Making Coffee, Writing Novels

People who haven’t had coffee shouldn’t make coffee.

I relearned this important lesson a couple of mornings ago upon finding my pot of coffee spilled like a slick across the counter, dripping over the edge, pooling in a coffee pool on the floor.

What had I been thinking? Oh, yeah. I hadn’t.

And yet, all of us do things we can’t do in order to figure out how to do them. This living thing is a process, and yet, most folks want to avoid the process altogether because it is so damn time consuming. We want to figure things out without having to figure anything out at all. We want the easy bake way of living and haven’t yet realized that the easy bake cake wasn’t very tasty.

I see this need of ours often while teaching writing. Because we are a mostly literate society, most of us of able to read and write, many people think they can write a novel. Because I am a novelist, many people tell me about their novels, the ones they have been carting around inside of them. And damn, if they aren’t going to write it. Some day. To hear them talk, it’s going to be a best seller. A really, really big book.

Then there are those who have been practicing law or medicine or tantric yoga for 30 years and now are going to retire and write the novel they’ve been carting around for even longer than they practiced whatever it is that they practiced. Tomorrow, the novel will commence. And then, instant fame, not to mention Oprah, the New York Times bestseller list, movie deals, and that mansion on the shores of Maui.

My nutty and sometimes cruel writing teacher who provided more trenchant comments than any other writing teacher (though I had to wear protective emotional gear while in her presence) once said, “Consider your first ten years of writing as an apprenticeship.”

She also said, “Would you walk up to a doctor and say, ‘Hey, I think I’m going to start practicing medicine tomorrow. Do you think you can let me treat some of your patients? I’ve always been very interested in bones. Muscles, too. Feet.’”

At the time of my nutty teacher’s pronouncement, only one year into my writing apprenticeship and ready to be published immediately and then found by Oprah, I didn’t like what she said so very much. I didn’t want to spend the ten years (much like learning how to be a doctor) that I would need to practice my craft.

But now, I get it. There is so much to learn how to do, and then, even when that novel seems done, it likely is not. And then, when it is published, there’s a whole other world’s worth of learning in trying to stay published. The writing life is like law, medicine, tantric yoga, plumbing, carpentry, and accounting. We have to do our homework. We have to practice. We have to make a lot of failed pots of coffee. And then, maybe, we can finish that novel. Maybe then, we can start to think about calling Oprah.