Five Rules for Writing and Perhaps for Daily Living

Five Rules for Writing and Perhaps for Daily Living

In Chicken Soup for the Writer’s Soul, Dan Milman offers five rules for writers as they pursue their heartfelt dreams.  First, show up.  Second, pay attention to everything occurring around you.  Third, as you tell the story, tell your “truth.”  Fourth, do your very best.  Fifth, do not let the outcomes distract you.  I think Milman’s rules for writing apply perfectly to daily living regardless of your profession, passions or personality.  He concludes his story with a pithy and sagacious reminder, “There are no great writers.  There are good re-writers.”  Likewise, no one is perfect.  Rarely do first tries at anything succeed.  Thankfully and eventually, mistakes teach more than successes.

Tough times at work often discourage us.  Rather than going in “to face the music,” we may call in sick, take a mental health day or find some other excuse to avoid facing the reality of hard choices and perhaps harder consequences.  When the alarm clock rings in the morning, like an ostrich burying his head in the sand, we pull the covers over our head and hope the day will pass in a glimpse allowing us to roll over and go back to sleep.  Yet, we must get out of bed and deal with life on its terms.  Perhaps, termination of an ineffective and unproductive employee is necessary.  The raise you deserve will not be given by osmosis; you have to ask for it risking denial and personal rejection.  If a doctor has results of a recent physical, you need to know the status of your health.  The vice principal handling discipline at your child’s school will not stop calling.  A face-to-face conference with administration, teachers, parents and student is in order.  Myriad other scenarios abound.  However, Milman’s first rule applies to each example.  First, show up!  My worst fears have never been realized.  Showing up equates with ninety-eight percent of the battle.  David partially defeats Goliath because David possesses divine courage to stand and oppose the Philistine giant.  Similarly, we conquer our fear by simply showing up and believing our unfailingly loving God will orchestrate the minute details of our lives toward the best result.

“Write for the senses.”  Milman encourages writers to play very close attention to their surroundings.  Good stories place the listeners and readers directly in the setting.  Details enable the audience to see the typography and terrain, touch the furniture, hear the wind blowing, smell the flowers and taste the food.  Look and listen for significant dramatic elements of a story.  Mystery writers embed major clues within short phrases of conversations.  It is said eighty-five percent of communication is non-verbal.  Thus, important aspects of negotiations are often silent.  Facial recognition technology closely analyzes expressions to detect lying and other signs of deceit.  As we pay attention to minutiae, we discover previously overlooked riches.  Routine observations can reveal wealthy hues and colors for brilliant prose.  The senses can also expose opportunities we dismiss in the normal course of daily activity.  Further, stopping and paying attention to detail often yields heartfelt gratitude for countless blessings.  It is nice to have a spouse who irons your clothes during the morning’s flurry of activity before leaving for work.  Opening the door on a hot, hazy and particularly humid day in July causes great thanks for air conditioning.  Bumper-to-bumper traffic is more bearable when you contrast it with the sweltering platforms of the subway system.  Assuredly, when you stop and pay attention to life, you see wealth, gratitude and joy are often found in simple, small yet significant things.

Milman posits each writer can find confidence in his unquestioned uniqueness.  “Write only as you can for no one else can write as exactly as you do.”  Another popular translation of Milman’s axiom relating to individuality offers, “No one can beat you being you.”    Most assuredly, you will always fail when you attempt to be someone other than who you are.  Writers like all other artists, musicians, entertainers, comedians and performers must find their own voice.  Mimicking someone else’s style will be seen for its worthlessness.  Why would someone read an imitation version of Dickens, Baldwin, Morrison, Ellison, King, Clancy, Updike or some other “great” writer when he can read the original work?  Similarly, in life, give people an opportunity to encounter God’s unique revelation in you.

Strive doggedly to do your best is Milman’s fourth rule for writers.  “Read your writing, notice the weaknesses and improve your work; constantly rewrite until you are certain that you cannot improve another sentence or word.”  No matter how good we are at what we do, we can be better.  There is always room for growth and even greater successes.  Though many people are happy wearing withered laurels, persons who achieve excellence refuse to settle for their most recent success.  They compete with themselves and not other people.  Can they dig within and find a superlative level of talent and ability?  Will they develop greater discipline and willingness to exceed their latest accomplishment? 

“Take an action and let go of the results.”  That colloquial expression captures Milman’s final counsel to writers.  “The effort itself is success; you cannot control the outcomes, only the effort.”  Writers receive countless rejections before their “big break” finally comes.  If they base their writing on achieving publication early on, most of them will abandon their calling and pursue some other means of earning a living.  Simply put, write because it is the heart’s passion.  If one person receives encouragement and empowerment to strive for a more joyous and fulfilling life because of something a writer composed, then writers attain successes greater than the amount of any royalty payments.  Conceivably, the most influential and effective writers have never won a National Book Award, Pulitzer Prize or Nobel Medal.  If they have changed someone’s life, they achieved the best results.  Henry David Thoreau posits, “A many dates his life from the reading of a great book.”  Writers whose books transform people’s lives deserve our highest praise.

Finally, Milman warns, “There are no good writers.  There are good re-writers.”  Many people never forge through the morass of doubt, fear and angst to write because they are too busy editing their work before they compose it.  Hemingway wrote fifteen drafts before sending anything to a publisher.  We can improve and strengthen anything if we willingly engage self-evaluation and humility.  We can rewrite the script of our lives with God’s guidance and frank self-acceptance.  Marianne Williamson in her compelling book, The Age of Miracles: Embracing the New Midlife, suggests that God returns the script of our lives to us for rewrites at midlife.  Rather than undergoing a crisis eventuating in depression, the years of midlife can be a fertile time of reflection, renewal and recommitment.  Return to the dreams of your youth and decide to actualize your heart’s deepest desires in the second half of your life.  Williamson additionally exhorts her readers, “Chances are if you think you are wasting your life, you’re probably right.”  Whether as a novelist, journalist, cultural critic, academician or on the existential canvass of life, be a good rewriter.