Annie Dillard wrote a masterpiece in The Writing Life. And, better yet, a masterpiece you can thumb through in an afternoon.

(Something, I’ve worked diligently to achieve both in my books and in my copywriting and freelancing courses.)

Anyway, this is the second part in a three part series I’m doing on Annie Dillard and her beautiful approach and philosophy to writing. If you’d like to read the first part and the third part you can do so by gently caressing those pretty red links.

Anyway, let’s proceed.

While writing isn’t necessarily romanticized with the same level of passion as say, entrepreneurship, it’s difficult to differentiate between a writer who is truly writing because they want to be writing and a writer who is only writing because they enjoy the name tag.

There are many more of the latter than the former and this is why there is a tremendous amount of bad writing littering the web today.

I think this is what Bukowski was getting at when he wrote the striking poem, So you want to be a writer? He has a line in there that sums up the entire issue beautifully…

“If you're doing it for money or fame, don't do it. If you're doing it because you want women in your bed, don't do it.”

Dillard, fortunately, sets us straight.

“Colorless to the point of sensory deprivation.”

*Annie Dillard is typing now*

“It should surprise no one that the life of the writer–– such as it is–– is colorless to the point of sensory deprivation.

Many writers do little else but sit in small rooms recalling the real world. This explains why so many books describe the author’s childhood.

A writer’s childhood may well have been the occasion of his only firsthand experience.

Writers read literary biography, and surround themselves with other writers, deliberately to enforce in themselves the ludicrous notion that a reasonable option for occupying yourself on the planet until your life span plays itself out is sitting in a small room for the duration, in the company of pieces of paper.”

And, there you have it.

Dillards words are tough on the ego (especially this one who constantly has to keep an enormous one battened down, in a trunk, in the dark, far out of reach from the rest of humanity).

However, they’re necessary. And, I’d go so far as to say, helpful, in two ways…

For one, when you can remember that your job as a writer is no more noble than that of a plumber or a carpenter or a pool boy, you can sift out the ego in your work like drowned bugs and in a skimmer basket and make room for true, good work to shine through.

You’re not a fucking hero. You’re a writer that’s going to eventually die having spent a great deal of your life in an empty room, by yourself, with nothing but your muse.

If this still leaves you wanting to write, then you’re probably in the right field.

Secondly (and lastly), it’s a lovely reminder to get the fuck out of that empty room and spend time with people in interesting places. The lives we live, the people we meet, the experiences we make and the books we read are a broader collection called “material”.

Your job as a writer is to recognize that everything (and I do mean everything) is material. The good, the bad, the ugly.

It’s all material.

And, I would argue that as writers, we are doing both ourselves and our work and the people reading our work a massive disservice if we are only pulling from our childhoods.

But, I digress.

By Cole Schafer (but mostly Annie Dillard).