Reading time: Less than 1 minute
This is my weekly installment of “writing about writing,” in which I scan the world to find websites, books and articles to help other writers. Today I discuss a blog post about knowing what to say….
Do you ever forget how to write? By that I don’t mean how to hold your pen or how to move your fingers across a keyboard.
I’m referring more to the art of always knowing what to say. And how to say it. Of finding writing so easy that it’s fun, attractive and compelling.
I almost never feel that way about writing. Perhaps that’s why a recent post by Austin Kleon resonated so deeply with me. I particularly liked a quote he presented from the obituary of comedy writer Tom Koch:
People would say I must have had such a great life doing this,” Mr. Koch once recalled, “people who were engineers, doctors, insurance salesmen or whatever. But it was the kind of work where every morning I would wake up and think, ‘My God, I wonder if I can to it again today.’ There is no way to prepare to do it, or even know how you do it.”
And I appreciate Kleon’s conclusion where he says, “Yes! Something small, every day. The slow accumulation of bits over time. “BITS & PIECES PUT TOGETHER TO PRESENT A SEMBLANCE OF A WHOLE.”
I try to never see writing as something easy. Instead, it’s just something I do, every day. And it’s almost as if I have to learn from scratch how to do it every day.
Can I do it tomorrow? To be honest, I don’t know. But I intend to try!
