TheWritersBag.com

In my early 20s I dated a beautiful young woman whose father was a Basque. We went to a restaurant one night with her married sister and her husband. A minor argument arose and my date would not budge from her position, even though it was fairly apparent that she was wrong.

After her display of stubbornness, her brother-in-law took me aside and said, “Listen, Steve, you must understand, Basque blood runs through these women’s veins, and the Basques were at war for many generations straight. The long war was terrible and the children of weak Basques were never born.”

The same applies to the projects of weak writers: they are never born.

Writers have to have the strength of discipline to finish their projects. They have to be tough. They have to be strong. Writers are one click away from a world of diversion on the Internet. If they work at home, they are a few steps away from the seduction of a television, a bed or a kitchen.

It takes discipline to start writing and keep writing.

Those who aren’t real writers may not believe this. “After all,” they think, “what could be so hard about sitting at a desk tapping on a keyboard or writing in a notebook? How could that take discipline?”

That kind of response betrays the fact that they have never seriously written. All true writers know that writing is a wonderful thing, but doing it well is more difficult than breaking rocks – that is, until you get in “the zone” or in “the glory” and it seems to be flowing through you. But getting to that point is brutal and demands the discipline of a Prussian drillmaster.

The most difficult part of writing is starting. When you start, you’re cold. Going from cold to warm and hopefully to hot is a grueling process. It takes discipline to sit there and not get up and not click away from your project and not start thinking of something else.

The solution?

There is no easy solution. The fact is, there’s no way around – only through. You have to plug yourself in and keep writing until you warm up. And every time you are interrupted, you have to start the process again. If you do, your muse will come to you because you have proven you are worthy of her presence – not because of your talent, but because you had the discipline to get started and keep going … again and again.

Have you ever been accosted by a book? That happened to me this morning.

Due to a series of unfortunate events (read into this what you will), I ended up sleeping in a spare bedroom last night. When I rolled out of bed this morning the first thing my eyes focused on was a paperback in a book cabinet over by the wall. I had never seen it before, but I had a distinct feeling I needed to at least thumb through it. So I stood there for 15 minutes and thumbed.

I’m glad I did. The book is called Finding Flow, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (“Could you spell that, please?”) In it I found what I was looking for without knowing I was looking for it: a chapter about autotelic activities.

“Autotelic” is comprised of two Greek roots: auto (self) and telos (goal). An autotelic activity is one that you do for its own sake because it is its own goal. In other words, you do it because the mere of act doing it is sufficiently rewarding in and of itself. The motivation for doing it is simply to do it – not to get rewards as a consequence of doing it. For example, eating a cookie, watching a good movie and scratching an itch are autotelic activities.

But for most people, going to work is not autotelic. They go to the office and manage paperwork not because they love managing paperwork, but because they need the money they will earn doing it. Similarly, reading textbooks is not an autotelic activity for most students. They aren’t passionately caught up in reading about the mating rituals of snails. They just want to absorb enough information about it to get a good grade on Friday’s test.

I have seen autotelic behavior in weight training rooms at gyms. Over the years I’ve noticed that the people who stick to a weight-training regimen love the very act of lifting weights. They feel good physically and mentally while they’re doing it. Those who do not stick with it do not feel good while they’re doing it. Interestingly, I’ve never known anyone to exercise with weights consistently and over a long period of time who doesn’t get that “feel good” experience while lifting. Without that, no matter how motivated they are to look buff, they simply don’t have the discipline to persist at something that is so physically demanding.

Now let’s apply this concept of autotelic behavior to you and writing….

Are you an autotelic writer? That is, is the act of writing reward enough, in itself, for the time and effort you give it? Or are you writing because you want a reward beyond and outside the act of writing – like recognition, a career advancement, fame or royalties?

I believe this: If you are not an autotelic writer, you will either (a) eventually quit writing because the external rewards do not materialize or are no longer worth the effort, or (b) you will go on writing, probably because you have to, but you will hate it and will suffer because of it.

I also believe this: I you are an autotelic writer, you will write no matter what comes of it – you will write and keep writing because the very act of doing so fulfills you, makes you happy (even though it drives you crazy at times), and adds meaning and passion to your life. You will do it because writing does all that to you and for you, and you don’t have to buy an expensive ticket, take a week out of your schedule, ignore your other responsibilities or quit your regular job to do it. It’s always there for you, right at your fingertips: your friend and confidant, your psychoanalyst, your entertainment.

If you are not an autotelic writer, stop torturing yourself. Find something you can do just because you love to do it – not for the rewards you hope it might bring. If you have to write for work, do it and do it competently, but leave it there.

If you are an autotelic writer, don’t deny yourself and don’t let your parents, your spouse, your friends or anyone else discourage you. You are blessed to have a passion that is so inexpensive, flexible, fat-free and ultimately fulfilling.

As for external rewards, if you pursue writing (or anything else for that matter) just because you love it, you may discover one of life’s great secrets: Good things come to those who follow their bliss.

A few nights ago I went to a wedding dinner for my wife’s niece. The groom’s sister, a very nice, attractive young woman who had heard that I am a professional writer introduced herself to me, announcing that she, too, loves to write.

I hear this frequently. But as we talked I realized that for her this was more than just an armchair infatuation. She felt a gut- and soul-level need to write. She had always been that way, she explained, even as a child.

She told me she has two books going – one fiction, one non-fiction – both unfinished. She explained that she is single, works two jobs, and holds a position in her church that absorbs most of any spare time she has.

We spoke for a long time and the more we spoke, the more I realized how serious she is about writing. For her, I realized, writing is not an optional pastime. It is part of her core and she needs to do it or live an incomplete life and be an incomplete person. (This is something I’ve known about myself for years.) So we talked about how she could find the time and energy to write and I told her how important it was for her to do it and that she had to bend her world around her writing and make it happen or it never would. I pulled my little Moleskine notebook out of my pocket and told her it goes with me just about everywhere but the shower and that I frequently take it out and spend a minute or an hour with it.

She said she often feels guilty when she takes time to write because there is so much to do and so many responsibilities to fulfill. She told me she has been accused of being selfish for writing when she could be doing other “more important” things.

All that hit too close to home. I told her what has taken me years to figure out: some people are meant to write. It is their calling in life (at least one of their callings) and they turn their back on it at their own risk. In the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, there is a verse that states, “Jesus said, ‘If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you.’”

I like to think this statement has special application for writers or any creative people who have something “within” them that needs to burst out. By facilitating the birthing process of writing, we quite literally save ourselves. Writers feel good when we have written and written well because we have done something that we are meant to do. By doing so, we free ourselves to give more of ourselves to those around us and to the other responsibilities in our lives.

When we repress and stifle the creative need within us, we suffer not only artistically but emotionally, spiritually and even physically. We close up and what we give to others and to other aspects of our lives is only a shadow of what it could and should be.

Can writing be one of your missions in life? It certainly can be, but only you can know whether or not it is. If it is, are you being selfish by taking the time and giving the energy to write? Absolutely not! For some people, “bringing forth what is within you” is the best way you can serve the world and those around you … and the only way to save yourself.

PS. This is the 100th article I have written for TheWritersBag.com. I look forward to writing the next 100 and hope they will be valuable to you. I invite you to stay tuned by signing up for free, weekly e-mail updates at the top left of this page.