Zadie, Zadie, Grumpy Lady: A Response to "Invaluable Writing Advice" (EXTRA CRITICUM)

So I received something via ye olde email machine that I can’t quite get out of my head. It’s an email from Gotham Writers’ Workshop: writing advice from Zadie Smith – Zadie Smith! Of “White Teeth” fame! Zadie Smith’s a great writer! And famous! And successful! Her advice must be great, right? Well, not so much. I’m going to reprint her advice here, and then make a few notes of my own.

* A repost of 10 Good Writing Habits - Invaluable Advice from Zadie Smith

Zadie Smith rocked the literary world in her late twenties with her novel White Teeth, a look into various lives in contemporary multicultural London. She followed this up with the novels The Autograph Man and On Beauty, and she is also a leading light in literary criticism. She is considered one of the freshest and most ambitious voices of her generation.

10 Good Writing Habits

When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else.
When an adult, try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would.
Don’t romanticise your “vocation.” You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no “writer's lifestyle.” All that matters is what you leave on the page.
Avoid your weaknesses. But do this without telling yourself that the things you can’t do aren’t worth doing. Don’t mask self-doubt with contempt.
Leave a decent space of time between writing something and editing it.
Avoid cliques, gangs, groups. The presence of a crowd won’t make your writing any better than it is.
Work on a computer that is disconnected from the Internet.
Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.
Don’t confuse honours with achievement.
Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand—but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.

From an article in The Guardian

Now, far be it for me to critique a “leading light in literary criticism” and “one of the freshest and most ambitious voices of her generation." But what the heck: I’m gonna do it anyway. Zadie, Zadie, Zadie: some of that advice is terrible. And I think it’s more instructive in what it says about YOU, Zadie, than for the insight about what it means to be a writer. Here, then, are my thoughts on Zadie Smith’s specific pieces of advice.

10 Good Writing Habits

When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else.

OK, good advice. Maybe we can all get in our time machines and tell our younger selves to read more books. Really, I can’t argue with this point, except to say that if you’re old enough to get emails from Gotham Writer’s Workshop or read “The Guardian,” then it’s probably too late to change your childhood reading habits. This is like going to the doctor in your 60’s and asking how to prevent heart attacks – only to have him order you “Start healthy eating and exercise before you’re 10.”

When an adult, try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would.

I’m sorry, but this is terrible advice. Why would you read your work “as an enemy would?” I can’t understand this at all. You might go ahead and say that Ms. Smith means “read your work with a critical eye – the eye of somebody who doesn’t know you.” But that’s not what she actually says. Read it as “an enemy”: Pretty harsh, no?

Don’t romanticise your “vocation.” You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no “writer's lifestyle.” All that matters is what you leave on the page.

Again, there’s a grain of truth in this. There’s no need to get highfalutin’ about writing, or to spend more time living some mythical bohemian writer’s lifestyle rather than – y’know. Actually writing. But on the other hand – on the other hand... I really do believe that some of us are called to be writers, made to be writers. That writing is indeed a “calling” (the root of the word “vocation: Latin: “voca” – to call). No need to put “vocation” in quotes.

I believe it’s a true thing – that in every act of creation there is an act of sprit. Define that how you will. Besides that: how you live inevitably affects what you leave on the page. How can those two things be separated? I know it. You know it. I think Zadie Smith knows it, too (see her points 7-9 below). “Lifestyle” doesn’t help to writing, but your style of writing life does matter. How can it not?

Avoid your weaknesses. But do this without telling yourself that the things you can’t do aren’t worth doing. Don’t mask self-doubt with contempt.

What? “Avoid your weaknesses”? Why? Isn’t it silly to say “Oh, I’m weaker in prose than in drama, so I’m only going to write drama from now on”? If I tell myself, “I’m a haiku expert, so I could never write a novel,” then am I not cutting off my writing possibilities?

Hey, I know that I’ll never be an Olympic gymnast at my age. (And weight. Hey, better join that gym.) I am pretty certain I’ll never dance with the New York City Ballet at this point.

