I have told just about anyone and everyone who would listen that I don’t believe there are any shoulds or should nots in writing (except, of course, the use of verbatim dialogue in nonfiction.  That’s a non-negotiable given for me.).  Grammar and spelling are important, of course, but a good proofreader or editor can help with that if it’s not your forté.  Style and content have their place in developing a piece, but to lock yourself in to what is considered the “right” way to write is to deny yourself and your audience     I’ve always been a go-against-the-grain kind of person and with my writing it is no different.

A few years back, after I graduated with my MA in Creative Writing, I sent a copy of the first draft of my memoir to a couple of friends who are also writers and writing instructors to read.

Both were very gracious with their feedback. They described my writing as “beautiful” and “courageous,” saying I had written a book that they believed belonged out in the world.  I wasn’t so sure about the beautiful and courageous parts, but I did believe the writing I was doing was important and I wanted the chance to share it with the people I thought would benefit from it most.

This memoir was somewhat unconventional in the way it is written.  I relied heavily on old journal entries for some of the chapters and it was written from a variety of different perspectives.  One of the writers who read my manuscript commented that the only thing he saw that could be an issue for me was that it didn’t really have a narrative arc, and that most works of this type do.  Still, it would likely capture the attention and interest of any reader without one.

I’m not different from most writers. We are insecure, carrying the surety that our writing is…well, crap.  We write and write, then rewrite, then write again.  Years ago we would have thrown out reams of paper trying to find the right words; these days, we fill hard drives and flash drives, we write and delete and then kick ourselves for not keeping what we know was better than the rewrite. We write long essays or poems or even books, then put them away for years because they are no good.  Yeah, I’m not different from most writers.  And the feedback I received reinforced that (false) belief that my writing sucks.

So I put it away.  For a long time.  I struggled with it during that year or so because I had no idea how to create a work about my own life with an arc.  My life has (or had, at the time) no neatly defined arc.  I was still in an immensely difficult place and would likely stay there for the foreseeable future.  I decided it wasn’t worth it, so it yellowed in the back of a seldom-used drawer.

During this time I read a lot of articles on writing in general.  They all espoused the correct way to write, the language and formatting to use, the amount of time a writer should spend at the computer, whether to write in longhand or electronically oh, and one of the most critical pieces of advice: never submit to publications that don’t pay (and pay well).  The list goes on.  It seems there are a LOT of things we should be doing as writers and, if we aren’t, we won’t be successful.

Every writer (and, arguably, non-writer) needs to define for him/herself what it means to be successful.  For some, it is simply seeing their writing in print.  For others, it’s a means for putting food on the table.  And for still others, it is only about being able to express one’s self; the public display is unimportant.

I’ve pulled out the memoir from time to time to read and to decide if it needs rewriting.  I started a rewrite, deciding maybe it did need an arc.  I put it away again, running into the same issue I had the first time.  My life doesn’t fit into a neat little arc and it likely never will.  So what if I write it without one?  Will the world come to an end?  Will I be ousted from the writing community because I violated one of their rules?

I have come to understand that the “shoulds” don’t matter at all.  In fact, if we don’t entertain some of the “should nots” occasionally, our writing will be like everyone else’s, dull and formulaic.  For those of you who made it through this rant, how many errors did you find?

As my mother would say, “you understood what I meant, didn’t you?!?”