When all forms of distraction fail, you do what you have to do.
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Like most writers I know, I write because I have to. Not the kind of have to where you’re going to die if you don’t. Or even the kind of have to because if you don’t you can’t pay the bills and you’ll starve to death and so will your family. That kind of have to doesn’t even apply to most writers because the large majority of us don’t actually make our living from writing. I’d been writing quite a while, living hand to mouth, before I started getting enough assignments and book collaborations that I could make a pretty okay living that way — but I always needed to teach at the same time, because that was a steady income.
I write because it is the one thing I can do reasonably well, reasonably naturally.
For me, I write because it is who I am and what I am. I write because it is the one thing I can do reasonably well, reasonably naturally. I write because it is the one place in the world where I am completely in control. I can make my characters be and do anything I like, so long as it makes sense in terms of the character and the story. I write because it gives me a place in the world. It allows me to put something down in that space that asks for your occupation. And I write because, when it’s going well, which it doesn’t always, it gives me satisfaction.
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The truth is, I wish I could do something else. Like be a carpenter. Or a painter. Or a sculptor. Because the people who do that can see the palpable results of what they do. They can look at their work and say, “pretty good job.” Me, what am I looking at? A page with a bunch of letters on it. There is no intrinsic beauty in that, only if I or someone else sits down and reads what I’ve written. I can’t put a frame around a page and say, “look, isn’t that beautiful?”
And yet, when it’s going good I don’t even need to have someone else approve of it or attest to its beauty. I know. And sometimes that’s enough.
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Years ago, I was interested in a woman and I asked her out to a movie. We got to talking and she said she’d just met someone else whom she’d started to date. He was a carpenter. I knew I didn’t have a chance against him and I told her so, “you’re better off with him. He can build you a bookshelf. Or kitchen cabinets. Or a house. I can write a grocery shopping list for you. Or maybe a short story with you as a character.”
She chose the carpenter and eventually married him. I don’t think she made a mistake, even though they’re divorced now. I’m sure she has some very nice bookshelves and maybe even a dining room table.
I’ll do anything, and I mean anything to avoid sitting down at the computer and write.
Of course, like most writers I know, I have a love-hate relationship with writing. I’ll do anything, and I mean anything to avoid sitting down at the computer and write. In fact, even though this is writing it’s also a way to avoid writing what I should be writing, which is finishing my next novel, a sequel to three others.
It’s not that writing is painful for me. In fact, it’s joyous. When I actually do it. It’s just that every time I sit down in front of the computer to write, I’m challenging yourself. Can I do it? Do I have something to say? Will anyone else like it, understand it, want to read it? Am I good enough?
I’ve never had writer’s block. It’s kind of a luxury when you’ve had to make a good part of your living as a writer, which I’ve had to. I began as a magazine journalist and I wrote to deadlines. If I didn’t make the deadline, I didn’t get paid. I made the deadlines. Always.
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I sometimes pray for rain or at least a grey, cloudy day, so that I have nothing else to do but stay home and write.
Now that I’m writing novels, my first love, I give myself deadlines. This summer I gave myself the deadline of finishing a first draft of my next novel. I’m very close. I feel good about that. About writing and about making a deadline.
People often ask me if I have a routine. The answer is no. I write when I feel like it. I write when the guilt about not writing is so strong that I am compelled to sit down and write something, even if it’s a paragraph or a page. I write best when the weather is bad. When it’s nice, I’m compelled to be outside, enjoying the good weather. I sometimes pray for rain or at least a grey, cloudy day, so that I have nothing else to do but stay home and write.
But of course, there’s no such thing, because I can always find things to keep me from writing. The Internet. TV. Answering emails (yes, a form of writing.) Going on Facebook to see how others are living their lives.
Charles Salzberg is a New York-based novelist, journalist and acclaimed writing instructor. He is the author of the Henry Swann detective series and "Devil in the Hole," chosen as one of the Best True Crime Novels of the Year by Suspense Magazine. His latest novel, "Swann's Lake of Despair," will be published on Oct. 22, 2014.
