Use Your Words: A Myth-Busting, No-Fear Approach to Writing

SELF

INTRODUCTION

Hello, you! I know you. You’re the one who wants to be a writer, aren’t you? No, hang on, you are a writer. That’s right! At least, you feel like you may be a writer, but you’re stuck or just starting out.

You want to write more, write better or write differently. You’re trying to find ways to stop procrastinating and feeling guilty about not writing. You want to get something done. Finished.

Sometimes you feel like you are possessed and you need an exorcist.

I know you! Welcome! I’ve been waiting for you.

I know you want to stop worrying about other people’s opinions and stop thinking your work isn’t good enough. To silence the voices in your head saying that if you write, everyone will hate you and laugh at you and you will feel as if you have wasted your time.

You want to regain your love of writing. You want to stop feeling overwhelmed and riddled with self-hatred. Most importantly, you want to write. You want to stop thinking about it, talking about it and avoiding it – and just do it.

You know writing makes you happy. But there are so many distractions – ‘Look! The internet!’ – and so many things you convince yourself you need to do first – ‘Look, the pantry needs cleaning.’ And you feel you have already wasted so many days that were full of promise.

Deep down, you know you need to write this thing – even if you don’t know what it is yet. You will hate yourself if you don’t. You will never forgive yourself.

, I wrote this book for you.

. You are my special snowflake.

*

I run these Gunnas Writing Masterclasses for ‘Gunnas’ – people who keep saying they are gunna write, but don’t. In my classes I get everyone from published writers to people who have not put pen to paper since they were thrown out of school in Year 8. On average, my Gunnas are 30% professional writers, 30% amateur writers, 30% beginners and 10% randoms. I get retired school-teachers who want to write memoirs, 21-year-old nerds with screenplays they’ve been dreaming about since they were eight, and PhD candidates who want to write children’s books. I get corporate writers longing to write erotica, bus drivers who want to get their drinking yarns down, 17-year-old singer-songwriters seeking to write better lyrics, English teachers who can get their students to write but can’t get themselves to, cabaret artists, stand-up comedians, multimedia developers, funeral directors and sculptors – all seeking a creative enema. I’ve taught dentists, accountants, stay-at-home mums, lawyers, pensioners, students, social workers, psychologists and owners of vintage clothing stores. Some of my Gunnas already write or create for a living; they come to my class because they want to write this other thing. They say, ‘I don’t know what it is but I need to get it out.’

Whether they know what they want to write or not, my Gunnas have one thing in common: they bite the bullet and have the audacity to turn up to a writing masterclass (which – when you think about it – is kind of like saying they think they might be a writer). Oh my god, the arrogance! Who do they think they are? A writer? How dare they! Who gave them permission to write? A shoe maker, sex therapist and helicopter pilot are some of the over 1000 Gunnas – scared to call themselves a ‘writer’ and frightened of what their writing might expose – who have walked into a room full of strangers and faced their fear of people laughing at them and exposing them as a fraud.

In my Gunnas Masterclasses no-one has to share their writing.

‘Say, what?’ I hear you splutter.

That’s right. No forced sharing. Why? Because it doesn’t matter what people say about your writing. It’s none of your business what they think of it. It’s none of your business what you think about it. It only matters that you write: that you go to sleep feeling good, instead of hating yourself for having wasted another day.

Write as if your parents are dead.

ANNE LAMOTT

This book will help you get over yourself. Because, let’s face it, that’s all you need to do. I am here to help you get out of your own way. I will teach you how to ignore the voices, distractions, fear and guilt. By the time you have finished this book, you will know how to avoid the time wasting, obstacles and roadblocks that arise when you sit down to write. Use Your Words will teach you everything I know about writing, and a bit about life. With some irrelevant anecdotes. And probably some gratuitous swearing. Enjoy!

*

I forbid you to do any writing while you read this book. If you think of things you want to write, jot the ideas down on a piece of paper and get stuck into them once we’re finished. For now, let yourself off the hook. (You’re welcome!)

