If You love "Having Written," Turn on Your Crap Detector

“I hate writing, but I love having written.”

                                             -Frank Norris (1915)

This quote is a hard one to be honest about.  Because if we (those of us who call ourselves writers) are honest about it, it doesn’t make us look very good.  Damned bad, in fact.   We are like those parents who take credit for all our kids accomplishments, while forgetting to pack their lunch.  Image without substance.    There are lots of writer's blogs out there that have explored the meaning of this quote - I read a lot of them when I was working up to this, jotting down ideas, researching the quote’s origins.  And, by the way, No, it was not Dorothy Parker who said it.  In fact, there’s no link at all to Parker and this quote.  Nor was it, (as some have claimed) Gloria Steinem.  Or Cornelia Otis Skinner.  Or the many others it’s been attributed to.  Most of them have quoted the line, but the first documented use was by novelist Frank Norris in a newspaper interview in 1915.

Frank Norris

People generally write about this quote as though it were all about process.  The writing is hard work, (I hate that), but the end product is satisfying (I love that).  But I think there is much more here.   I think this quote, which many have blurted, tongue-in-cheek, goes beyond the notion that the struggle is worth the product, that the hard work is worth the satisfaction.  There’s more here than the idea that commitment to gut-wrenching honesty in your work leads to relief when that is done. My thoughts on it’s relevance apply  to all forms of writing, all types of writers - from the commercial writer who writes for the market, working hard daily to churn out volumes of quick-and-easy formulaic reads, to the would-be ‘artist’ who labors for truth in every word.  

Four or five years ago, I went to a local theater to see a production of Steven Dietz’s play Fiction.  The play’s two main character’s are both writers, though one has produced only one book, and the other writes material even he considers unsatisfying.  The play has many layers about writers, relationships, and the lies we tell, but the moment that I am thinking of now comes as the husband in the pair sits at his desk talking about his work, and uses this quote in his speech.  There was light laughter in the audience when he said it, and two or three of us who laughed much louder.  I fairly barked out my  laughter at the line.  At intermission, the friend I was with asked me what I found so funny about it, and I felt pinned to the spot, mentally flailing for an answer.  

Why was it so much funnier to me than to others in the audience?  And why couldn’t I explain that?  

Because it’s hard to own up to unpleasant things about yourself.  A local reviewer called the characters in the play “un-charming” and “self-satisfied.”  And I identified with them.  It’s similar to having a belly-laugh at a sitcom about a dysfunctional family, because you see the ghosts of your own family there.  

What Michael (the husband in the play) seemed to me to be saying when he uttered this line was that he really hated writing, but he loved being a writer.   There are perks, after all - even if (like most of us) you are not famous and only have middling (or no) publications.  People envy your ability with words.  People admire your commitment.  They ask for advice, they respect you and what you do.  They romanticize (and so do you) the image of what it means to be a writer.  That can be a pleasant place to be, living in that imagery.

Perhaps, when faced with this, we all need Hemingway’s “shock proof crap detector” - (the only quality he said every good writer needed to have).   A writer needs to be perpetually on the alert for crap - especially her/his own.  Much has been made of getting rid of your ‘internal critic'- that voice inside telling you that your work sucks, and so do you.  Whole lessons have been structured about getting rid of that voice.  But we need to rid ourselves of the voice on the other end of the spectrum as well, the voice of self-satisfaction, the voice that romanticizes the work we do.  Because it’s work, not a self-promotion plan.  Laugh at ourselves when we go that route, then roll up our sleeves and, simply, work.