No input, no output

Another fundamental rule of writing

Gooooooooood morning, afternoon, or evening, wherever you might happen to be!

You may notice during the months of February and March that some Page by Page posts look a little shorter than usual. That’s because I’m in the middle of a suuuuuuuper intensive bout of writing.

Not that I’m complaining!

In fact, I’m grateful to have so much writing on my hands. My wonderful research team has disbanded (#COMModeForever), so now it’s just me on my lonesome. Thankfully, I’ve managed to secure enough funding to keep me employed for the next ten months, which is a relief. And I plan on using that time to get a lot done, including:

• Rewriting the Big Fat/Effing Book to make it good

• Getting that good great BFB under contract with a fabulous press

• Writing a massive grant proposal to get my next job (please please pretty please)

• Co-author a book chapter on censorship

• Co-author a book chapter on public-facing medievalism (I’ll explain that another time)

• Read and review books

• Chip away at a piece of long-form fiction

• Continue writing short humour

Don’t worry: that’s only the research/writing side of my life. I’ve got plenty of other fun stuff to keep me busy (co-organising one of the biggest international conferences in my field, running several sessions at another massive international conference…oh shoot, and I think I’ve got to prepare a keynote somewhere in there…).

There are moments when I get a little overwhelmed, but I have to confess that right now I’m loving it all. I’ve managed to enter into the most fabulous state of creative flow—even when I shift from project to project I feel like I’m practically yawning prose. (It’s almost—but not quite—as good as what I describe in this piece on writing retreats I just published in The Belladonna Comedy). But I think one reason for my current flow of output is that I’m regularly absorbing input.

Whether you’re talking about academic writing or creative writing, you can’t do it well by simply cutting yourself off from the world and churning out words. Sure, that might get you to produce that famous Shitty First Draft (h/t Anne Lamott), but at some point, you either run out of gas or the well runs dry. And that’s when you need input.

All writers need input. Why do you think so many writers talk about how important it is for writers to read? Annie Proulx once said, ‘Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.’ Stephen King has said that, ‘If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.’ Same goes for short humour: take a writing class with Second City, and you’ll be reading even more humour than you end up writing!

But there are lots of other forms of input. One of them is just being observant. Susan Sontag has said, ‘A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world’. Comedian Mike Birbiglia has said that one of the tricks he uses to do this is to ride the subway in New York wearing headphones…but without listening to anything on them. Nobody bothers him, and he just gets to look around him and take everything in.

Sometimes I need to get outside and people-watch, or go for a walk. Sometimes I need to sit down and read. And sometimes I follow in the footsteps of John Keats: ‘Give me books, fruit, French wine, fine weather, and a little music.’

So if you feel like your well is running dry, or the words aren’t coming, or you’re just sick of typing, get yourself some input. To quote a rower my husband once overheard in the training room, ‘No input, no output.’

---

As ever, thanks for reading. This is a reader-supported publication, and the best way to support it is to become a paid subscriber (either at $6 per month or $60 per year).

If you’re really feeling generous, and you’d like access to everything above and regular feedback on your own writing whenever you need it, you can become a Founding Member ($150).

VB,

M