The Loneliness of Writing

Two years of grad school and working at the Writing Center have taught me that writing is fundamentally a collaborative process; even grad students and faculty have their papers peer reviewed; the whole of the MFA degree is based around aspiring writers reviewing each others' works; Shakespeare flagrantly ripped off others' plots (as did everyone else), then collaborated on plays with them; Charles Dickens, Alexander Dumas, and James Joyce all had their close friends they sound-boarded ideas off of; nary a great Poet but that was part of some school/movement/salon/writers-circle that all informed each others' works. The myth of the solitary writer is just that, a myth.

But so far have I over-compensated in at last recognizing the collaborative nature of writing that I suddenly remembered today, while composing yet another 20-page paper, the solitary nature of writing, as well. It's lonely to be a writer; you make friends with other writers so that others can identify your literary "blind-spots," yes, but also because writing is just so fundamentally solitary. You despair of anyone ever reading your work, so you say what you write is still worth writing, even if it remains a loss treasure; but then you bang your head against the wall, and wonder if its even worth writing for no one.

It takes great reserves of emotional strength to write, to be so alone, to persevere. It's hard to even to write well enough to show to someone else. I admired the courage of students who came into the Writing Center and said "Just tear it apart," but I think they forgot that they'd already passed through the most courageous part of all, that of just beginning, that of just having a draft at all to tear apart.