The Truth About Writing

I almost didn’t want to finish this. As you can tell from the title (and after reading this), writing has its disadvantages. It can leave you feeling more dejected than excited. Hopefully, this can help you with your own feelings toward writing and inspire you to start or continue. Enjoy.

Summer was already halfway over and I hadn’t written anything. I thought with all this extra time, I would write more. So much for that idea. But I wasn’t a quitter. I just needed to focus and come up with a plan. Yeah, that’s it. 

I would design a schedule. 

Back in undergrad, I had planned my whole day out, from the time I woke up, to when I went to bed, leaving no hour unturned. While that felt overwhelming at times, I got a lot of work done. Maybe if I scaled it back a bit, I could still be productive without all the pressure.  

I took out one of the many notebooks I owned, this one a purple one with a quill pen on the cover, with the word Dream written in big, cursive letters on it. It was simple but effective. I opened it up and flipped to the first blank page. At the top I wrote the date and underneath I wrote Plans For The Day. I figured instead of writing a strict schedule, I’d write what I wanted to achieve for the day.  

With that done, I pulled out my laptop. I normally didn’t prefer to work in my home office, but I’d found that I was more productive in the “office” than in my room. I figured it would be a piece of cake to get something written, I’d have a novel in no time. 

“Okay inspiration, hit me.” 

“What are you doing?” 

“Ah! What are you doing? You scared me.” I swiveled in my office chair, turning to face my sister, Seija.

Seija was a year older than me and had already graduated from college. She was working as an assistant at some special learning center for kids with special needs. Everyone in our family thought she was doing the Lord’s work. Those same people that I was wasting my time with all this writing. They worried I wouldn’t make any money and end up right back at home after graduation. But I’d show them. I’d prove them all wrong and win a Pulitzer. Ha! Yet I couldn’t do that until I actually wrote something. 

Thus I needed to kick Seija out and get back at it. 

“What do you want?” I snapped at my sister. 

“Hey, don’t get snippy with you. You're the one talking to yourself in here.”

“No I wasn’t!” I blushed even though I totally was. Iif I deny, deny, deny, then eventually she’d believe me. Or at the very least, leave me alone. 

“Okay, then what are you doing in here?” Seija came sauntering into the room. 

Oh great. Now I’ll never get any work done. 

“Look Seija, I’m working today, so could please—“

“Ooh! Let me see!” She snatched my journal from my hands. “What the fuck is this?” 

“It’s my schedule,” I explained, trying to grab it back. “It’s to help me write.” 

“12 to 1: write outline. 1 to 2: write chapter one, 2 to 3: review chapter one—Nan, what is this?” 

“What do you mean? I just told you. It’s my schedule. It will allow me to focus and finally write this book.” 

My voice had a slight edge to it, but I couldn’t help it. Every time I turned around, someone would ask, “When you gonna write this thing?” Or, “How long do it take to write a book?” Oh, and my favorite (sarcasm, if you couldn’t tell), “You call yourself a writer, yet I never see you writing.” Followed by hysterical laughter. It was the laughter that was the salt in the wound. 

“Ha!” She laughed, flipping through the pages before throwing the journal back on my desk. “This will never make you write a book.” 

“Excuse me?!” I stood up, squaring up against my older sister. 

I had just about enough of this chick. Seija thought she knew everything. Just because she was older, already had a good job, she thought she had all this wisdom to bestow upon me as her younger sister. It was infuriating. 

“Before you go off, you might learn something if you listen to me. When was the last time you wrote something?” 

Immediately I lost all my fire. I knew the answer to the question and I was ashamed to say I hadn’t since the last time I sat in the classroom. When I was in school, I wrote all the time. I wrote in the margins of my notes, I wrote while eating in the cafe, I especially wrote as soon as I got up, before heading to my classes.

Now, I was too busy to even think of things to write. And whenever I did try to write, nothing came to mind. And it just felt like maybe I was never that into writing. Maybe I only chose to write because someone else made me do it. And if that was the case, how did I write anything now? Why did I care so much? 

“Earth to Nanette.” Seija brought me out of my reverie. 

I stared at her, ready to fight but I couldn’t deny the truth standing right in front of me. I was the reason I wasn’t writing. I could have been writing this whole time but I put it off. I made excuses or just flat out refused to write. I had no one to blame but myself. 

“You know what?” Seija shoved past me, ripping open the bottom left drawer of my desk. 

“Hey!” 

“Hush you. I’m trying to help you out.” 

“Oh yeah?” I sneered. “Care to fill me in?” 

She pushed me back down in my chair before swiveling me around to stare at a blank piece of paper in the center of the desk.

“What is–”

“Forget the schedule,” she began. “Forget about the last time you wrote, forget about why you haven’t been writing. But most importantly, stop blaming yourself, just write.”

Her words sank in and breathed a sigh of relief. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t hear the jeering comments or feel the scrutiny of my family’s stares. I felt supported and seen.

I looked over my shoulder at her, my eyes questioning, ‘How did you know?’

Her eyes replied, ‘Sisters always know.’ 

“So here’s what we’re going to do.” She clasped her hands together. “I’m going to give you an assignment and you’re going to have one hour to complete it.”

“But I—“ 

“Don’t worry.” My sister held up her hand. “I’m going to start you off small. Something like—“ she tapped her finger to her chin then snapped her thumb and index finger. “Aha! Name all the characters in your book. List your Protagonist, Antagonist, Mentor, Sidekick, Comic Relief, etc. and just write down their names for now. Nothing else.” 

“What if I don’t have a character like that in my story?”

She shrugged. “Either make something up or leave it blank. You can always come back to it later.” 

“Just like that huh? Seij, it’s not that simple. You don’t get it.” And just when I thought we were getting closer. 

I felt her hand on my shoulder before she said, “Oh I get it. Mom and Dad, and really everyone, expect too much from us. It’s scary following your passions instead of settling for the safe choice.” Now that made me whip around, giving her my undivided attention. 

“Don’t get it twisted,” she continued. “I’m happy with where I am now. Better than I was before. But I know what it’s like to pursue your dreams and feel like an island, with no one on your side. And I want you to know, I’m on your team and I’m here to help. Now enough of that.” She twirled me back around. “Write!” 

Seija set a timer, and I began writing. At first all I had was the protagonist and the antagonist, because it’s easy to see your hero and your villain in your story. Their roles were so clear, as clear as the pale blue sky, you couldn’t miss them. But the mentor and the sidekick . . . They were a little tougher. 

“15 down, 45 to go,” Seija called out. 

Dammit! I quickly jotted ‘Human Dad’ and moved on the sidekick. My main character wasn’t mortal and immortal, thus she had a mortal parent as well as an immortal parent. I figured the distinction should be made, lest I got confused reading it later. Next I put the roommate down for the sidekick, although I crossed out that word and wrote secondary character instead. The roommate was her own force to be reckoned with. She was nobody’s sidekick. 

“No thinking, just writing,” Seija interrupted my thoughts. 

“Okay, okay.” I waved her off and got back to it. By the time I was done, I had at least 15 characters. I kind of wished I had done this sooner because this was the most progress I had made since the semester ended. And it was all thanks to Seija. 

“Thank you.” I turned towards her. 

“Oh don’t thank me yet. We’re just getting started. Now, describe each one of those characters. You know, say something like tall, dark and handsome. Keep it short and sweet. I’m giving you another. Go!” 

And then there were times I really hated my sister. 

“Dammit Seija I wasn’t ready.”