky behavior--What if I'm wrong? What if I sound 'dumb'? What if they hate it? What if my ideas are rejected? It's pretty certain that even confident, prolific writers struggle to cope with the risks inherent in writing things others will read and judge. That fear--that we will be exposed or diminished by what we dare to say in print--is enough to make writing a special, high-risk kind of human work. 

In a society as literate as ours, however, it doesn't make sense to create an atmosphere of personal crisis every time we write. Competent writing does not require gnashing of teeth or cosmic despair. For each writing task you take on, you choose how hard you want to work at it. The saying 'garbage in garbage out' applies as in all human endeavors. On the other hand, if we care too much and psyche ourselves out with fear or denial, we can get overwhelmed and seek out that old enabler, Friend Procrastination. 

Yagoda, who teaches English and journalism at the University of Delaware, has taught countless college students to keep their feet firmly planted on fertile rather than infernal ground. His short book How Not to Write Bad: The Most Common Writing Errors and How to Avoid Them (2013) is a practical, upbeat tipsheet written to help you write in a level-headed manner without spiritual distress. His theme is that most often we need to write things that are good enough to get something done in the world. Having realistic yet informed expectations of ourselves when we are required to write a paper or business document takes the hellfire out of writing for those who dread it. 

Unlike the APA or MLA manual, How Not to Write Bad is readable from cover to cover in addition to being a guide to refer to in moments of doubt. Adorned with page flags or highlights on your favorite pages, this little helpmate can walk you through most kinds of writing tasks without stumbling into common but embarrassing mistakes.

No one learns to write well or even well enough from reading a single book. However, if you need some constructive solace in those low moments while you're stressing over yet another paper, Yagoda's friendly tone is welcome competition to that devilish voice whispering "Abandon all hope." He provides instead a healthy dose of "You can do it!" There's nothing tormented or more necessary than that when your confidence wanes.  

Photo credit: szeke / Foter.com / CC BY-SA