Turn off all your devices, find a cosy spot and let’s get cracking. We don’t have much time. But we have enough.

*

Why did I write this book? It’s very simple. I can’t bear the thought of people dying with their music – their words, their dreams, their art, their voices, their true self – still inside them.

The function of freedom is to free someone else.

TONI MORRISON

‘Write the book you want to read,’ people say. I hear that. I’m on it. Use Your Words is what I wanted to read when I was starting out and when I was stuck.

I’ve authored seven books – this is my eighth – contributed to dozens more, written over 1000 newspaper columns, performed hundreds of stand-up comedy gigs, been on television a bazillion times, radio twice as often, been named this, called that and accused of everything. Whatever it is that I had to prove to whoever it was for whatever reason – it’s done.

I am free.

I’m not telling you this to brag. I didn’t say my books, gigs and performances were any good. My point is I completed them. I’m lazy, not that bright and don’t have much talent. Ask anyone. I’ve written through garden-variety poverty, crippling depression, cancer, raising children and the lacerating pain of several broken hearts. I’ve written in cars, while breastfeeding at playgrounds, in airport lounges, cafes and toilets, and while looking after six kids under seven during school holidays.

If I can get stuff done, so can anyone. So can you. If you want to.

I’m here not through talent or luck, but simply because I kept going. When I thought what I was writing was shit, I kept writing regardless. I wrote so I could finish whatever it was and then hopefully get on and write the next thing – which, fingers crossed, wouldn’t be as shit. Before I knew it, a project was finished. Then I wrote the next thing. Bit by bit, I got better. And stronger. The more you do, the more you do. The more I did, the more I did. Writing is a muscle.

More often than not, if I’d known how easy a project would be and how much pleasure I’d get out of it, I would have got cracking on it much earlier. Most things are 80% easier than you think they will be.

I finished stuff.

I started stuff and then I finished stuff. That’s it. That’s my secret! I’m a completionist, not a perfectionist. Join me.

The actual writing is easier than you think. It’s dealing with the emotional stuff around the writing that’s tough. But I’ll give you some reality pills to help you handle it. I’ll bust the myths.

Don’t let stupid voices in your head – you know: the ones saying you’re no good, it can’t be done – oh, look, a shiny thing on the internet! – keep you stuck. We all hear those voices! Yes. Every single writer, artist and creator hears those voices. The only difference between getting That Thing done and not getting That Thing done is telling those voices to bugger off because you’re busy.

It would be a tragedy if your life were to end without you ever having sung from your heart. Don’t let that happen. You have one life. Live it your way.

PART ONE

THE TRUTH ABOUT WRITING

1

WRITING SUCKS

The first thing you need to know is that writing sucks.

It’s horrible.

Expect it to suck. It’s meant to.

Here’s what writing is not like: You sit under a tree with a moleskin notebook and a fountain pen, so engrossed in your brilliance and so enthused by your project that your hand can’t keep up with your scintillating mind. You are so delighted, thrilled and amazed by your ideas, perfect flow and searing insights that you forget to eat and don’t even hear your phone ring: you miss a call from your publisher – she’s offering you a six-figure advance for the manuscript you sent her yesterday. You didn’t expect her to get back to you for at least three weeks, because she’s on holiday enjoying a drug-induced coma in Switzerland. (Yes, that’s how publishers take holidays. All publishers. Don’t ask me how I know.) But your manuscript was so riveting she sensed it from deep within her soul; the power of your genius pulled her out of her pharmaceutically assisted unconsciousness and compelled her to unstitch her sutured eyes, rip the tape off her mouth, pull out the IV, chew through the straps restraining her, fish her phone out of her bag, find your number and call to say, ‘Money is no object!’

Ah, no. Writing is not like that.

Writing is awful. It’s like pulling teeth. Your own teeth.

Once, in the back of one of those little white transfer vans writing festivals use to pick up ‘the talent’ (or, as I call them, the meat puppets) from the airport and drive them to their accommodation, I was sitting next to prolific author Shane Maloney. We started chatting, and I asked him, ‘Would you prefer to read or write?’

