I’ve come to believe that I am most “myself” when I’m writing. The act of writing when I’m “in it” makes me feel alive in a way few other things can. But over the years, I’ve learned — the hard way — that writing cannot save me from myself. As much as I love doing it, it isn’t, and may never be, all that I am.
Which has led to me asking a lot of hard questions about my identity and what’s most important to me. Yes, I’m a writer. But what does that mean? What, as a writer, am I bringing to the table? And when I’m not able to write — who am I, when I can’t hide behind a story?
It turns out that writers are complex people. We’re sort of built that way. And the more time we spend learning about who we are outside of the stories we write, the better we can be at sharing stories with the world.
Writing Is Only Part of the Journey
Physically sitting down and getting writing done is hard no matter who you are, how much experience you have, or your level of expertise. The world as we currently know it isn’t built for the creator in mind. Getting in the right headspace to write when your butt is in the chair is a whole other battle, and you have to do both of those things before you can actually put words on the page.
But that’s not the whole story when it comes to why writing is often so draining. It takes a major toll on our brains and our bodies, absolutely. The other piece of it though — the one we don’t tend to discuss as often as writers — is that telling stories requires a lot of deep thinking about the world, about ourselves, and about the things that matter most to us. You cannot detach yourself from these things when you write. It is literally part of the equation.
Writing can be an escape, and absolutely has been for me at times. On the surface, you’re just making things up — people, places, events and all that. But it’s all coming from you, and what you know, and what’s eating away at you deep down. That story had to come from somewhere. You’re pulling it out of the depths of your soul, and that means you’re going to end up doing a lot of self-reflecting whether you mean to or not. It’s not easy. But it’s 100 percent necessary.
Self-Care Is a Writing Essential for a Reason
The idea of “self-care” has become a bit of a joke in many circles, but I’m not talking about soaking in a bubble bath when you should be writing (although, if that’s your preferred form of self-care, by all means — soak on). When I think of self-care as a writer, it’s more of an ongoing practice than a means of procrastination. If you’re going to write your best, you have to be at your best. And that does actually require taking care of yourself.
And in order to do that, you have to know yourself well enough to know what’s going to help you rest, recharge, and stay refreshed — even when you’re working as hard as you can week to week. Working on a novel over the last few months, on top of a lot of other exhausting responsibilities, has really forced me to honestly evaluate what does and does not help me continue to function. Which also forces me to prioritize, well, taking care of me.
I can tell you honestly that it has made a huge difference in my writing productivity. Not writing on the weekends, for example, allows me to write more during the week than I would if I forced myself to write every day. It turns out taking breaks is good for us!
Self-Discovery Assists the Writer, But Happens Away From the Pen
You can — and will — learn a lot about yourself as you write. Through the stories you tell, the characters you develop, and the ideas that transform into written works of art, you will begin, over time, to recognize the pieces of yourself that become permanently embedded in your work. But you cannot come to fully understand yourself — or apply what you have learned — without stepping away from the page and back into the real world.
To create fiction, we must first understand reality. To craft narratives, we have to know how real stories take shape. This comes partially from the study of stories (largely, reading). But enough of us write from personal experience that making an effort to understand the real stories unfolding around you is essential to your writing. Even the stories we make up are built upon foundations of truth.
Get out of your writing chair. Put the pen down, or turn off the computer. Live. Fully, bravely, hopefully not too dangerously. The best storytellers are the ones who breathe the real-world air. They listen and observe, but they also participate. They fall in love, they collect memories. They grieve. They celebrate. And it’s that living that allows them to return to their blank pages and fill them with stories made of all they have learned.
You may be the most “you” when you’re writing. But it only works if you know who you are — and everything you want to be — when you’re not.
Meg Dowell Writes 