Hit the Like and Restack button please! I originally wrote this piece three years ago and almost no one saw it. I think it explains some things about me.
I was just thinking that I haven’t touched a horse in at least ten years. Retiring from shoeing was forced on me and that made me ask the question, if I wasn’t a horseshoer, then what was I? I didn’t know. This is a common dilemma for men since we tend to define ourselves by our profession. The dominant factor leading the way to retirement was debilitating pain. Working through cuts, punctures, and burns was a normal thing. Broken fingers, toes and cracked ribs didn’t stop me. But this sciatic pain from my hip to my toe couldn’t be ignored. It was sporadic but it continued to worsen. The final straw was Kerry gently telling me enough was enough. She was right of course. I got a job feeding show horses on a large ranch but even that became impossible over time. One day I couldn’t walk up the two steel steps to get on the back of the truck to feed hay so I had to quit. Those were some dark days.
Eventually, and by that, I mean ten years or so later, we figured out my problem and got it fixed. I feel so good that I can’t even get mad about multiple people not being able to interpret an MRI properly.
During those ten years I needed something to do that didn’t involve me standing, kneeling, climbing, walking or bending over. Kerry is the one to blame for encouraging me to write. I would fool around with stories when we were calving on the ranch, and I needed a way to stay awake all night, but I never took it seriously. Mentally, I could not get past an incident with a college professor I admired who made an off-hand comment about a paper I wrote that was devastating. I thought I was making progress with my writing but apparently that was not true. It may sound silly now, but it wasn’t to me then and that moment in his office lingered for over forty years in my head.
Never let it be said that Kerry would let my brain interfere with her good ideas. One day she bought a book about writing with an emphasis on daily journaling and told me to read the first chapter. It gave me ideas and questions to write about each day which got me thinking and typing. Then I began to work on some stories I had in my head. A doomed romance from a guy’s point of view. A tale of a large white horse dragging a horseshoer to sure oblivion ala Moby Dick. A ghost story of sorts. I sent them off to some contests and even won an e-book. I got some feedback from editors that turned out to make sense and I rewrote some of them. I thought they were vastly improved, and I was making progress. But what to do with my writing besides send it in to contests? That’s when I discovered Substack.com
As I published, people began, both in person and online, to ask me why I was writing. There was a time, like back in that professor’s office, I would have taken grave offense to the questions because of what I believed they were implying.
“Why are YOU of ALL PEOPLE writing?” But, I didn’t take offense. Not because I matured or grew wiser. Heck no.
I just came to understand that writing can be a dangerous act. It also can be entertaining. Sometimes it’s boring, frustrating, and seems pointless. Then again it can be heroic and enlightening. Many times, it’s all the above at once. That sounds like chaos, doesn’t it? So why do I do it? I now know that’s a fair question with an unsatisfactory answer.
I have read of authors who claim they might fall to pieces mentally and physically if they couldn’t write. Some even talk about taking their own lives if something happened and the words did not pour out of their head onto paper. Some have done just that. That sort of passion and focus might be necessary to be successful, at least commercially.
If an all-consuming maniacal desire is needed to write something someone would pay to read, unfortunately for my bank account, I do not have that sort of passion. But what if you aren’t interested in great commercial success? What if you write because you just want the permanence of your thoughts down on paper? Maybe you could make just enough money to support your fly fishing or bird dog habit? I may be alone on this but that would be a fantastic goal!
The author of Thicker Than Soup, Kathryn Joyce said that “We all have a book in us. The first step is to recognize that. Writing it is a whole new journey.”
The late curmudgeon Christopher Hitchens said, “Everyone has a book in them and that, in most cases, is where it should stay.”
Two points of view that couldn’t be farther apart by two successful writers. One encourages the other discourages. Yin and Yang. Light and dark. Which one sways you?
These two people, however, are speaking about books. Writing isn’t always about books. It could be a short story or poetry. It might be a blog post or some other social media dissertation. Whatever it is, an outline or plan is not necessary. No one even has to read it if that’s what you want. It doesn’t even have to be coherent at first. But it must, as Hemingway would have said, be true.
I don’t think I’m a good writer yet, which is one of the reasons I read books on writing. The authors are people whose work I admire, and I do pick up some tips and advice I find helpful. If I’m being honest, I also hope to magically gain some talent via ocular osmosis. That’s something many writers purposefully forget or ignore. Innate talent is needed to produce art. A writer can learn the techniques and skills needed to produce a novel or poetry from books, school, and mentors. But it takes talent to coalesce raw ideas with craftmanship and turn out something that makes a reader feel or emote the way the author intends.
