Rudder Tower

We’re on the 11^th floor of Rudder Tower, in the University Club, and the view is beautiful. Yet to me, the dirty dishes are more special than the panorama I see through the window. They symbolize the friendship and support of other writers.

Though I felt like an imposter attending today’s retreat for POWER writing consultants, everyone treated me as if I belonged. Two fantastic leaders talked us through how to improve our project planning and overcome writer’s block.

I once tried to answer the question, “Are you a writer?” and got stuck, because I had no definition for what it meant to be a writer, or in fact any sort of ____-er. Are you a ______-er if you _____ regularly? If _______-ing makes you money? Or what?  After today, I think you know you are a ____-er if you can relate to common struggles faced by all ______-ers. You’re a _________-er if, when you unexpectedly run across another _________-er, a spark leaps up between you, an instant connection and kinship you both recognize.

A few weeks back, I noticed a timing tag on a fellow writer’s shoe and immediately exclaimed, “Oh, wow, you’re a runner too!” Even if I hadn’t been running much lately, I knew I was still a runner and she was too. We both know what it’s like to drag ourselves out to run when we’d rather be doing just about anything else. We know the misery of pushing our muscles to their limits. We know the feeling of telling ourselves over and over, “don’t you dare walk now”; we know the eventual exhilaration when we obey that mantra, and the regret when we don’t. We’ve both said “liar!” under our breath, when a well-meaning spectator shouts that the finish line is right around the next corner.   

I still have difficulty thinking of myself as a writer—to me, a writer is someone with a much greater mastery of the writing craft than I possess. Yet the more time I spend around expert writers, the more I realize they experience the same difficulties I do, perhaps even to a greater degree. Higher stakes and higher standards actually magnify the troubles. Next time you watch a running race, compare the face of the race winner with that of a typical midpacker like me—I think it will be obvious who is in the most pain.

So, I need to remember that I and the master writers are all walking the same road—they are just a bit further along. Their feet once trod where mine are now—this gives me hope.

(If one of these expert writers had set out to write about Rudder Tower, we probably would have stayed on topic.)