But writing isn’t dancing, or doing a double-back flip on a high bar at the summer Olympics. Writing doesn’t take physical strength or flexibility of the joints built over the years. So when I feel a weakness in some form of writing or intimidated by it… why on earth avoid it? Shouldn’t I jump in and try – well, anything? Maybe I’m not as good as writing, say, villanelles as I am at writing short plays. But if I am intrigued by villanelles, then maybe they’re worth a go.

Leave a decent space of time between writing something and editing it.

No arguments.

Avoid cliques, gangs, groups. The presence of a crowd won’t make your writing any better than it is.

No arguments here, mostly, on cliques and gangs. In fact, I strongly recommend seeking writing advice from the Crips or the Bloods. (For dancing pointers, go to the Sharks or the Jets, though.)

But why avoid groups? Sure, I’ve been in bad writing groups with damaging colleagues, and demented teachers. Yet if you have the right group, the right people around you… that’s gold. Writing starts as a solitary activity, but if you are lucky enough to find people who are smart and discerning and who love you (Hi, Kerri! Hi, Itai! Hi, Jorge and Deirdre and Kevin!) then you have a family of writers who can sometimes hear your work better than you can.

Work on a computer that is disconnected from the Internet.

Now, that’s advice.

Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.

No arguments here, again: except for Ms. Smith’s weird overprotective tone. I imagine Zadie’s writing desk to be surrounded by steel traps, a cross-eyed angry crow, a moat filled with snapping alligators – plus some pikes with other writer’s heads impaled on them. Ok, Zadie. Not going near that desk. You don’t have to tell me twice.

Don’t confuse honours with achievement.

That’s never bad advice. I especially like “honors” spelled with the optional British “u” in the middle.

Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand—but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.

The first part of this is fine, and nicely put. I imagine a literary Salome dancing, revealing and concealing in turn. But the price of her dance is a cut to the neck with a sharp short sword. But. But but but but but. Read that second part of this advice again:

Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.

Wow. I mean, WOW. This is some of the worst writing advice I’ve ever heard. This piece of misery makes me feel sorry for Zadie Smith, “leading light” though she may be. Sure, part of being a writer is pushing yourself to do more, to write more - write more and write better. And part of the profession means never being satisfied, to always have a greater ambition and a greater goal.

But why does that need to bring lifelong sadness? This seems to play right into that old stereotype of the miserable writer alone in her garret, alternately sighing and weeping while draping herself on a fainting couch – and somewhere between the sighs and tears maybe managing to squeeze out a few words a day with a scratchy quill. It’s not just spin to put the same advice this way:

·Embrace the lifelong joy of knowing that there are always more mysteries in the ether than you can ever get down on paper.

For me – and I swear I’m not being a Pollyanna – writing better be rooted in the joy of writing. That’s what I wish for you, if you’re a writer. That you…

Write with joy.

Write with joy in a time of happiness - but also in times of grief or trouble. Write with joy because you can still pick up a pen to write.

Write for people who love you, and who really love what you write. Find them: they're out there!

Yes they are: There are people who need to hear what you have to say. Write for them. Take strength from them.

Let your “enemies” go to hell – who cares about what they think of your writing, anyway? They’re your enemies.

Surround yourself with good writers and good people who can give you clear and helpful critique that helps your writing grow. Give them the same in return.
Fine, don’t romanticize your vocation. Don’t be prissy or precious about your work. It’s a craft, a trade as well as an art.
Yet still be open to the possibility that there’s a mysterious force that drives you to write, to create – and that to thwart that impulse or is exactly as ridiculous as stopping flowers from blooming, or refusing to feed your aquarium’s most remarkable, multicolored tropical fish.
Write with joy. Have I mentioned that already? That’s the beginning and the end of it.

Fine, writing isn’t always easy. It’s still a heck of a lot easier than being, say, a nurse in a hospice. Or a prison guard. Or a marine in a war zone.

Writing’s not always fun. What worthwhile thing always is?

But I say, find the joy in writing, or do not do it. Become a bricklayer instead, or an accountant, or a hairdresser or a barista or a nurse or a prison guard or a marine in a war zone. If writing isn’t joyful, more often than not, then find what you really want to do. And do that instead.

I may not be a “leading light” of literature like Zadie Smith: but from where I stand, that’s how I see it. And I hope that’s some even more invaluable advice that you can take home with you today.

Thank you for reading this post. Now go create something.