DAVID SEDARIS, 99 WORDS, AND WHY I WRITE

Recently, though a strange succession of events, I actually read a complete book by humor essayist David Sedaris. For years I've been flipping through his books at the bookstore and laughing out loud so hard I have to put the book back on the shelf because people start to look and I am embarrassed. At that point I usually think, "I have to buy one of his books sometime."

But until recently, I never had. When I finally did, and read through a collection of his essays, he became one of my new favorite writers. Sure, he was funny, but when you were least expecting it, he would lay in an image or a detail or make a connection or share an idea that would make your breath leave your body or, quite simply, break your heart.

Through Sedaris, I was reminded of what a profound pleasure it was to read really good writing. I was reminded about how black marks on the page, elements like word choice, detail, syntax, and structure could ultimately have an escalating and then, all at once collective emotional impact on you. Not to mention, reading good writing was like eating dessert to me-- think hot caramel sundae, New York cheesecake, creme brulee.

It was that good.

And in the same way that a good dessert makes you want to cook or bake, good writing makes you want to write.

***

So I came in today to do my 500 words on School Spirit. But my head wasn't really in the game. There were some things on my mind, some work called to me, and we're in the middle of a crazy and especially stressful testing schedule at the school where I work. But in an attempt to be a self-disciplined writer, I sat down to do my job. 500 words in thirty minutes. That's my goal. That's my mantra. So I began Chapter Thirteen and I wrote ninety-nine words. Not fifteen hundred or one thousand words, but ninety-nine. And I sat back and I looked at those ninety-nine words and thought, okay, interesting syntax, a couple passable images, a smooth style. Not so bad. I didn't meet my quota, but what I wrote didn't completely suck. And that counts for something, I thought.

And I do, truly believe that.

***

For whatever reason, it was just the other day when my wife committed to a middle grade novel that she had had for years. My wife has no desire, as far as I know, to be a fiction writer. That said, I've always told her that I knew she was a fine writer and an avid enough reader to put the two together and tell some excellent stories if she so chose. On top of that, the idea she came up with was pure money.

In an effort to help, I was digging through a box of old writing books I have to see if I had any manuals that would help her. In doing so, I found an old book of essays called Why I Write, and I read an essay by short story writer Thom Jones, a writer I've always admired. His writing was so passionate and electric and, at the same, so down-to-earth and so real, that it made me think back to the ninety-nine words I'd written earlier in the morning and want to pitch them in the trash.

That's the paradox: good writing makes you both want to write and makes you feel that there is absolutely NO POSSIBLE WAY that you could match what you're seeing in print.
Great writing inspires, but it also paralyzes.

The bottom line?

You must write anyway.

You must, always, sit in the chair and type.

End of story.