How Not to be a Writer

“What did you get up to today?”

Michael, age 26, leaned back in his chair. It was a chair that suited him; the high leather back and plush armrests were designed with this dashing young man and his tweed jacket in mind. There was a crystal-cut glass of whiskey resting on his knee — Lagavulin, peaty, none of the cheap stuff. Sadly, he didn’t have a cigar, but he informed me that he had some Cubans in a box in his wardrobe if a cigar-worthy occasion arose.

“Today,” he said, “I thought about the difference between fear, terror, and horror.”

I nodded. Yes, I thought, but what did you actually do?

I listened politely to his lecture on the difference between fear, terror and horror — to be fair, it was pretty interesting. Michael had noticed that fear was a broad feeling of apprehension and dread, where terror was a strong, physical reaction to something imminently threatening, where horror contained elements of disgust; a reaction to the inhuman. That’s how Michael thought. He was clever like that.

And then I tried again. “So, did you actually write this down, or…?”

“I thought. Did some research.”

“Right. Did you think about it in relation to your book?”

“Yes. Well, in relation to life, too, and language. But yes, there are moments where characters feel these distinctly, and they need to be presented differently.”

“Right!” I said, getting excited now. I thought I was onto something. “So did you make any changes to the plot? Or to the characters’ motivations?”

Michael thought about this for a moment, eyes unfocused as he twirled the whiskey at the bottom of his glass. “No,” he said, finally. “Not really. But it will help me when I come to write those scenes.”

I contained my disappointment. “You haven’t written those scenes yet, then.”

“It really isn’t that kind of novel. See, the problem with chronology is…”

Michael is a good guy, and a tremendous writer. His expression is exquisite. Every phrase is poetry. He is to writing what an abstract artist is to painting; he forgoes realistic description in favour of well-chosen words that create a mood, an unconscious tone. It works. He read me a paragraph of his novel — a description of a city street at night — and while it would have taken me a few read-throughs to fully digest, I got a perfect sense of grimy, underworld foreboding.

To be clear: Michael is not a bad writer. Michael is leagues above me. Michael is seriously, genuinely talented.

But Michael has not had a job in four years.

This isn’t because he doesn’t have the capacity; being as smart as he is, and having such a way with words, he could have walked into a job when he left university.

Instead, he moved back in with his mother to work on his novel. He already had the characters down, already had the philosophy mapped out. He didn’t have any of it plotted, but to him this was a minor inconvenience. The important thing was what his novel had to say, and that was far bigger than mere he-did-this-she-did-that. (I once asked him what it was about, and he said, “a journey from one paradigm to another”. I forget what those paradigms were.)

And here we are, four years later. His days of writing, of actually getting up and typing words out, are lost among weeks of thinking. Theorising. Having imaginary debates with people as intelligent as he is.

He doesn’t have the first chapter. He doesn’t have chapters. His writing is so nebulous that, while he has worked consistently on this book , and created reams of beautiful words, none of them are presentable. He has nothing to show for it. He doesn’t care that this thing he’s creating is actually meant to be read, by real people; I don’t think that matters to him, as long as everyone knows how clever the underlying themes are.

It saddens me that such a brilliant writer, and a brilliant thinker, has no audience. As far as I’m aware, no one except me (and maybe his mum?) has seen his writing. His voice is unheard.

And in the end, a silent genius sounds the same as a silent idiot.

Now, I am no Hemingway, and I can’t do what Michael can do. Hell, I can barely do what I can do. But I have an online audience (small, but loyal) and my writing is out there. I’m constantly getting feedback, constantly practising, and as a result, constantly improving. I’m not sure I can say the same for him.

And it’s something I see quite a lot in writers. They craft sentences in their bedrooms, never venturing out to engage with writers or readers, never showing their work, never producing anything. And then they wonder why they aren’t popular.

If a tree is described in a forest, and no one’s there to read it, does it make a sound?

Sadly, having readers is an inherent part of being a writer — at least, if you plan on being published. Your audience is the thing that’s going to pay your wages, and you’d do well to engage with them and listen to them. It’s good practice to dip your toes in the water, release some short stories and get people interested. Discerning readers that push you to improve should be your motivation, not an afterthought.

Maybe, in a year’s time, Michael will release the next Great American (uh, English) Novel, and prove that those four years of work really were worth it. Maybe he’ll prove that craft is everything, that public blogging is just pandering to the masses, and that the silent genius had the right idea all along.

Maybe.

But I think we call them works for a reason. It is work. It’s hard work. And the work can’t speak for itself until it’s bloody done.

In short, I’d just like him to write the damn book, because you can’t be a writer without writing.