Learning to Write

Yesterday I mentioned how, for the better part of a year, I tried to write one particular book, but ended up writing something else altogether.

In the “Finding Your Voice” chapter of Bird By Bird, Anne Lamott wrote:

I often ask my students to scribble down in class the reason they want to write… what is propelling them to do this sometimes-excruciating, sometimes-boring work. And over and over again, they say in effect, “I will not be silenced again.” They were good children who often felt invisible and who saw some awful stuff. But at some point they stopped telling what they saw because, when they did, they were punished. Now they want to look at their lives—at life—and they don’t want to be sent to their rooms for doing so.

It wasn’t until later in life that I was silenced, but it did happen, and I suppose that’s why I wrote a novel. I had to get it out. And now, I am free.