Writing as Practice: What Writers Really Do

I walked with Martha the other day. I haven’t seen her in a while because she’s been on sabbatical from the art department. 

She asked me what I’d been up to and, as usual, my mind went completely blank.

“Nothing, “ I said.

No. That’s not what I said. I said, “Whenever anyone asks me that question, my mind goes completely blank. I can’t think of a single thing I’ve done that’s worth talking about. Walk dogs, scribble here, clean the house, teach yoga, walk, read.

That’s the way it is with writers, and that’s what has always frustrated me. They have nothing to hang on the wall, or fire in the kiln, or play for an audience.

To be a writer, you have to read. 

A lot. 

And you have to write. 

A lot. 

And you have to pay attention, take notes, and practice metacognition—you have to notice that you’re thinking, and not just what you’re thinking about. 

And even after all that, there’s still no stuff, except for an expanding line of notebooks on the shelf. 

Notebooks that are never even reread.

Because the purpose of the notebooks isn’t to read them. The notebooks are just for practice. Like playing scales.

Just like Sue practices her oboe, or Christine practices her flute,  I scribble in notebooks.

 We do it to get more fluent.

But unlike Sue or Christine, I’m not performing regularly.

What I should perhaps be doing is take on a writing project, like Gretchen Rubin, who describes herself as “A writer who studies…” and then goes on to list what she studies. “Happiness, good habits, and her current project, which is this idea of “The Open Door,” which is her reframe of “The Empty Nest.”

If I were to try this on myself, I might say, “Kath is a writer who studies the intersection of yoga and meatloaf. She wants to know how to bring the practice of yoga into real life.

But is that what I do?

Maybe. 

What I do is simply wonder about things. And notice things. Like what triggers me, and things I like and don’t like.

Like yesterday, when G was having rotator cuff surgery, I waited in a Barnes and Noble with a Starbucks-ish cafe. It felt like writing in a library and it was perfect. Much better than any coffee shop I had ever worked in.

The difficulty of being a writer is that you have nothing to show for it. No painting on the living room wall, no ceramic mug in the pantry, no quilt on the bed, no live performance with your name on the program at the concert hall. 

It’s different if a writer is working on something for a publisher. In that case, there’s a project, a plan, a commitment, an advance.

 But I am not doing that.

I’m sitting here chronicling my days in the hopes that something interesting will float to the top that might be interesting or relevant for someone else to read. It’s very self-serving what I do. 

So that’s why I’m always asking: “Who cares?” And, “What’s my why?”

I think I write to prove to myself I’m alive.

It’s a bit like graffiti. Except in typescript rather than spray paint. 

Kath was here. She likes meatloaf. And yoga. And the first sip of coffee in the morning, and Paris, and cashmere sweaters, and Yosemite, and the little spit sink at the dentist, and the word tweezers, and cedar waxwings, and…