Distributed by curators in WRITING
Ask Yourself ‘What Makes You A Good Writer?’
Listening to your inner emotions can be your way ahead
Ray Bradbury, the author of Zen in the Art of Writing, was enraged at Harper’s Bazaar — a women’s fashion magazine — photographers for their perverted sense of equality. “The photographs so enraged me I ran, did not walk, to my machine, and wrote ‘Sun and Shadow,’ the story of an old Puerto Rican who ruins the Bazaar photographer’s afternoon by sneaking into each picture and dropping his pants.”
Feel the raw emotion in Ray’s writing. When I am not writing, I am learning to make my style more exciting — somehow. Does my work say what I want to say? An inner voice urges me to write another sentence. But I feel on edge, as if I might be missing something.
According to Ray Bradbury, I have to find my joy. “What makes you a good writer?” The joy that you extract from composing smart sentences. “Does your work make you feel joy, fulfillment, or at least less anxiety?”
Ray says that ‘if you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer. It means you are so busy keeping one eye on the commercial market, or one ear peeled for the avant-garde coterie, that you are not being yourself. For the first thing, a writer should be is — excited. He should be a thing of fevers and enthusiasm.’
Why? Because only this joy and excitement is going to make you a good writer. You would become addicted to the joy of finishing a story. If you can not sense the joy, you would want to edit your piece. You would want to change it to make it better.
This joy is how you feel the quality of your work.
More views and more comments do not say much. The money you are earning may or may not be enough for the effort that goes into writing something meaningful. If you can write well, you will get the views and the comments. But the way to become a top writer goes through your heart.
I can find joy in a lot of activities, but the joy of writing is always more stimulating. I enjoy my work only if what I said came from my heart.
Ray Bradbury, in his essay, The Joy of Writing, is cruelly honest in advising us that our writing should come from our emotions. ‘How long has it been since you wrote a story where your real love or your real hatred somehow got onto the paper? When was the last time you dared release a cherished prejudice, so it slammed the page like a lightning bolt? When was the last time you did a story out of pure indignation?’
What can you do if you are not deriving any joy from your writing?
You are thinking about the wrong indicators. Hunger for praise from others is only our insecurities demanding social approval. It is not right for you financially or emotionally to write that does not make you feel something. You need not concern yourself too much about what others might say — except maybe your editors and publishers.
Roger Rosenblatt, in his book, The Story I Am: Mad About the Writing Life, says that “Writing makes justice desirable, evil intelligible, grief endurable, and love possible.”
Writing does not express meanings — it redefines meanings as it touches the grey areas in our lives.
I already knew writing brings me joy. Now I’m realizing how this joy might be the only reliable way to move forward.
