On Becoming a Writer

by David Armstrong

To paraphrase Thoreau, I went to the woods because I wished to write deliberately, to write only the essential facts of life as well as my own wild imaginings, and see if I could learn what had been rattling around in the dark recesses of my addled brain, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not succeeded because I had never gotten off my ass.

If I told you how many times I had pondered becoming a renowned author, it would be a made-up number, because I really didn’t keep track of such things, and I probably couldn’t count that high anyway. If I considered how many times I thought of an idea that would make a good story and then failed to record it in some fashion to make it retrievable later and then, upon reflection, realized that I had no recollection of what I had thought of earlier, that would also be a pretty damn high number. Come to think of it, that might make a decent story in its own right. I’d better write that down...

Nah, no need. I’m sure I’ll remember it later.

I’ve considered becoming a writer since childhood, if I’m being honest. I have often thought of seeing my name on the cover of a handsome book jacket and showing my old high school English teacher exactly what he could do with that D-minus he doled out for “failure to participate.” I think of myself as a creative mind, full of imagination and wonder, despite all evidence to the contrary. I envision stories that I would love to see enjoyed by others, and I won’t let the inconvenient fact that I’ve never shared them with anyone else disrupt that fantasy in any appreciable way.

There are many books on the subject of becoming a writer. Most authorities on the subject will tell you that the best way to become a writer is to write. “Write,” they proclaim. “Write with passion, with indifference, write whatever you feel, see, or think. Write what you know, write what you imagine, but above all, write. Write daily, without fail, and one day if you are diligent, you may generate something of value.”

This sounds hard.

Not to be discouraged, I went to other sources to discover the answers that I sought. I delved into hidden libraries, deep within the sour recesses of the earth. I climbed vast mountain peaks to seek wisdom from ancient hermit-like gurus. I consulted dark cabals of published authors on the Internet, twisted souls who would divulge their fail-safe methods and darkest secrets in exchange for fifteen minutes of adulation, a box of two-day-old muffins, and the promise of other stale muffins to come.

I even paid $25.00 to consult a neighborhood psychic. I don’t really believe in psychics, but then I don’t believe in monsters in my closet either, and that doesn’t stop me from making certain the closet door is tightly shut before I go to bed.

At any rate, after years and years of searching for an easier way, my quest was finally rewarded. I will not reveal which source finally coughed up the answer, for that would deny you the pleasure of years of fruitless searching, yourselves. And who am I to deny you such anxiety? Still, the answer was revealed, and it is as follows:

Get yourself a fresh dodo’s egg. Mix it in a silver basin with five gills of holy water, the tufts of a dormouse’s tail, and four RC Cola bottle caps. Stir it nine times counter-clockwise with the stem of a still-blooming tiger lily, and then thirteen times clockwise with a petrified fox’s tail. I have heard that it is best if the fox’s tail is petrified before the fox dies, but I’ve been unable to verify this tidbit, so feel free to take your own chances on the matter.

Let the mixture sit till it stops moving in the bowl, and then add fifty-three tears from a girl you didn’t ask to the prom. I’ve been informed that one could substitute this ingredient for a half-jigger of semen from “a virgin true,” whatever that means. I went with the tears, because the other one is gross, but you do you.

After this last step, the concoction should be the color of marigolds in the sunshine. Placing the vessel carefully on a flat glass surface — I used my coffee table, after relocating a stack of magazines — you must balance a marble on your nose. Then you must tie your left shoe with your right hand, and then your right shoe with your left hand, without allowing the marble to fall from its perch. And then, still balancing the marble and holding your right newly-shoed foot aloft with your left hand, you must recite The Battle Hymn of the Republic backwards, in Farsi. This task alone should prove that you are worthy of great things.

And finally, without losing your balance or allowing your right foot to touch any surface other than your left hand, you must retrieve the four RC Cola bottle caps from the basin using only your teeth. If you can complete this final task without losing your balance or getting too much holy water up your nose, you’ll be a writer.

To paraphrase Rudyard Kipling: “If you can make one heap of all your writing and risk it all on one cockamamie anecdote, and mess it up — because that’s what we do — and start again at the beginning, and never tell anyone about the great story you started but never finished because you got stuck on the third page and don’t know how to go back to where the protagonist is getting involved in this story or not, and why they would even care, and whose big idea was this to start writing anyway?

If you can force your heart and nerve and bad penmanship and cramps in your hands and that really annoying pressure right between your eyes that isn’t a headache yet, but by God it’s heading in that direction, to serve your turn long after you might get done — that is, if you ever get started — then yours is the world of literature and everything that’s in it. “And you’ll be a Man, my son!”

Of course, that’s if you like Kipling. I wouldn’t know... I’ve never kippled.