Where does talent come from? I don’t think anyone knows. We have all heard that practice makes perfect and that the more you practice the luckier you get. True enough but usually the people who express these sentiments are very talented in the first place. Practice enhanced their abilities which were already substantial. In other words, if you can’t walk and chew gum at the same time you can’t practice your way into being a professional golfer.
Some authors feel that the total unique experience and emotion of their lives, in other words “Their Truth”, can be substituted for talent. They believe their story is so compelling, readers will be unable to resist its pull. The frustrating thing about these sorts is that if manipulated properly in the media, these people can be passed off as having ability.
Think of all the children’s books written by celebrity types who just had a child. Their experience, often dramatic and life threatening, is explained to the audience as being unique in the realm of childbearing and rearing. The celebrity realized the stories they made up for their children were so much better than the ordinary works available. The stories in their new book will educate your child and promote the right sort of thinking about whatever cause the celebrity is supporting.
The worst of all in my opinion are the people who use ghost writers but claim to be bestselling authors. Ghost writers are not the problem. My wife is one. It’s a difficult occupation because you are writing down someone else’s story that you have gotten through interviews. Once you write them down in a logical order while also making them interesting you must give them back to the subject for editing and that, as you can imagine, can be challenging.
Memoirs or biographies are my weak spot. When well written, they are full of information and the goings on in someone’s brain during important moments. For example, Ulysses Grant’s auto biography is quite good. Written as he was dying, it was his last chance to make some money for his family. He pulls no punches and just lays out the facts of his life with no justification or whining. You come away understanding the man. With all his faults and failings Grant saved the Union and abolished slavery as much as any man, including Lincoln. Yet he didn’t have the need to remind us of it in his memoir. He just told the story. Fortunately for his family it sold very well.
He wrote to provide for his family after his death. That’s a good reason to write, isn’t it?
Grant’s counterpart, Robert E. Lee did not write anything about himself, or his wartime experiences and it is a tragedy. I don’t know why he never set his life down on paper. I do know he once said that he regretted having a military education. Considering his career in total, that says a lot about the mindset of the man, at least post war. How I wish he would have told us about his life and times. Why did he make the choices he made and what did he learn from them? It might well have changed a lot about post-Civil War America by eliminating so much myth making. Perhaps it would have stopped the narrative of the valiant gray knight, mounted on his faithful horse Traveler, fighting for the “Lost Cause” against all odds, which in turn might have changed some of the Southern mindset during Reconstruction and eventually Jim Crow. I guess the General just didn’t have a good enough reason to write.
Or maybe not. History, like writing, is like that. Guessing about what might have been is fun and even instructive but can also be perilous when it comes to the truth. If you mix reality with what might have been, you damage truth. Add to it the narrative of your part in the story, justifying your actions, portraying yourself as the hero and truth can disappear entirely. This is an example of writing being dangerous.
I’m convinced that the term” My Truth” was spawned by this self centered mindset and it’s pedantic thinking. There is only truth. It happened or it didn’t. Truth belongs to no one. “My Truth” is a personal interpretation of reality. This is not something I would put much faith in because I know what people are like. They will usually interpret events to put themselves in the best possible light. Ask any cop taking statements from witnesses.
On the other hand, if all you need to write is “one true thing” as Papa said, and its true to you… Oh boy. See how weird writers are?
So, why do we write? The unsatisfactory answer is that it depends on who is writing. But in addition, I think that human beings have an innate need to express themselves artistically and writing is just one way to do it. There are so many others from painting to cooking to knitting. Anything you do that gives you creative satisfaction is worth the effort. If it makes other people smile or think, that’s a bonus.
What creative or artistic things do you do? Don’t automatically dismiss it. Think about it if you aren’t sure. I’d love to hear about it. Just hit the Comment button below.
John -- Mike "Mort" Gundersen put me on to your work last summer when I went to the Workcoeman centennial. I don't know if you remember me, but I knew you and your father through Boy Scouts, more than 50 years ago. I've enjoyed your stuff, and have sent your GSP ones to an old friend of mine who is an avid bird hunter and has GSP's of his own. Keep up the good work.
Sean Gorman
Funny, as I went to leave a comment on this piece I needed a code so that I could be reauthenticated. Perhaps writing your daily thoughts that form stories which inform, enlighten and inspire is authenticating that we are writers. Each time we put pen to paper or let our fingers fly across the keyboard we are being exactly the who we are meant to be. For myself and the people I coach, the 'why' is the passion that feeds our soul, that gets us up in the morning with a smile on our face ready to start the day, pure joy. Writing is an inside job, writing is that which nothing and no one outside of us can take away unless we choose to let them. Keep Writing my friend.