The Solitary Joy of Writing
embracing the deep silence of the writing life
One of my favorite books of the past decade is Olga Tokarczuk’s Flights. Tokarczuk calls the act of writing a novel “a controlled psychosis” that occurs “in solitary confinement…Every so often someone stops and bends down and glances in through the window, and then you get a glimpse of a human face, maybe even exchange a few words.”
The glimpse, the exchange of words, may shake you out of your solitude for a moment. But then you have to let them pass on so you can get back to what you’re doing. For the most part, there you are, alone, living in a strange world of your own making.
Writing is deep work. There are thousands of conferences and magazines and communities—online and off—devoted to talking about it, but in the end, the best and most meaningful writing is done in solitude.
The most important conversation is not between you and other writers, sitting around talking about writing. The most important conversation is between you and your readers. The conversation is conducted almost entirely in silence. You will never know what most of your readers are thinking.
And even if they reach out to tell you their feelings about your book, your story, your essay, they reach out only after having finished reading it. What they’re telling you is a summation, not the conversation itself. An entire conversation between the reader and the book or story or essay happens in real time, in the reader’s mind, and that is a conversation to which you will never be privy. It is an intellectually intimate conversation, and often an emotionally intimate one as well. Far more intimate, probably, than any conversation you will ever have about the act of writing.
So go to conferences if they help you. Get an MFA if it motivates you. Read books about writing if they inspire you, as they often will. Talk with your writer friends about writing every now and then. But don’t let the talking about writing get in the way of writing. Don’t think of the conversation about writing as the most important part. It just isn’t.
In the end, you’re going to do this work alone. So turn down the literary lunch date. Skip the party. Spend time alone with your pen and notebook instead. Write something.
Michelle Richmond is the founder and publisher of Fiction Attic Press.
This post was originally published in the writing inspiration section of .
Thank you for this reminder. No matter what else we may find to do, if we aren't writing, we aren't writing.