Thoughts on Being a Writer

There’s an old notion that writers must have an old hideaway in order to write: a secluded cabin, a rickety treehouse, a secret waterfall. The reality is much harsher. 

After I dropped out of college, I called Jo with the helplessness of a girl who never wanted to go to college in the first place. I was going because it was what people did, not because I truly felt peace about going. Jo gave me a talking to. 

“You’re a writer,” she said. “So write. Do what you always tell me to do. Write me a story.”

I hated her for ten minutes before I realized I hadn’t written in almost six months. My fingers were suddenly itching to write. I had not been well enough mentally to even write much beautiful poetry. I was desperate for creativity to come rushing back to me. And it did, slowly, in my dimly lit bedroom at 11:45 at night. I took an idea Jo had written for me years ago. She had abandoned it but I had always been obsessed with the idea. I began writing before I could stop to think about the plot or the characters or where the story would end up. 

Sometimes I would stay up until three or four writing. Sometimes, when I was unable to write in my own room, I’d force myself to stay in my parents’ room, sitting on their bed. One time I didn’t get up for seven hours so I could finish the draft I was writing. I finished the novel in less than a month– my other novels had taken at least six months to a year to write. I hadn’t realized I was capable of this. Long, tiresome nights spent in my room, laying on my floor, writing at my sister’s desk, sitting at the black chair in my living room while my family watched a movie. 

Writing is less than glamorous. 

I finished the draft, and wrote another draft a month after that. I told Jo I was taking a break when she asked what I was planning for the book. 

In reality, I was secretly writing her a novel for Christmas. It was a hard secret to keep and even harder to write, because I had started working full time the week I decided to start writing it. I stopped taking calls from my friends at night, I did not talk to people at lunch. I woke up every morning at six thirty and would write a few sentences, get ready, and leave. At work I got my lunch at the cafeteria or from my lunchbox and I sat alone in a puddle of sunlight to write for about forty five minutes before I went back to work. When I got home at six I would throw my backpack on my bed and cuddle up with my computer in the giant armchair that had been temporarily placed in my room. It was here that I would stay until dinner, and sometimes after dinner I would return to my hobbit hole, or ‘the dungeon’ as I like to affectionately call it while I stumble into the throes of writing. Some days if it was nice I would write outside and pretend I was on the streets of Paris. Sometimes, if I was lucky, interesting people would walk by and I could imagine them in the hideaway I was writing about. 

It is odd to be a writer. Half the time it is forcing yourself to do something you hate. Sitting down and actually accomplishing a task? What is this impossible thing you ask of me?

Setting myself a deadline and writing in the most unlikely places was always a lovely place for me to be. If I am on a deadline– however self inflicted that may be– I become an agitated creature. Agitated, but productive. Heaven bless the ones who see me in disarray, clothes frumpy, hair greasy, mood unknown as I might have to rush off in a frenzy to my half-dead computer. If someone were to study my habits when I am in the depths of my writing, they would emerge with eyes wide and mind tired of my stupidity. It is true, I am not the best at time management, and it is true, I listen to the same few songs on repeat, but sometimes that is what a writer must do. 

I have no beautiful place to write and I have no perfect habit when it comes to my writing but I am passionate about it and I will keep writing my whole life even when it is my greatest fear that I will never be one of the greats. I will always love crafting characters and touching hearts and creating worlds I will never live in. I can only hope that one day a teenager like me will pick up my books and realize it was the book they’d been waiting for their entire lives. 

Writing is not the glamorous thing that old books and movies make it out to be. It is boredom, frustration, annoyance, heartbreak, grief, love, joy, beauty, terror– it is every possible human emotion. 

Sometimes I stop and think, why do I love to write if it is so hard?

And then I realize: love never promised to be easy.

So I sit in my room, and I type the words on my keyboard. I will never stop. 

Written by, Adelaide Laurence