He turned to me with a look of horror. ‘Write?’ he gasped. ‘Prefer to write? I would rather dig a six-foot trench through turds with my tongue than write.’

Well, that was awkward.

‘Prefer to write?’ he repeated as he shook his head while rolling his eyes. ‘Prefer to write …’

He spent the rest of the journey staring out the window muttering, rolling his eyes and scoffing in my general direction.

This was a few years back. I emailed Shane to ask if he minded me quoting him. I put the email subject as ‘Feel free to tell me to fuck off’. This was his response:

Dear Catherine,

Fuck off.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, no probs about quoting me, but our memories vary slightly. If I recall righter than your good self, I quoted and concurred with Thomas Harris (Silence of the Lambs, etc) – ‘I’d rather dig 6ft of trench with my bare fingernails than ever write another word.’ No tongue or turds required. In fact, tonguing turds seems easier, if more nauseating, than trench scrabbling.

It’s the big stuff – a 90,000 word novel – a massive structure of plot lines, multiple characters, dialogue, sustained pace, ultimate reconciliation of threads, grand finale, etc that really do my head in. More than once, mid-novel I have felt like I am trying to clearfell a forest with half a brick. But like Bismarck and his sausages, the process does not bear examination.

Cheers

Shane

I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and conf ident.

ANNE LAMOTT

Dorothy Parker said, ‘I hate writing but I love having written.’ Snap! I know exactly how she feels.

I hate writing this. Now. This thing I am writing to encourage you to write.

You know what I would prefer to be doing? Anything.

I would rather be browsing Facebook, reading the paper, sleeping or even packing the dishwasher.

Actually, as I write this, I really want to be crumbing the schnitzels. I hate crumbing schnitzels. But the schnitzels are not going to crumb themselves and it’s raining, so I can’t be bothered riding down to buy pre-crumbed ones from the butcher, and even if I could, the kids would whinge because ‘they’re not as good as yours, Mum. And anyway,’ they’d ask, ‘Why were you so busy you couldn’t crumb them yourself? What were you doing that was so important? More drinking coffee and talking about your emotions?’ ‘If you must know, I’ve been writing a book to encourage people to sing from their hearts and not die with their music inside them. A book telling them writing is shit and torture. A book to sell to make money to buy the chicken for me to turn into schnitzels to shut you whingeing bags of shit up.’

And the schnitzels are just the start … Here is a short list of some of the thousands of things I would prefer to do than write this book:

Clean the pantry.

Run – even though it’s cold and raining and I have a sore knee.

Visit my grandmother (who has been dead for seven years and who I hated).

Tidy the backyard. (I don’t even know if we own a rake. Or a backyard.)

Go to the dentist.

Untangle all the cords behind the television.

Clean under the bed.

Have a colonoscopy.

Take the dog to the vet to check the weird scabby rash around his mouth, which he’s had for over two years (the dog, not the vet).

Do my tax for the last seven years.

You get the picture!

Even when you are a professional, writing sucks. When we say we have a passion for writing – that it’s the thing we most want to do in the entire world – you need to understand that actually we would rather clean out the sludge in the bottom of the vegetable crisper with our tongues than write. And then along you come, saying you want to write – even though you don’t know what it is you want to write! It reminds me of an old Jewish joke: Sol walks in on Abe having sex with his wife. Sol looks at him and says, ‘Abe, I have to, but you? Make a run for it while you still can! Save yourself!’

So, if it’s so hard and thankless, why do we write? Why do we feel this longing? What is this urge? This feeling that we need to write?

All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention.

GEORGE ORWELL

What is it that makes brilliant, prolific authors like Shane Maloney – who has written ten books and dozens of articles over almost fifty years and been translated into numerous other languages – keep writing despite the fact they would rather dig six-foot trenches with their fingernails?

It’s simple.

