There are so many ways for a writer to feel inadequate. Of course, there is the constant rejection (about 1.5% of my submissions to literary journals get accepted — and I feel lucky with that). Then, there is the feeling that I am not writing enough, or that my writing is not good enough, or that my work isn’t featured in the New Yorker or the Paris Review. And then, even if I feel pride in what I do publish, there’s the reality that almost nobody reads the stuff anyway.
A workshop leader once said something like, A good writer will write more bad prose than a bad writer. Well, that leaves many of us with a lot of bad stuff to look at! Does it help that this is actually good news? And don’t get me started on reading. Of course, a writer should be reading broadly and deeply. So, my pile of books (physical, e-editions and audio) keeps growing faster than I can read them. To paraphrase a line from Bennett Sims’ novel, A Questionable Shape, reading may be a race that I am always simultaneously winning and losing. This is a field where what we make of our work internally is most important — more so than in most other endeavors.
It has always fascinated me to read famous writers’ accounts of their writing practices, such as, You must have a writing practice. Or: I get up at 4 a.m. every day and write for four hours before going to work/doing chores/feeding the animals/milking the cows/dealing with the kids … you get the idea Or: I write every day at the same time without fail.
As a psychologist with an active practice that had me seeing patients from early in the morning into the evening five days a week and doing paperwork and administrative chores on weekends to support my family, my reaction was usually, Yeah, right! I became the master of the inconsistent-short-spurt school of writing.
When I’m working on a piece, I have dialogues and character interactions going on in my head all the time — sometimes background, sometimes foreground, but always there. It’s like my brain is split between two parallel worlds that co-exist in the same space and time. So, I would always have my computer open on my desk, and if I had just ten, or even five, minutes between patients or phone calls, I would quickly empty as much as I could of what was in that literary part of my brain into a document on my computer, to be continued, refined, revised or discarded later.
Occasionally, I would have a longer stretch of time, like on a weekend when I had finished my dictation for the week, and I could sit in a café or in my study for a few hours. But my self-conditioning in short spurts transformed even those times into prolonged periods of short spurts. I would write for a few minutes, get a snack, write a few more minutes, get a coffee, write a few more minutes, read the news, write for a few more minutes, listen to the conversations around me.
I wondered whether, when I finally slowed down my practice and eventually retired, and I had the time for writing for which I had so long hungered, I would be able to sit for long periods of time and write and really make use of that gift of time, which I have always felt was lacking.
Or, maybe, my short spurt writing practice, rather than being just an artifact of the realities and constraints of my professional life, just fit my personality and would have evolved that way whatever it was that I did for a living. I am normally an antsy, distractible person who is thinking of several things at once; constantly forming associations between seemingly disparate things — a song lyric will change in my mind to something absurd or irreverent, a person’s appearance will trigger an imaginary biography complete with social status and personality quirks, an unexpected shift in mood will set off memories of sadness, emptiness, resentment or desire. And I will dwell on those things until my train of associations somehow brings me back to the writing project I have come to work on.
In her essay, “Thirty Recommendations for Good Writing Habits,” Lydia Davis writes: “…your nature, your character, your whole being will produce the kind of writing you do.” I believe that also goes for your writing practice.
I have decided to stop struggling with finding the “right” way to write. Writing is a gift I have given to myself, discovered, nurtured and grown out of whatever latent gifts were granted me. It is a gift to be treasured, enjoyed, celebrated and, when possible, shared. Short spurts or long spurts — a spurt is a spurt. Creativity knows no formula, conforms to no rigid confines, and adheres to no universal procedures, except maybe hard work, an allegiance to truth and honesty (factual, emotional or spiritual), and a willingness to engage with one’s inner and outer worlds.
E.H. Jacobs is a New England-based psychologist and writer. His debut novel, Splintered River — a literary political drama — was published in the fall of 2024. His work has appeared in Penstricken, The Writers’ Journal, Libre, Santa Fe Literary Review, Permafrost Magazine, Hawaii Pacific Review, Streetlight Magazine, and elsewhere. He was a finalist in the Derick Burleson Poetry and the Phil Heldrich Nonfiction Contests and was a nominee for the Nina Riggs Poetry Award.
He has published two books on parenting, as well as professional papers and psychology-related articles. He was a contributing book review editor for the American Journal of Psychotherapy and served on the clinical faculty at Harvard Medical School. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Vassar College and a Ph.D. from Temple University.
