Some Thoughts On Writing

Why do I write? You may as well ask me why I breathe. It's necessary and, though not completely automatic, it's not voluntary either. The challenge of it could be the cause. Like some of my fictional characters, I was born to solve puzzles. Writers do a lot of that in the course of writing. Of course, the puzzles we solve are the plots of stories and how the characters interact to resolve conflicts and such.

Maybe I started writing because it was something to do I rainy days as I grew up in the Midwest. Otherwise, I would have been exploring and playing the woods behind our house. I was a co-editor for my high school newspaper and I studied journalism in college – among other things. When I was in the ninth grade, I wrote something I was sort of proud of and turned it in to my English teacher who, exhausted all the red ink from her pen going over it. With the last gasps of criticism from her ball point, she made a note in the margin, "You'll never be a writer."

She and I didn't get along well – not at the time, anyway. Eventually, we became good friends. Somewhere, unless they have been destroyed, there are many longwinded letters I wrote to her from college – some of them typed. Was I trying to prove I could write? If so, I never accomplished it. I'm still working at it.

When did I start writing? According to my mother, a pencil was the first object I grasped with my infant hand. She said that was a sign, which later on caused me to wonder why it seemed such a surprise to my parents and family that I wanted to be a writer. When I broke the news to them it received a lukewarm response at best, as if they were saying 'oh well, this too shall pass'. How many other things did I want to be when I grew up? I lost count. They could have been relieved that the important news I had to break to them wasn't that I had knocked up a girl or that I was gay or suddenly decided I was a liberal.

Rebellious at age eighteen, I set out to prove something or the other, going away from home to college. That was around the time I decided to seriously pursue writing. It was a learning process from the first grade of 'C' I received in the required first year English course at Purdue University. I remember the instructor's name, not out of any vendetta but because it was Gary Owens, exactly the same name as the announcer on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. Unlike his TV namesake, he wasn't funny despite his attempts at humor in the classroom.

The other things I recall about that course are that he had long dark-brown hair he wore about half-way down to his ass and the first day of class he presented a monologue that mostly disrespected Superman and the American Way – 'whatever that is', as he phrased it. My dad would have called him a Communist pink-o and feared he was out to convert me to his political agenda. I doubt he was Communist and I know he converted me to nothing at all. I was convinced I didn't want to be like him. I received a 'B' in the course, having written enough things the way he thought they could be written.

Later on, I took a creative writing class. That instructor spent an inordinate amount of time explaining how much effort goes into writing and how seldom it is rewarded financially – like all art, I would dare say. What was wrong with his assumptions were that writers, true writers, have the objective of making a lucrative publishing deal and selling movie rights to a book. Although that happens for some writers,  you have better odds of winning the Powerball jackpot. I didn’t learn much else in that course, though I started one of my novels with a character profile I wrote the first week. A grade of 'C' returned to me along with the paper I wrote it on. The teacher felt the character was too far out. Although I hadn't named it at the time, it was the first wolfcat.

There was nothing creative about the writing class or the instructor. As the old saying goes, those who can, do it; those who cant, teach it.

One of the many things that happened during college that inspired me to pursue writing was reading many books. After being assigned to a read Kurt Vonnegut Jr. novel Player Piano, I was hooked. Subsequently I read everything he had written up to that time and later on I continued to follow him. I also read his son's book, Mark Vonnegut's Eden Express which is an account of his overcoming schizophrenia.

Through reading great and not-so-great literature, my world was opening and my imagination liberated. In January 1977, I wrote the first part of a story that would later become The Wolfcat Chronicles, a ten book series. Later that year I wrote he first part of One Over X, another series, though the title back then was Tarot – like the fortune telling cards.

Studying a lot of diverse subjects while in college, some of that was exploring possible alternate majors. All of that combined to give me a sampling of pretty much anything I wanted to know a little about but wasn't willing to commit to the process of learning everything I could. Although I hated reading and struggled with it as a grade school kid – I have dyslexia which went undiagnosed – I took literature courses in college as electives. One year I read over four hundred books, some of them like Samuel R. Delaney's Dahlgren, Frank Herbert's Dune, and J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy were books of considerable length. As you can tell from the book selection, one of the lit courses was science fiction and fantasy.

