You Do Not Have to Apologise for the Writing You Chose to Write
As a mentor, teacher, writer and reader, there's something I want to say to you...
... because librarians like Bruinhilda say the equivalent all the time, including the sweary bits.
Floating around online is this excellent post by Bruinhilda, As a Library Worker There’s Something I Want to Say to You. It was originally posted on Tumblr and, as with the original Jerusha Cowless, Agony Aunt column, and ‘Everything About My Writing is Awful and No, I’m Not OK’, I found my mind riffing off it, to create a version for writers.
As a mentor, teacher, writer and reader, there’s something I want to say to you:
You do not have to apologise for the writing you chose to write.
At all. To anyone. You owe nobody any explanations; you need no excuse or ‘good reason’ to be writing this story, poem, article or book.
You don’t have to be ashamed of wanting to write
‘good’ or ‘literary’ things. You want to write the next Wolf Hall or Ducks, Newburyport? Be my guest.
‘bad’ or ‘commercial’ things. You want to write the next Twilight or Scruples? Be my guest.
‘literary-commercial crossover’ things. You want to write the next The Rector’s Wife or Olive Kitteridge? Be my guest.
‘difficult’ things. You want to write the next Gravity’s Rainbow or A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing? Be my guest.
‘easy’ things. You want to write the next Riders or Rose Petal Summer? Be my guest.
middling, ‘broadbrow’ things. You want to write the next Lessons in Chemistry or Cider House Rules? Be my guest.
You don’t have to be ashamed of wanting to write
for the sake of art.
for the sake of money.
for the sake of human progress.
for the sake of laughter.
Want to write a banal, cookie-cutter-plot mystery, romance, mum-lit, erotica or thriller? Those are always fun. Regular readers buy them by the towering stack. Ask social media for recommendations - they’ve read them all. 50 Shades of Oh Fucking No? Why not - I guarantee when you see the Large Print edition or audiobook in your PLR statement, you’ll cry for imagining a happy, vision-impaired reader. Check out the rainbow possibilities of erotica - and experiment yourself, or let your characters do it. Don’t be afraid to think of it: readers want to read it for the same reason you want to write it.
Want to write a book that will make everyone hate you and think you’re a monster? Yes, that’s an honourable tradition. No, we don’t think you’re an arsehole for being willing to write such a book, nor for judging for yourself what you should and shouldn’t write.
You are not too old to write the next How to Tame Your Dragon, or The Story of the Little Mole Who Knew it Was None of His Business.
You are not too young to write the next All Passion Spent, Finnegan's Wake, or Love in the Time of Cholera (nor to make your own mind up about an Oxford comma like that one).
There’s nothing wrong with
a woman writing Jack Reacher or Fight Club.
a man writing Lady Jane Grey or Mrs Dalloway.
binary people writing non-binary characters
non-binary people writing binary characters.
people writing what they are not. That’s what research is for.
When you tell me about what you write, you do not have to pull the shame face and offer me an excuse. I don’t care if when I last read that kind of book I threw it against the wall: you have the right to write it and enjoy writing it, if it’s enjoyable to you; that’s why human beings write in the first place.
If humans only wrote pure, unproblematic literature everyone approved of or admired, if all authors were of unquestionable virtue and enough-but-not-too-much intelligence, there would be no books at all. Or music. Or movies. It would be utterly fucking boring. And there would be no point in having bookshelves, let alone libraries.
So just write it.
Huge thanks to thanks to Bruinhilda for the inspiration. If you’re interested in working one-to-one on your writing with me, click here to find out more.
A version of this post was first published on Typepad.
Thank you Emma for these thorough and insightful points about writing which were inspired by Bruinhilda.
To me your piece reinforces all that is sacred about writing. I sometimes remind myself that I'm writing the book I long to read. It's a quest. I need to be curious about this voyage of discovery - writing towards what I want to know.
This quote from Toni Morrison underscores your point about giving ourselves permission - people writing about what they are not.
'When I taught creative writing at Princeton, (my students) had been told all of their lives to write what they knew. I always began the course by saying, “Don’t pay any attention to that.” First, because you don’t know anything and second, because I don’t want to hear about your true love and your mama and your papa and your friends. Think of somebody you don’t know. What about a Mexican waitress in the Rio Grande who can barely speak English? Or what about a Grande Madame in Paris?'
Marvellous, hurray! <loud applause> <starts saving> 😀👏😀