why i write

He arrived early to his first year Public Policy lecture. He never liked being late, having 200 eyes on him as he pierced the veil of concentration and walked down the steps to find an unobstructed vacant seat. He would rather be an hour early than five minutes late. He takes a seat in the front row. This represents an apology to the lecturer but was also his way of preventing himself from falling asleep, to glean as much value from his student fee, and for his view to remain unobstructed by the barricade of box-fresh MacBook Airs that now resided behind him.

The lecturer, M, had a strong North American accent, the first he had heard in real life. His knowledge of American accents is not strong enough to specify any further, but he deemed it distinct enough to be a helpful tool in remembering the particulars of what she was teaching. 

That afternoon in the small seminars held, M broke some news that left a palpable displeasure in the room; the students would have to submit a 3,000 word essay every single week. Even his maths was good enough to know that would be 12 essays in the semester. With all the students being enrolled on at least four modules, which all demanded at least two written assignments and an exam, it is easy to see why this news was so unpopular. 

His first piece was extremely sloppy; he forgot to include the cover sheet with details of his name and student number. He misunderstood the instructions so severely that the piece was submitted without the bibliography he had prepared. As the weeks passed and he worked through the assignments, and with the assistance of prompt feedback, he began to alter the way he writes. He included evidence not only from the required reading, but also from the additional readings. He began including references to the lecturer’s work and eventually elected to use the resources of the library, to not only include references to relevant work not on the curriculum, but to broaden his knowledge of the topics beyond what was expected of him. He began to understand the composition of a good essay, he gained the ability to structure draft pieces in his head, and by the end of the semester the pieces (for all of his modules) would largely write themselves.

In the final week of the semester, he received his grade for the twelfth and final essay; 87%. It was a first. Before his final lecture that day, he had elected to catch up with a friend of his, X, who he hadn’t seen that semester, and this friend broke news to him that was equally as devastating as the news from the M in that seminar 12 weeks ago; X only had to submit one essay for the entire semester, the twelfth and final assignment. Initially he was sure X had misunderstood the assignment, then he was confused as to how this could’ve happened, and then he was angry that he was made to write all these essays for no discernibly good reason.

During that final afternoon lecture, M explained to them her experiment. Half of the cohort had been tasked with writing only one essay for the entire semester (Group A), while the remainder was required to submit essays every week (Group B). While the latter were rightly unhappy at being guinea pigs, the following slide in her presentation surely put them at ease. It was a list of the top ten scoring essays. All the essays were from Group B.

While Group A had the perceived benefit of time, to dedicate more of it to crafting the perfect essay, they did not benefit from the practice of writing a bad essay, receiving useful feedback, and correcting their mistakes. While they may have had the illusion of more time, many took this for granted and began working on their single essay only a week before the deadline anyway. This was a move out of the David Bayle and Ted Orland playbook, a parable from their book Art & Fear. Though that was one of the hardest semesters of the entire course, Group B would be all the better for it, and this would serve as a lesson that they would never forget.

* * *

Some of you will be aware that I have been writing a book, and some of you will also know that I deleted this book (because I bring it up at every opportunity). I use dedicated writing software for almost everything, including my book reviews and articles, and I used this same software for my book. While it makes me feel pretentious and important, it does have some utility that justifies its use. It contains my entire book proposal, the structure for the book, character and scene details, notes, and references with regard to any research I have done, and then the book itself with features used for editing drafts. It seemed sensible to keep everything in one place; it is easy to reference anything I need without leaving the writing environment, and the software allows for the manuscript to be exported in the correct formats.

The way I lost this was quite embarrassing — I overwrote the file with a blank template. 20,000 words gone in a flash, but along with it was every tool and ingredient that went into that initial draft. This was back in August 2021, and since then I have done little more than just think about the book. I have every intention to finish it, at least I think I do, but when that will be is currently unknown. 

Though I’ve always wanted to be a writer, I never set out with the objective to write a book. the idea presented itself to me organically, and I had been processing it gradually for years until I put proverbial pen to proverbial paper a couple of years ago. Around this time, I started reading interviews with authors and advice from literary agents and publishers, and there was one reoccurring reminder; “your first book will be bad”. 

This led to a dilemma; I thought I had a brilliant idea, but if my first book is guaranteed to be inadequate do I really want to waste it? I have read some fantastic debuts, but I’m not convinced I could sit amongst those authors. I could, on the other hand, write a throwaway piece; this would preserve my original proposal for a time when my writing has improved, but I never intended to write for the sake of it. What if I am not engaged with this throwaway story? What if the premise, combined with an inexperienced writing style, is so weak that it permanently damages my motivation to write, and as a result the original concept never comes to fruition?

In a way, the universe made that decision for me when my book was deleted last year. I spent years planning and replanning the book in my head before I even wrote anything down, but the first hour of brainstorming and typing on my laptop felt more productive than every consultation I had had in my head to that point. If I’m being honest, I’m not sure if I still have that same motivation to write the book; that incident last year has permanently damaged that. But what I do know is that I do want to write, I like to write, and so maybe it’s time I remind myself of that lecture all those years ago, and possibly start by publishing something once a week, and see where that leads.