Writing and getting it right

In my early school years, I wrote and edited all my papers with a pen

Wouldn’t our English teachers be so proud of us? They used to have to assign us to write. Now, we write blogs, send Tweets and emails, comment on Facebook, and even self-publish—all of our own volition. What's come over us? 

Many of the long-standing barriers to writing are no longer relevant. Digital devices, together with social media channels, eliminate most excuses for not being able to ever publish your writing, and those same technologies have crumbled the walls of self-consciousness once so common among reticent writers, making “having our say” almost irresistible at times. In fact, a rare few contract “hypergraphia,” an overpowering desire to write.
Take Dr. Alice Flaherty, a neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. For ten days after the premature birth and death of her twin boys, she grieved deeply, then, in her words, “The sun and moon switched positions.” One morning she simply “woke up feeling as if a switch had been thrown and a thousand volts were flowing through [her].” Hypergraphia had seized her completely, and she began to write maniacally. Day and night, she scribbled and scrawled and scratched out her thoughts anywhere and everywhere—on her arm, on toilet paper squares, on tiny Post-It notes—until after four months she’d completed her first book. Flaherty claims this was no bout with depression. Unlike depressed people, she felt euphoric during the writing process. She actually liked the drive hypergraphia instilled in her. 

Some are compelled to write no matter the volume, quality, or content; other more serious writers want to leave a permanent mark on the world. Still, others write as therapy to combat trauma and manage transitions. Such was my sister’s experience when her husband was literally swept off a jetty and killed suddenly by a rogue wave. Not only was she grieving the loss of her husband, but she was also suffering incredible physical pain herself from a back broken in three places and a deep gash wound in her forehead. At that time I gave her the book Writing as a Way of Healing. In time, she took on the project of writing her husband’s life story. She began by combing through his journals, gathering stories from colleagues and students, and collecting remembrances from her own children. It appeared both the writing process and the final product gave her something real to cling to once her husband was gone.

When you’re motivated to capture something elusive, the way Dr. Flaherty and my sister were, the drive to finish can help overcome writing obstacles. On the other hand, classroom writing assignments can be off-putting. Although perhaps still motivated to finish, you might find the fun sucked out of writing a paper you know will be subjected to the heartless scrutiny of a teacher’s red pen. Or worse, you may develop double fear: initial fear of not receiving credit for completing the assignment and later fear about what grade you will receive. Grading can feel (and often can be) very subjective, and therein lies much of the problem with teaching writing in schools. 

For a number of years, I volunteered as a writing docent at my children’s school. I taught using Step Up to Writing, a systematic, non-subjective approach to writing. The methods are clear and the rubrics are objective. The students catching on to even singular techniques began to feel empowered to write freely. A palpable relief and newfound confidence shone in their countenances. For the first time in school, they concerned themselves more with getting the message right than with getting a good grade.

Good grades were not my primary motivation to write. In my youth, I filled many journals and got a strange sort of satisfaction from writing, editing, and rewriting my school papers. In my mind’s eye, I can still see the handwritten manuscripts I marked up multiple times. I learned early on that, although invigorating, writing was work. (It still is.)

Like an instrument to a musician, writing for some of us is a tool to help us say what we mean and mean what we say. I can relate to some of the sentiments of seasoned newspaper journalist Dave Newhouse who, yesterday at age 73, wrote the final column of his 52-year career. Dubbing himself “a prisoner of words,” he explains, “Vocabulary consumes a journalist, taxes his verbal skills, and beats him up if the perfect word comes to him, too late….” 

Though I’m not a journalist by trade, it’s not uncommon for me to wake up in the wee hours of the morning thinking about a misplaced comma or a word that needs replacing. In those solitary moments, I sometimes wonder who really cares what I write, anyway. Fortunately for me (and other bloggers), unlike those in print journalism, I can publish, then go back and correct or even rewrite with impunity. So, probably unbeknownst to most of my readers, I sometimes do just that. While you're sleeping, I’m often revisiting my blogs. I simply can't stop myself from editing and tweaking in order to nail my message because I care about getting my writing right.