Every semester I tell my students how Ernest Gaines would respond when someone asked him how to become a better writer. Gaines would look at the questioner and say, “There are six words to make you a better writer. Read. Read. Read. Write. Write. Write.” During my own educational journey I had teachers tell me that in order to be a better writer I had to write everyday, something, anything. I never took that advice. I merely did what I had to do in the class, got by with a passing grade, and moved on to the next course. When I started teaching, I’d tell my students the same thing; however, I still didn’t take the advice. I’d write more, yes, but I wouldn’t write or read everyday.

When I started working on my dissertation, I made myself a schedule, telling myself that I would write at least something everyday Monday to Friday, giving myself the weekend off. I stuck to this regimen and ended up writing my dissertation, before edits and revisions, in about a year. After that, I started doing the twice-a-week blog for the Ernest J. Gaines Center, and this, coupled with my dissertation regimen, led me to writing something, anything, everyday or at least every few days. It became a regular part of my being, a compulsion really to write and discover more about myself.

Since 2015, I’ve maintained Interminable Rambling, the blog you are reading now, and I’ve written/posted twice a week since then, taking only periodic breaks for holidays. I don’t feel like writing everyday or writing twice-a-week sometimes, but then someone comes along and tells me that they read one of my pieces and it impacted them, and that recognition keeps me going. When I don’t feel like writing, I still do it, almost forcing myself to sit in front of the computer and type. If I don’t, I feel like something is missing, like I’ve somehow failed myself.

Writing, like anything else, takes discipline and practice. I tell my students it is like working out at the gym. In order to build muscle, you have to be consistent, working out even when you don’t feel like it. Or, it is like practicing an instrument. To get better at guitar, I had to play everyday, working on my technique and skills. If I didn’t, I’d have a guitar sitting in the corner gathering dust. Writing is the same. To get better at writing, one must practice, taking time everyday to read others and to put something down on the page. This is the only way to get better and to actually produce material even when you may not feel like it.

Pauli Murray talks about this in her memoir Song in A Weary Throat. One summer, she was invited to give some lectures on sharecropping at the Young People’s Socialist League Summer Institute in New York. In exchange for her services, the institute’s director allowed Pauli to live rent-free in one of the cabins for the summer. This opportunity provided Pauli with the opportunity to purpose her dreams of becoming a writer, to actually sit down and write. To this point, she had dreamed of writing, and had done so here and there, but all of her civil rights work and education didn’t allow adequate time for sustained writing.

Pauli’s description of their struggles to write during that summer mirror so many on my students’ experiences. Pauli writes, “I learned that a sheet of blank paper was my greatest adversary and that what seems to the reader like effortless writing is more often the result of patient drudgery than inspired talent.” Like students staring a blinking cursor of the computer screen that taunts them to type the first word, the blank page taunted Pauli. When students read a text in class, they don’t see the “patient drudgery”; rather, they see it as a work crafted by an “inspired talent,” a work that arose out of nothingness. However, this is not the case. It took practice, time, and dedication to create.

Pauli continues by pointing out that somedays they would only “produce one paragraph” and others they might have to trash the paragraph and begin again. All of this led Pauli to realize that “[o]ne of the most painful tasks in writing . . . is the discipline required to discard those cherished phrases that clutter up a sentence or a paragraph.” Students want a completed product on the first try; they want a text that doesn’t need revision or editing; they view it as fully formed and adequate once they type the final word. Yet, as Pauli notes, writing requires revision. It requires an examination of what exists on the page and a willingness to delete the hard-earned sentences or alter them to strengthen the piece.

Some writers can produce pieces that require little revision in one sitting, but this comes with time and practice. This blog has turned me into one of those writers. Sometimes what I produce is not fully formed, but other times it does not require revision. I didn’t start like this though. It took years to get to this point and to find out what works for me as a writer. While I may not write before I sit down in front of my computer screen, I think about what I want to write. I formulate ideas and sentences in my head, typically at least having an opening sentence or idea to work with as I start to write. I am, as Pauli says, one of those writers who “can revise as they write, simply striking out words and sentences they want to drop.”

Writing takes practice. It takes work. It is an exercise that requires one to ingest information through reading or other means, digest that information, taking it into the system, formulate that message into something within oneself, and then regurgitate the newly formed piece out into the world. The writing becomes an extension of this process, a collaborative effort between the writer and the world around them. The abilily to do this effectively takes time. It takes practice. It takes dedication to not just sit down and writer, but it takes dedication to read and learn from others, to take in not just information but also style and aesthetics.

Reading is just as integral to writing as the act of writing itself. When we read, we formulate our tastes, seeing what we like stylistically. That style, then, influences our writing. Think of it like music. A musician takes all of the influences that impact them, adds themselves to the mix, then creates a new sound, a new style. This is the importance of reading for writing. The writing we produce becomes an extension, another link in the chain, a collaboration.

When we write, we learn about ourselves and we enact change. Later in her memoir, Pauli writes about their appeals for Harvard to admit women to its law school. Pauli “half-seriously” told Dr. Catherine Ware at one point, “One person plus one typewriter constitutes a movement.” When one writes and publishes that writing, no matter what the form, it goes out into the world. That act, in an of itself, “constitutes a movement” because the ideas that flow forth have the opportunity to influence others in same way shape or form. However, if one does not hone their writing, then the impact will probably be minuscule at best. To enact change, to formulate the movement, one must consistently practice writing, taking every chance to hone one’s skills.

I’ll never say that writing is easy. I’ll never say that any piece I write is perfect. I’ll never say that I always like to write. I will say, though, that to become a good writer I must practice. I must remain disciplined, taking time to actually write. If I don’t do that, then I won’t be a good writer. I won’t convey my thoughts to others. In fact, I’ll fail.