Young Writers Society

What does it take to be a writer? Oh, anyone can mash words together on a page and call themselves “writers.” But to be a true writer, to embody the essence of a word crafter? That takes so much more.

It takes obsession with the written word, first and foremost. Hand-in-hand, it requires an unfailing attention to and love of the spoken word. And finally it needs constant toying, tinkering, playing with the melody of those words, their rhythm, their beat, their meter, and the subtle distinctions of sight and sound, of the spoken and written word.

Writers are readers. That is a given. A writer may take a reading hiatus, or a hiatus from reading, but invariably they will return to reading, because abstinence is as possible as a living person may stop breathing or cease consuming water. Possible for short periods, deadly for long. But the ‘bookworm’ label isn’t all that this obsession entails. The words themselves, the shape of the letters that comprise them, the aesthetic appeal of those arrangements—a writer can’t help but notice them. One day you’ll be reading, or typing, or writing—or just thinking—and suddenly a word’s spelling will strike you as odd. Why does appall have two p’s and l’s, when one p and l would serve just fine? Or only one p and keep the l’s?

Or perhaps a word’s spelling will become ugly, maybe just for a moment, or maybe you’ll never like that word ever again. ‘Specific’ may be one of the most offensive words you’ve ever seen. Maybe you’ll realize that words related to beauty have some of the most atrocious spellings to mean such exquisite appeal: beautiful, aesthetic, exquisite, gorgeous, elaborate, refined, etc. The smashed-up vowels of ‘beautiful’ that give no hint to their proper pronunciation, the train-wreck of sight and sound of ‘aesthetic,’ the awful hiss and cacophony of ‘exquisite,’ and on the list of complaints goes!

Yet it doesn’t always have to be an offending word. The simple elegance of a word, its curving slants, the arrangement of those letters, may be some of the most befitting organizations of our alphabet. Or it could be the oddity of the word that’s so appealing, like phantasmagoria, machicolation, obdurate, or Callipygian. And it’s not uncommon for the appeal of a word to vacillate from day to day. One day ‘glop’ may be the most disgusting thing to cross a page, and another it couldn’t be anything but the epitome of perfection.

Which is why writers pore over the sound of words. A word may look nice on a page, but does it sound right? Does it flow? Does it feel right? Writers can’t help themselves. They naturally agonize over the symphonic nature of words. Often, the aptness of a word hinges on its sound. Crowd, mass, group, or herd may all be used to describe the people attending an event, but the sound of each of those words is different. Connotations aside, the feel that each of those words conveys is entirely unique to that word. Shade or tone can be describing a color, but the word choice carries a tone all its own. And writers notice. Or remark. Or discern the differences. It’s all the same, and it’s not. A ghost, shade, apparition, specter—all the same, but differentiated by sound, feel, and perhaps personal preferences.

The subtlest distinction, the one that’s hardest to communicate, is the minute difference, the tinted flavor, of the spoken versus written word. Each hue is special, to both word and writer. If writers differ over the feel, the aroma, of a written or spoken word, these preferences and intuitive glimpses and opinions are compounded hundreds-fold by the articulation of a word’s written and spoken form, and the appropriateness of each in different contexts. These differences are like spices and herbs: for some, they are the finishing touches to a masterpiece, and to others an overload that tips the balance irreparably.

But above all this obsession, this compulsive laboring, over the word itself, a writer has the passion, the enthusiasm, the drive just to write. Story ideas, fragments of concepts, images, character sketches appear in little shards gathered on a napkin, sprinkled across class notes and homework, self-texts because there’s just nothing else. Wrists wringed in sprawling notes are commonplace, and that’s after the palms have ink permeating every crease. There’s a journal of plots, ingots of story smattered across a spiral-bound notebook, or a hand-bound blank book. If those fail, or are accidentally forgotten at home or elsewhere, then the college-ruled loose leaf, the ever-present help of all scatterbrained and OCD (CDO) alike, fills in. Sometimes a crutch, sometimes a way of life. A writer’s desk has seen a myriad of incarnations: car window or hood, pew-and-hymnal, guitar back, friend’s shoulder, Starbuck’s counter, airway luggage. And that’s not even grazing the tip of the iceberg.

This drive is insatiable. It’s what keeps a writer coming back after they’ve been interrupted seven times in the past fifteen minutes. It shields them when ‘realists’ say they can’t make a living, or will never be that outstanding. And it sets them above the hobbyist. It won’t let them stop. Even when they hate every scribble of splotchy ink, even when they’re fighting despair and want to quit, it blazes on and rages up, incinerating the opposition.

But any fire can be quenched, no matter how hotly it burns. This passion for writing can stoke bonfires from dead ashes, but the cold embers are still a very real threat, and a destination some writers have abandoned the path upon. It’s a lot easier to say a fire’s dead and not worth the trouble when you’re staring at white, flaky ashes that don’t even glow when you blow on them.

So don’t give up. Don’t ever let anyone convince you that you’re past the point of writing, or that you’ll never amount to much. You sucking air? Heartbeat strong? Good. That’s all you need, all the evidence you’ll ever need that you’ve still got it in you. Words are cheap. Air is cheaper: it’s free. And in that economy, you’re always on top. You’ve got all the air you need to feed a fire, and all the tools you need to craft words into something beautiful.

Oh, you don’t match all the descriptions? Missing a few habits? Nah, don’t worry about it. Writers grow. They don’t start out fitting the bill completely. And that doesn’t mean this obsession with words is a constant. If it were, you’d never get around to writing. Don’t grow so consumed with the tools that you forget the task. Don’t forget the purpose of those tools. Pick them up, experiment, grow comfortable with them. But never forget that to be a true writer, to be the greatest you can possibly be, you’ve got to live a little. You’re not going to become a master sequestered in a closet, isolated from the world. Asphyxiation, starvation, or dehydration would claim you well before you got anywhere near finishing your work. And you’d be denying yourself the purest form of inspiration: life. Family and friends are always welcome to a writer. So go live.

Oh, and keep good notes. Words that vanish into the ether create insomnia.