The lazy writer

Most of us, I guess, get lazy. We like to sit down in an easy chair, with coffee in hand, and do nothing. Or we watch TV, which is worse than doing nothing, because it feels like someone is doing something on the screen—but of course it’s not us.

But if you’re a writer, then there’s one thing that you have to actually do, otherwise you’re not a writer. Yes, you have to write! And that means that you can’t just sit in a chair and do nothing. You have to put words on a page. Lots of words. You have to think too, for words flow out of thought; there has to be a certain logical flow to your words, with decent connections, and an overall shape.

Now, I’m a bit afraid that this blog is simply stating something that is really, really obvious. But, if my own experience is anything to go by, it’s an obvious truth that bears restating. For there have been long periods of my life as a writer when I haven’t actually written anything. I have let days, weeks, even many weeks, slip by without writing anything new. I have generally had excuses for this. I have been busy on other things, like my job as a teacher, for example, or administration (even administration connected with my writing). The one thing I haven’t been doing as a writer in those times is actually writing.

And so I have found I have often had to stir myself to “get writing” again.

Yet, when I have done so, I have discovered an interesting thing. The very act of “getting writing again” sparks ideas. It is not as though you have to always have the ideas first (although it works that way too). It seems that the purposeful act of writing forces ideas to coalesce and take shape. Ideas come to life as you write them down. Sentences, once written, suggest more sentences. And paragraphs, once formed, suggest yet more paragraphs.

I once sat down to write a kids’ story with nothing in my head but vagueness. I scrawled a first sentence. I wrote: “A funny thing happened on my way to school this morning.” That was it. When I wrote it, I had no idea what funny thing had happened! But simply writing that first sentence got me engaged. A next thought came, and I wrote a second sentence: “My trousers caught on fire.” I still didn’t know why my trousers had caught on fire. But now I had a scenario that begged to be explained in my story. So I pressed on, intrigued as to what might have caused this odd event. And the story grew and grew, and was eventually published in a kids’ magazine (Touchdown) as a short story called “Late note,” illustrated by the great Andrew Joyner.

But the point is this. I would never have written that story at all if I hadn’t just started. If I’d been lazy and hadn’t written that day, the story would never have been birthed, and would never have grown into a published piece.

That’s why I often simply force myself to write—because each sentence, once written, grows into the next. And new pieces of writing somehow eventuate.