Writing Triggers

Writing Triggers

by Alia Makki

Tell me again. Why do we keep doing this to ourselves? 

You mean writing? 

Haven’t you already gotten it figured out by now that at the end of the tunnel, it doesn’t get any brighter or easier? Life doesn’t get easier. Writing distracts you from looking at yourself personally. Why should you write? 

Because it’s the most beautiful thing in the world. And this scene! Look at it! How could we not be inspired… 

Hasn’t it failed you already? Why couldn’t you take a hint from the millionth failure? 

Because the million-first might be the one! 

Bosh.

Sorry, who? 

Pshawh. Shucks. Bollocks. Bull. I’m calling your disgusting sense of optimism a delusion. 

Oooh. That’s a nice word too. What just happened? Was it a mosquito that landed on your face? Then why did you hit your face for?

Listen. My job was to try to distract you from this futile habit of yours. I’ve done my job and could only manage it for three hundred words. Khalas. It’s your funeral.

Wait, where are you going? 

Your funeral!

That, Dear Reader, is the usual conversation that occurs in my head every single day, at the beginning of every single writing session.

Sometimes it’s a good day and the dialogue ends quickly with, Oh not you, not today!

Sometimes it’s a very good day for everyone else, like it’s Eid, Christmas or General Rioting Day, and the pre-writing introductory dialogue would go as long as ever. Until 2 pm. Or evening. Or next year.

The point remains, it takes a lot of work to get started and I congratulate myself sincerely for having gone so far (a hundred words more since I last checked, YAY!) (twenty minutes into) in my writing session.

Tricks to Tackle the Starting the Writing Engines Problem

· Drugs. Or booze. Or anything that isn’t approved by the FDA or your Eat-Or-Die chef. Chemicals can only go so far. And the results are usually woozy and unreliable.

· Meditation. Yea. This works marvelously in defragmenting your brain’s data and coalescing them in neat bundles. Provided that you’re already in the habit of meditating at least a couple of times a week. Provided that the shit that rises from meditation, the personal truths you must face, do not scare the shit out of you. Provided that you are skilled enough to write under the blinding clarity of post-meditative inspirations.

I know how scary it gets. It’s one of the reasons why depressed people aren’t allowed to join meditation courses. Better stick to drugs.

· Reading. Ha. The beacon and fuel of a writing habit. Sworn by all writers across the globe, across the generations. You read, you write. Language in, language out. It’s that simple. If you consider reading a lot as a simple thing. If you consider reading 80 books every year as a simple thing. If you consider stealing a whole hour of your daily schedule to keep up with the daily reading quota. Shit gets real when you consider that it takes about 13’000 words read to churn and write out a 2000 word draft. Every fucking day for as long as you want to write (and if you miss a day, you gotta make it up the next).

If this shit seems too real, stick to meditation. Worth more the dime and time than abusing yourself by reading.

If you can handle the idea of reading a lot, a lot, though, stay. I have something else to say to you, you brave comrade.

Even if you never wrote a word, you are still enriched with the words of others. We live, through the books we read, all the lives their authors have lived through. We are better social beings and private individuals through reading. If you aren’t the type to stir up a viral Facebook post, or stand in as DJ/Usher/Host of a frat party, that’s okay. You’re still a good person if you prefer books and small gatherings. You can still be a nice member of society even if you rarely talk about your opinions. In fact, you probably communicate better in writing than in person. So don’t give up the person you truly are just to look cool. Reading is cool too. It can be REALLY cool if, by September, you know that you’ve read 100 books since January.

· Write anyway

Just stick your ass in that chair and bleed. It doesn’t matter how many tricks it takes to get you to sit in front of the page. Nothing is going to start the magic running until you actually write. Sometimes it doesn’t take a lot of tricks to get you to start writing. Sometimes a lot of tricks need to happen. The point remains, writers write.

It may take me days and years to get to writing again. It may take a thousand books to start, or a million minutes of conversations. It may gentle tug of an inspiration, or the not-so-gentle pull of a bill to pay. Writing, true to its loyal nature, will happen.

It will happen to mark or clarify your thought. It will happen to communicate a stolen kiss or a formidable political defeat.

· Keep writing

Through your writing habit, you will experience the elation of drug use, the clarity of meditation, the company of books and the fluency of language. Even if nobody ever read your private notes, writing would still influence your public personas and ease your problem-solving skills. Whether or not people know that you write, you’d still be a better person through writing. There are lots of theories on why writing helps us become better people: I prefer none and will take all of them for granted to be true. Anything to get my writing engines running.

And maybe wake up one day, being a better person. Trusting the voices in your head and the voices without. Calmer, happier and truer.

See? 

No need to brag about it. Oh fine. Rub it in.

But I’m not rubbing it in. I’m glad. We’ve written a thousand words.

Yes. We have.

~ END ~

Alia Makki writes and then writes about writing, reads and then reads about reading. Find out more about her craft HERE.