The Trouble With Wanting To Write

10 minutes ago

3 min read

I can't teach ambition.

It's something Jack said in a class last year. It's true.

I can teach you the tools to make you a better writer, but I can't teach you to use them.

We were talking about this in class this morning. One of my students said she'd had a hard week. Her back went out. She was in pain.

"I'm sorry you're in pain," I said. She has a lot on her plate, not just the back strain, as she has a young daughter. "But you wrote. And you should feel good about that!"

We all carry a lot on our backs. We all have a lot going on. And there's a difference between wanting to write and wanting to become a better writer.

"Writing takes work," I said. "Like anything worth achieving in our lives, it takes work." Career aspirations, becoming healthy (or healthier), working out, running a marathon, a marriage. It all takes work.

We're not a writing club. Not that there's anything wrong with writing clubs. But that's not what we are. We don't come together to journal. We're members of a collective. We're learning to write well. We're learning Jack Grapes' Method Writing©—tools and techniques that will make you a better writer.

A journal entry has no restrictions. No limitations.

Orson Welles said, “The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.”

When you sit down to write a Method Writing journal entry, you're doing an exercise. You're trying to write like another writer, or doing Teeth and mouth, or you're massaging a transformation line. Or you're just writing like you talk. But you are practicing a technique.

I don't tell you what to write. I offer you a tool that forces you to write something you wouldn't normally write.

You can sit down every morning and write whatever you feel like writing. There's nothing wrong with that. Of course, I hope you go to Ralph's and buy a chicken, that you sit down, not knowing what you're going to write about and write.

We read other writers and think, gosh, they make that look easy. We see them doing something we want to do. Great, let that be your assignment. But know, what they make look easy took a lot of work. They write through the crap. They're ambitious.

They do their exercises the way boxers practice footwork or singers practice their scales. You can't break the rules until you know what they are.

Ambition: a strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work.

The desire is only part of it. The determination and hard work are the rest.

Nobody is going to come knocking on your door demanding that you write. But if you don't write, there are consequences. You'll miss the opportunity to discover something about yourself. And you'll miss the opportunity to make a difference with your words.

The thing about being a writer is you'll write stuff you don't like. You'll write stuff you didn't want to write. And you'll write stuff you're glad you wrote. And you'll do it because you want to learn and grow. Because you want to be a better writer. Because you have something to say. Because you want to write.

So ask yourself:

Why am I writing?

What do I want from my writing?

Am I willing to do the work to get there?

Because I can give you the tools.

But you're the one who has to pick them up.