Do You Want to Be a Better Writer? Understand the Curse of Being One

Something that nobody is teaching you about writing and society.

What’s a writer? Where’s the place of a writer in society?

Those are some real heavy questions for everybody who wants or is a writer. If you aspire to be one, or you are a renowned writer, put those questions to understand the why. Why you want to write, why you spend your days writing, and why you are a writer.

I’ve said before and I will say it as long as I have to: you don’t need to romanticize the act of writing and you don’t want to do it only for the money. As writers, we like to put words on paper just to feel validated for our thoughts.

But if you put aside the need for validation for one moment, you’ll see that writing is the best thing a human can do in life. Because writing allows you to externalize your thoughts, allows you to speak to another person across the globe and beyond the ages. You may never know the author, but you’ll feel his or her thoughts. You’ll be binding to another human right inside your head.

That’s cool, right?

Unfortunately, there are down-sides to being a writer that goes deeper than money, validation, and fame.

So let’s talk about what it means to be a writer and how does society sees them.

What’s a writer?

“Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he’s depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, “Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up.” Man bursts into tears. Says, “But doctor… I am Pagliacci.”

― Alan Moore, Watchmen

This seems like an obvious question, but let’s take it a level deeper from every definition you’ll find on the internet about what means to be a modern writer.

A writer is somebody who has the time and means to reflect the society back to itself like a mirror.

A writer is somebody that takes the best and worst of society and reflects it back, hoping is doing something good.

A writer isn’t part of society. He lives a lonely life, a solitary life. He goes voluntarily at the edge of the society in order to have a better look at it as a whole.

Is a lonely life but somebody has to do it in order to keep society on its toes and don’t let it deteriorate.

The problem is that…

Being a writer is a curse

You want to believe you’re changing people’s minds and lives, but in reality, you’re not doing anything.

“But… but 10k people read my story”. And I assure you 10 minutes later they forgot about it. You’re not important, I’m not important. Nobody is.

We, as writers, forget sometimes how the world works. People are attacked with information every second of their day.

We don’t change as a society.

So write your piece, get your 15 minutes of fame and “holly shit that writer is a genius” and go on with your life. Don’t take it personally, is just how the world works.

The sad part about it is that even the writer isn’t capable of changing himself. Remember Pagliacci? That’s you. That’s me. That’s everyone who has ever written something.

“You’re dead wrong. I have writers who I love and you’re just a sad man on the internet who shits on everyone”. Think about your favorite writer in the world. Now, without looking, write 5 ideas you’ve read in his or her work.

Or better. Take your favorite book/article and re-read it. See how many “new” ideas you can find.

So you want to be an excellent writer? Learn that nobody cares and nobody is paying attention to anything. You don’t need to be sad about it. You need to make that work for you, not against you.

Write, transform, experiment, break barriers. And maybe, just maybe, 100 years from now someone will say “x is my favorite writer” without being able to write 5 of your ideas.

Conclusion

Your life, as a writer, is by excellence a lonely life. But this doesn’t mean it has to be a sad life. Accept your passion and run with it, even if nobody is cheering from the side for you. You’re the mirror of society.

Act like it and don’t let that bring you down, even on some days will be the hardest thing you have to do.

And one last thought: the writer isn’t arrogant or superior to writing.