At Large

John Lennon summed it up. “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.” Things change when we least expect them, and frankly, we can have no response other than to be swept away in the current.

When these odd machines called computers emerged, it seemed that everyone with access to a keyboard and a mouse suddenly became a writer. Writing became so much easier. No pencils (and erasers) or pens. No paper, carbon paper, or White Out required. Write, delete, edit, hit “save,” hit “print.” This is easy stuff. Anybody can do this.

The timeline of word-processing programs that fomented the revolution now reads like a virtual visit to a software graveyard. Remember Electric Pencil from 1976? Me, neither. Perhaps you weren’t even born yet. How about WordStar in 1978, followed quickly by WordPerfect in 1979? When Microsoft Word was introduced in 1983, it was “game over” for the other programs and all these years later, its dominance is secured.

So, the hypothetical question for your amusement: If everyone is a writer, why do we need writers? Or, another bit of churlish inquiry – If everyone has a “smart phone,” why do we need photographers?

One at a time

We’ll let the photographer question answer itself. Should you need further insight, direct your attention to the work of such true visual artists as Lazlo Gyorsok, whose incredible work often graces the cover of this publication and whose website can draw the viewer in for hours of breathtaking exploration.

Writing, however, is a different topic, and to find some peace in a troubled world, we did a bit of searching to find out what celebrated wordsmiths have said about the task, the trade, and the tribulations. What have been their candid thoughts on capturing imagination and observation, forcing them to cohabit in some coherent form and moving them from brain to page?

It may come as a jolt to the system, but there is a difference between writing an email or a text and actually creating a story arc and hammering it into legible shape. It’s lonely work. It can be exhausting. It culminates in letting another set of eyes read and another brain evaluate the product of all that expended effort. 

Reporting, journalism, non-fiction, fiction, screenplays, poetry … the results of the efforts expended end up at the same daunting place. As the work grinds to a conclusion, the “What do you think?” question has the same effect as lighting the fuse on a stick of dynamite … while still holding it. The pages are pushed forward to a partner, a friend, or an editor and the breath holding begins.

“We’re past the age of heroes and hero kings. Most of our lives are basically mundane and dull, and it’s up to the writer to find ways to make them interesting.” – John Updike

Not only is there a painful singularity about “the literary life,” but the pressure to do something helpful? Make things interesting? That adds immense pressure to the game. Updike did a grand job of making life interesting, and if you’ve not spent meaningful time with his exquisite novels or short stories, set aside some quiet time to become introduced.

The “dean of science fiction writers,” Robert Heinlein was quite direct about the writing process: 

“Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of but do it in private and wash your hands afterward.”

As might be suspected, New England’s great naturalist and philosopher, Henry David Thoreau, was inclined to a more genteel approach in commenting on the process. Even though he was a contemporary and near neighbor of the Alcotts, Thoreau fell into the common practice of addressing the task as a masculine endeavor:

“Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with.”

Be not dissuaded. If writing is a passion, write. Not everything that emanates from your imaginative mind will be profound or dramatic. Forge on, realizing that the challenge is unending. 

We can look to the great Ernest Hemingway for consolation whenever the product does not live up to the imagined result:

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”

The bottom line is … the bottom line

And, finally, there’s the notion of making the dubious life choice of trying to forge an entire career on the whispers of ideas that disturb sleep, refuse to be banished even with great effort, and lead to hours of frustration occasionally punctuated by flashes of acceptance.

Our dear friend Nat Benchley is an actor and writer of note, having clearly inherited the gene from a long line of celebrated scribes. His grandfather, Robert, was at the head of that parade as a humorist, critic, screenwriter, and actor. Robert’s hijinks as a celebrated member of the Algonquin Round Table were legendary. It was he who provided this candid observation on living the life of a writer:

“The freelance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.”

And, just like that, we’ve both been doing other things … and life has gone on. One of us should write about it.