Writing is Becoming

Last week, while teaching a writing workshop to young authors, I began with a bold assertion. “All writing is a relationship between author and reader.” 

I paused, somewhat chagrined. All writers Elizabeth? I thought to myself. Really? 

And then I paused for a different reason. If I am going to walk my talk, I must begin by considering the relationship to the young, bright, eager people sitting around the table, people who may never have imagined themselves as authors. Because speaking is a relationship, too. 

My gaze swept the chilly conference room, noting the business antiseptic décor: white walls, white Formica tabletop, grey carpet, grey metal chairs upholstered in gray industrial strength stain-resisting fabric, all lit by overhead florescent tubes which, thankfully, did not buzz. Yet my colleague who organized the workshop had added warmth to the evening by carrying a large coffee maker up the concrete stairs to the second floor, baking an apple pie for everyone, and serving it himself as a heartfelt gesture of hospitality. Both he and I aimed for a kind and loving welcome. 

I was delighted to be there and, I think, so were the young writers. But I could lose them so easily if I failed to notice who they were and are, what they wanted, and perhaps—even when they did not know it themselves—what they needed. As we sat together, eating apple pie, my attention moved from person to person, speaking with them and to them, reading their body language to sense how my words were landing. 

I wondered: Am I speaking to their minds or to their hearts, their egos or to their souls? These are important choices—for speakers and for writers. Speaking or writing to the mind uses one language, addressing the soul another. 

With young people exploring the writing life, I’m speaking to tender egos and to minds wrestling with identities. They need and want to find their author’s voice, to see on the page the evidence that they matter. 

I’m also speaking to their soul—their daimon or genius—who has a vision of the individual they are becoming. Pindar, one of the nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, summed up their task in four words: Become who you are. 

These young authors are becoming who they are through seeing what they say on the page. Regardless whether the words are published or remain private, the author is addressing her soul and, one day, her future self. 

Writing is becoming. 

Image: Brocken spectre with a glory, Wikimedia Commons