I run. Go with me, people. I run. This comes as a surprise to most people, because I am a fairly voluptuous, size-16 wench who has what is known as a ‘reader’s physique’. But I run ten-kilometre charity runs twice a year. (Well, when I say ‘run’, let’s put it this way: little old ladies on walking frames overtake me. What we are really talking about is wearing running gear while walking, sweating, huffing and puffing, swinging my arms fast and coming home telling anyone who will listen that I have just come back from a run.) Between these ten-kilometre runs, I always slack off and get out of shape. I think: ‘I ran ten kilometres on Sunday morning and raised $17.30 for the Dogs With No Heads Foundation, so I’m sure no-one will judge me if I don’t run until two weeks before the next run, in six months’ time.’

Between runs, I don’t have a lot of motivation to keep up my running, because I’m hot. I have the opposite of body dysmorphia; every time I look in the mirror, I think, ‘Fuck, you’re gorgeous. I can’t believe you aren’t a model.’ And my boyfriend likes big bottoms and big boobs. So if I’ve been eating in the good paddock, getting stuck into the pies or spending quality time on the couch, all I get is encouragement: ‘Oh, lordy! Baby got back! That’s what I’m talking about! Bring that booty over here, baby! Then I’m taking you out for burgers and milkshakes!’ And despite how pudgy and out of shape I get, when I get back into training I invariably can run at least six kilometres with no problems on the first day. (Please keep in mind the little old ladies on walking frames.) Consequently, I own a wardrobe full of stretchy clothes that fit me whether I am size 12 or size 16.

Anyway, one day in winter I realised I was ten days away from one of these ten-kilometre runs. I’d put on my running gear and grabbed my iPod, but I couldn’t quite get out the door. My then ten-year-old son was watching tv. I stood in front of the television. ‘Charlie. Help me. I have to run. I have a ten-kilometre run in ten days and I haven’t run in five months. It’s raining, I’m hung-over and it’s the last thing I want to do but the thing I most should do. Say something to make me go on the run.’

Without taking his eyes off the screen, Charlie said, ‘Mum, imagine how good you’ll feel when you’ve finished.’

That’s it!

I run because it makes me feel better. My body feels better, my mind clearer, my heart lighter and I’m happier and less grumpy. Starting the day with some cardio makes me move faster for the rest of the day; I end up getting more done. But at the beginning, I always have to remind myself how good I will feel after a run. I even have a saying I repeat to myself: ‘No matter how slow you are going, you are lapping everyone on the couch.’ I first read it on a toilet wall. It’s true! But running is not really about other people – it’s about being better than the other ‘you’ who would choose to be on the couch.

It’s the same with writing.

Writing is about how good you’ll feel when you’ve finished.

Yes, I’ve told you that writing is horrible, thankless torture, but it’s also true that some of the greatest moments in my life have resulted from writing. In the process of writing, I find happiness, completeness, satisfaction, enlightenment, peace, insight, escape and triumph. Writing is time with just me and my words. It’s control. Yep, I love the control. I love being in my own world, able to write whatever I want.

But I never feel joyful when I start writing. And I’m not talking about when I began properly writing in my twenties. I mean any time I ever begin any writing session, including the one I started to write this chapter today. I do not know any professional writer who does. We just get on with it because we know how it makes us feel – eventually.

Motivation follows action. Don’t expect to bounce out of bed full of ideas and raring to go. Expect to feel sluggish and distracted. Expect your head to be full of dozens of things that were irrelevant or unimportant yesterday but that you now feel you must do immediately. Expect to feel like a fake, an imposter. Expect to feel like everyone will hate you and think your writing is shit. Expect to have to force yourself.

Okay, okay. Sometimes writing is fun. Sometimes it is the most magical, satisfying and empowering way you could spend your time. But you cannot expect it to always be like this. Most of the time it’s not. It’s gruelling. You cannot expect to ‘feel like’ writing or ‘enjoy’ writing, any more than you feel like or enjoy exercise, cleaning or getting your tax done.

Writing satisfies us.

You hear all this stuff these days about how