Washing Skyscraper Windows

I just finished Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose and I definitely recommend it for any lover of words. Or even liker of words. It's full of charm, anecdotes and examples of great writing. But most of all it reminds me that anything is possible in writing; that there are no rules. Her advice is simple in the end. To be a great writer, you have to be a great reader. However, I can't help thinking that no matter how many great masterpieces you read and deconstruct, you either have "it" or you don't. And why is it that the voice that tells us that we don't is always louder and more persistent, like the class bully? In my mind, there can be three possibilities, each equally as grim. 1. It's the voice of reason. 2. It's the voice of cowardice. 3. Schizophrenia has become an epidemic of great proportions.

"When we think about how many terrifying things people are called on to do every day as they fight fires, defend their rights, perform brain surgery, give birth, drive on the free-way, and wash skyscraper windows, it seems frivolous, self-indulgent, and self-important to talk about writing as an act that requires courage. What could be safer than sitting at your desk, lightly tapping a few keys, pushing your chair back, and pausing to see what marvelous tidbit of art your brain has brought forth to amuse you?

And yet most people who have tried to write have experienced not only the need for bravery but a failure of nerve as the real or imagined consequences, faults and humiliations, exposures and inadequacies dance before their eyes and across the empty screen or page. The fear of writing badly, of revealing something you would rather keep hidden, of losing the good opinion of the world, of violating your own high standards, or of discovering something about yourself that you would just as soon not know -- those are just a few of the phantoms scary enough to make the writer wonder if there might be a job available washing skyscraper windows.

All of which brings up yet another reason to read. Literature is an endless source of courage and confirmations. The reader and beginning writer can count on being heartened by all the brave original works that have been written without the slightest regard for how strange or risky they were, or for what the writer's mother might have thought when she read them."

Read: New York Time's Book Review

When I was 14, my mother found a short story that I had written about a girl who started a conversation with a perfect stranger on the city bus. And that's all I have to say about that.