My Right to Write

Throughout my life, my dad has only given me a few gifts. His money paid for plenty, but my mother does all the birthday and Christmas shopping for my sisters and I. Maybe if he had sons, my dad would have been more interested in our presents but as it was, he didn’t have much opinion on Barbies.

I remember the gifts he purchased himself because he so rarely participated in selecting items. One year for Christmas, he bought me a pocket knife. In middle school when I passed the hunter safety course, he took me to the store to pick out a shotgun. Another Christmas, he gave me a book by Julia Cameron, called The Right to Write.

The pocket knife and shotgun were for use in the woods on our family farm, and as an outdoorsman my dad was confident in picking them out by himself. The book, on the other hand, had been recommended to him by a writer who worked in his offices. My dad, knowing I wanted to be a writer, asked the man to name a book that had influenced his career. The Right to Write is the book he told my dad to purchase.

I never read the book. The bookshelf I pulled it from just now might as well have been a shelf in the store where he bought it. The paperback cover is unbent, the spine stiff with fresh glue. I never turned back a single page.

As a teenager, I scoffed at the subtitle. “An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life.” What a bunch of bullshit. I was 16 when I started posting my poetry online under a pseudonym, at Dark Poetry. By the time I unwrapped that book, I already had supportive readers and friends in an international community of writers, all through that amazing little website.  Young and full of pride, I thought, “I don’t need anyone inviting me to be a writer. I already am a writer.”

The cover of the book itself is not much more enticing. The tall, thin, serif font and widely spaced letters scream pretension. The only image on the cover (apart from the author’s black and white glamour shot on the back) is a single, horizontal feather.

The feather is suggestive of a quill pen, though there is no ink well and the end of the feather does not appear to be pointed or slit. I learned how to make feather quills playing with a calligraphy kit my mom gave me once. We had a big supply of turkey feathers thanks to Dad, and I cut them into pens using my pocket knife.

Despite having never read it, I have dutifully packed and unpacked that book all over Ohio. I  even packed it on a vacation in an overly optimistic attempt to force myself to read it.

At this point, it may be more impressive to continue not reading the book. I wanted to have a nice, neat ending to this story and say “Now I am going to turn to page one and begin,” but the truth is I am still not interested in Julia Cameron’s reasons why I should write.

I have my own reasons for writing, including maintaining my sanity and utilizing my obscenely expensive education. While I was in college, Dr. Margot Cullen took her class to Los Angeles and introduced us to the Screenwriters Convention at the Staples Center. We were awestruck by the unwashed masses of writers at the convention.

Young, old, handsome, ugly, dressed in neon orange jumpsuits or business casual, some rushed to catch workshops led by big industry names while others stood hours in long lines for the chance to pitch their script to a “studio executive.”

It was common knowledge that the majority of these writers wrote awful crap that no studio would want; we all assumed we were the exception. A small few wrote crap the studios loved.  Some wrote brilliant scripts for which the studios had no market. Most of the good writers who knew how to sell a script were there to teach one of the hundreds of workshops.

Despite these distinctions, we were all writers. Dr. Cullen attended a workshop called Writers Bootcamp and came back with t-shirts that said “The secret to writing is writing.” She raved at the blunt eloquence of that statement, while my classmates and I made jokes to hide our embarrassment at spending thousands of dollars to learn such a simple truth.

I was reminded of the atmosphere at that convention last night, when blogger Amelia Sawyer (chefswidow) approached me about the lawsuit currently filed against me in response to a blog post. Amelia stepped away from her wine tasting dinner party to tell me not to worry. “I’ve spoken to hundreds of bloggers,” she said, referring to a convention she recently attended. “I want you to know that you shouldn’t even worry about it.  You’re going to be fine, it’s nothing.”

Amelia’s husband (Chef Jonathon Sawyer) has already been incredibly supportive of me in this matter (he’s also been happy to bust my balls about it, like a true friend) but Amelia’s kind words encouraged me because they were so unexpected. Amelia has two small children, a busy husband with a restaurant to run, and a writing career of her own. Her support was a needed reminder that I am still part of a community of writers.

Though I rarely log into Dark Poetry these days, and no longer attend Dr. Cullen’s courses, I am still learning as a writer in our worldwide community.  The secret to writing is writing, and I will continue to write.  I’d also like to thank my Dad for this nice book with the feather on the cover.