Now that I've got my master's in writing ... I'm not writing!

I do well with things I know I'm great at, but I'm not sure I'm great
at writing.

Cary Tennis

March 12, 2008 | Dear Cary,

I'm a reasonably happy, reasonably successful 28-year-old woman. Since
moving to Chicago from Ann Arbor, Mich., five years ago, I've done
fairly well as a personal trainer at an upscale health club. I've got
a great apartment, good friends and a wonderful boyfriend with whom I
live. This past June, I earned my master's in writing, finally
attaining the knowledge and experience I thought I might need to
change careers and pursue writing full time. Though much of my
background is in fitness, my plan has long been to stick with training
only until I could secure a writing job or switch to training part
time and writing freelance. My friends, my family and even my
professors have been enormously supportive of this plan.

Now, nine months later, the question I've come to dread is, "How's the
writing going?" The honest answer, which I always -- albeit
begrudgingly -- supply, is that it's not. Aside from a deliriously
short-lived venture into fitness blogging, I've stalled in my attempts
to produce anything worthy of publication. I acknowledge that I lack
motivation, and I've blamed it on everything from my erratic schedule
to this spirit-sucking winter. But Chicago's harshest has begun to
lift, and even my most convincing excuses have begun to wear thin.

Partly I think I'm overwhelmed by where to start. Partly I believe
that the lack of a deadline (like I had when I was in school) has kept
me from putting any of my work out there. And it exists -- I have
plenty of material, mostly literary nonfiction, that I produced while
in the writing program.

Mostly, however, I think I'm afraid. Which is funny, because I've
never failed at anything I've set out to do. Which is perhaps my
problem -- I've never set out to do anything I didn't already know I'd
be successful at. I did well in school, and the writing program was no
exception. My professors in large part lauded my work, even where I
doubted myself. (For the record, I'm not convinced that I'm that good
at this, but I think I'm at least good enough to get a job doing it. I
think.)

In the next six months, my boyfriend and I will likely relocate from
Chicago, thus forcing me to seek new work. I fear that I will settle
back into a fitness job, where I know I'll do well, and that writing
will continue to be a fantasy.

Is there any hope for me? How can I give myself the kick in the ass
that I so desperately need?

Writing Only in My Dreams ...

Dear Dream Writer,

The connection between writing ... and writing for money or writing
for success has to be broken. You need a good, strong, regular writing
practice. The ego has to be broken for the voice to come through. The
voice is what you want. The voice that makes no sense at first is what
you want. The voice that sounds a little crazy is what you want. Try it.

You have to break the connection between ego and practice. The
practice is the thing. How can you do that? You find a model in your
life. What activities do you now practice for their own sake? Let's
get very basic. What are your needs? You eat, you have sex, you listen
to music, you exercise. What do you do for enjoyment alone? How do you
manage your "inner life"? Do you meditate or practice any sort of
religion? Do you enjoy cooking? Find a place like that in your life
for your writing. You might try one of those books, too, like "The
Artist's Way." I don't know, I haven't read all those books but I have
read some of them. "Bird by Bird" helped a lot.

Regardless of whether you sell your writing, you do it. Regardless of
anything, you do it. It has to be a practice. There are many ways to
get there. One way, which I have only come to very late in my career,
is to be in a workshop. You probably had those in college. Maybe
you're sick of them. I was sick of them after college. But now the
workshop is helping me. I am in such a workshop, but I am such an
egotist and such a control freak that for me to be in a workshop I had
to run my own. So be it. So I run my own. I walk around like I thought
the whole thing up myself, but actually it is the Amherst Writers and
Artists model. There are many models. This one works for me. I learn a
great deal. And I am comforted. I need to be comforted because I am
uncomfortable; I am a harsh self-critic. Others are not so lucky. I
often hate my work. I simply detest it. I want to burn it. I think
that it shows me in the worst possible light, as a whining, mewling
infant, an idiot, a selfish prick. Yes, I am full of the most
detestable self-hatred. And I am utterly transparent. This I take to
be part of the job. Others do not. Others more successful have
exquisite control; they write and do not feel the need to confess.
What of it? Being a writer is permission to be disreputable: That is
my chosen tradition. I am, shall we say, privately disreputable; I
have my little jokes on the world and on myself; there is a dark side
you don't see but you may feel it.

So give your self permission. Give your self permission to be wholly
reprehensible. This is what they call the dark side. The dark side is
where images arise unbidden before the ideas and the words. There is
something there when you are not doing what you are supposed to do. So
give yourself permission to be reprehensible because that is what is
interesting and writing is not good or bad but only interesting. It
lets us look through the peephole. Let yourself be a bad exercise
person. Allow your vices. Give your vices voices. Let the voyeurs read
you. Give people something to see. Give them a peep show. Take your
clothes off in your writing because you'll be arrested if you take
your clothes off in public but you can do it in your writing and you
will not be arrested but you will be read. Be a bad person in your
writing. The writing cleanses you. Be a bad person in your writing and
then make yourself better and you have a changed character in a novel.
It might be that simple: Start out bad and become good: That's change.
Make a character do that. That's a character. Maybe we would call it
drama or art. Anyway it helps you get on with the day.

Do it for these reasons. Keep doing it for these reasons. Do it for no
reason. Keep doing it for no reason. When you are doing it because it
is your voice, then it will not matter who is publishing you. It will
have become apparent that writing is your friend. It will be what you
would do in prison if they locked you up. It keeps you sane. It saves
you. That's what it's for. Doing it for others sucks us dry. We have
to do it for ourselves, for the love of it, for it. We have to give
ourselves over to it like giving ourselves over to a lover or to the
water, like giving ourselves over to the waves and sinking under. We
just give ourselves to it. We surrender to it. We don't worry about
who will publish it. We do it because we need to.