Three Years of Writing About Writing

Writing is a Solitary Venture, But it's One That WE Learn by Reading, Writing, and, Ideally, via Generous Mentors

I started Novel Master Class’s blog three years ago this October. That's three years of writing about writing. I won’t do the math, but I haven’t missed writing my weekly post since that day (I normally post on Tuesdays, although that fluctuates). I’m devoted to it more than anything else I do, other than work on my own fiction. At first, I started the blog as something I could do to “build my platform,” but also to sell a book or two and get some work editing novel manuscripts. Somehow, it’s become much more. Besides throwing around a link on social media, getting some reads, having writers discovering the blog through Google and Facebook and wherever, doing some book reviews I enjoyed doing and hopefully helping some writers, new and more experienced, learn how to write, or at least encouraging them to, the blog has kept my north star lit up bright and prominent in my own journey through this thing we all love.

I learn when I write. I learn when I write a list or an email. I learn when I write letters to people on paper (I type them because no one, including me, can figure out what I’ve written), and I learn when I write my own fiction. Writers are born, I hear. They’re naturally gifted. Writers are made, I hear, they put the work in (10,000 hours), and they teach themselves. Writers improve their craft at MFA programs in creative writing, I hear; others, plenty of them, are destroyed at MFA programs because they kill originality and the facilitators teach them how to write like them. I learn from everything I do that involves writing. I learn from everything that I do that involves living, both the painful moments as well as the “good” ones, whatever that means (I’ve become more cynical the older I get). We make sense of life by writing about it, like my mentor, John Dufresne, says. But I write. I write.

One of the things I’ve been thinking about recently and, to be honest, probably on and off since I started writing at the age of sixteen, is if I “have” it. Meaning, after the countless hours I’ve spent creating worlds and characters and stories, plots and dialogue, am I (is it) any good? Will I get that publishing deal I’ve dreamed about, ever? Yes, I have stories and nonfiction published. Yes, I “have a book,” as writers say. But I’m not in academia in that I remained the course in that arena, teaching at universities, working in MFA programs, getting published by university presses or, like most, striving for a contract by the bigs. Maybe I took the course I was meant to take. Maybe not. Well, I chose the road less traveled, I think, and so here I am. Another writer living in relative obscurity.

But then there’s the other side of the coin, the side that screams from the balconies that I. Am. A. Writer! And how do I know this? Because I can’t not write. Since I can remember, there’s always been a voice inside my head that said, get back to work. You’re slacking. You haven’t put any words down, so how do you expect to write another book‽ (by the way, that question mark and exclamation point symbol is called an interrobang, and I will use it forever!). And so, I write. I write this blog every week. I work on the ten novels I have written, editing, revising, rewriting, deleting. I write a new novel every year or so, depending on if I think I have devoted enough time to improving the novels I have already written. Today, I’ll admit, I haven’t written a word of fiction in probably a month or more. Not because I haven’t wanted to, but because I’ve been busy packing up multiple garages and pole barns (large metal buildings normally seen in agricultural areas around the country), mowing, weed eating six or so acres, moving a couple hours away into a new house, and now volunteering for my daughter’s band gigs (she’s in high school!), which means I’ll be participating in social events that I normally would not participate in, as I prefer peace and quiet and books over sitting on bleachers besides other parents dressed in the high school shirts as they cheer on “our” football team. I know, however, that all of it will turn up in my writing—I can see it now, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (Puerto Rican Jew-style version) here I come!

We All Take Our Own Paths. We Live With Them. If You're a Writer, Just Write. Your Path is Your Journey.

But then there’s the other side of the coin, the side that screams from the balconies that I. Am. A. Writer! And how do I know this? Because I can’t not write. Since I can remember, there’s always been a voice inside my head that said, get back to work.

My blog is mine. I write it. I control it. I learn from it. I enjoy it. It gives me the ability to share what I know about writing, and part of that is understanding that not everyone is going to be a John Grisham or a Salman Rushdie or a Kristin Hannah. The writing life is what it is, and that includes most of us never making the New York Times Bestseller list, or selling more than a hundred books, or speaking before a crowd of people who’ve read and loved our books. I’ve written about all aspects of fiction writing over the past three years. I’ve written about plot and characterization, scenes and setting, aphorisms and dialogue. I’ve written book reviews about the devastation of Thalidomide, the best political novels, and even had my name used as a character in a novel, which made my decade. And I will keep writing this blog, because it’s part of who I am now, and because there are plenty of writers out there that don’t have the benefit of having a mentor like I have had during my writing career, one who has become a friend over the last thirty years. I’ve made a lot of writer friends. I’ve met some of my writing idols. I’ve gotten to know the ugly side of publishing and experienced the realities of the many personalities that meander through the writing universe. It’s cool. It’s frustrating. It’s, well, where I love to live. I hope this blog helps someone out there, even if it’s just one person, because often that’s all you need to keep on keeping on, as my friend, the author Teddy Jones, always tells me. I’m three years in, and for now, I’ll keep on keeping on.

Cully Perlman is a novelist, short story writer, and blogger. He can be reached at Cully@novelmasterclass.com