It's absolutely necessary in the development of a writer to read a diverse sample of other writers' works. It is not necessary to learn the mechanics of the language beyond what is necessary to tell stories, though. The difference between an aspiring writer and a successful author is story-telling. Many an aspiring writer decides to study English, for example, and becomes adept at writing things for a select few who know all the grammatical rules. They get lost in the weeds of the mechanical part of writing and, in the process, break the connection with their creativity. That's the way I see it, anyway.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. once said in a interview that the best thing he ever did for his writing was studying chemistry in college instead of English. The idea of over-thinking the process of composition is not unique in the world of literature. Leave the grammar and such for later revision. What's important is to get the story onto paper (or into a word document on a computer). It can be fixed later, with the caveat that a bad editor can easily destroy what might be a great piece of art. Good editors make suggestions.

Some of my characters live out my childhood dreams. Some of them are my alter egos. That happens in writing, I think. The old adage is 'write about what you know'. It applies with me, to a large extent. However, I am not completely like any of my characters. I used to go by the name Brent when I was in college and when I served in the USAF. My middle initial is B, but doesn’t stand for anything. I decided for a while it was intended to be Brent. On my degree from Purdue my middle name is Brenton. By the time I received my degree from UT Austin, I decided to use my birth certificate name, Elgon B. Williams.

My books tend to be set in places I know, having lived there – though not always. I've never lived in New York City, Chicago, or Los Angeles as examples, but several scenes in my books are set in those cities. I've visited all three. It helps in writing to have actually been somewhere a few times. Also I know people who live or have lived in those cities and have heard some of their stories. That's a substitute to firsthand living experience.

Where do my ideas come from? 'Many places' is the quick and easy answer. Over the years I experienced periods or relative draught for ideas, though I continued to write. I don’t think I ever lacked creativity or had writer's block. It was just I didn't feel like I'd lived long enough to have anything important to say.

Over time I learned that I probably will never feel that I have any words of wisdom to share, but that is not for me to determine. I wrote a rough draft of a novel in 1979. In 1986 wrote a highly classified unit history while I was in the Air Force. Otherwise from 1981 to 1988 I did nothing but keep a personal journal.

Meanwhile I worked, fell in love, married, had kids and slept whenever possible. In 1990 I resumed working on a couple of ideas I never did anything with since college. In 1994 I bought a computer, ostensibly for the kids but I was the one who ended up using it. I converted my writing of a novel-in-progress to digital form. From then on, I have written something each day.

If there is one thing I can tell about myself that others might want to take as advice for writing, set a specific time aside each day for the purpose of writing. Determine the place to do it and never deviate from it except for emergency situations – those are extremely rare from my experience. You must do it daily, regardless what else is going on in your life because writing does not come from a spigot you can turn on and off. It is not something you can abandon without suffering from the loss of connection in your soul.

Once you make that connection you must do everything to maintain the flow of creative inspiration from your mind. I've not found any other way of doing it than finding private time, away from any distraction – except I often listen to music in the background while composing though not revising or editing.

Write creatively for only the specified time. Yes, occasionally you may be in the creative zone and oblivious to the outside world and suddenly realize you've been sitting at your desk or table writing something for several hours. But don't force the issue. Move on to editing or revision of other things you have written.

At other times during the day go for a walk, play with children or pets, or otherwise divert your attention from singular focus on your writing. Take a mental break. But come the specified time the next day, be there and ready to write.

Sometimes there are dreams that seem to want to be told. It's fine to jot those down if you can make sense of them once awake. The best dreams are recurring and so you'll have the chance to revisit the mood and setting again. Other dreams will make sense only in their own context. Are those useless? No. But as a writer you must handle those inspirations differently. Some dreams come from the same places as creative impulses, but that doesn’t mean you have to draw your inspiration from them. That is your decision. If it works out well for you, continue to do it.