How to Be an Author: FLOW

Anyone can write. During my thirty years in the teaching profession, one of the most obnoxious remarks I heard from various sources was, “Anyone can teach.” Right, and anyone can sing, draw, paint, dance, throw, catch, fix, repair, assess, analyze, evaluate, follow, lead, describe, prescribe, inscribe, insert, invest, invent, prevent, predict, presume, consume, conspire and concede that anyone can write.

One of the few positive outcomes from the scourge we are currently experiencing, Coronavirus or COVID-19, comes as the result of schools closing and millions of children being at home with their parents, who for one reason or another find themselves at home. The task of teaching a child or two or three, but not thirty in a classroom, becomes overwhelming. Suddenly, it’s no longer, “Anyone can teach.” It’s now, how many zeroes do we have to add to every teacher’s salary to compensate them properly for the amazing work they do.

Even though it’s true that anyone with a functioning set of vocal cords is able to sing, most people know if they are the next Barbra Streisand or Michael Buble, or if they might embarrass themselves at karaoke. Likewise, most of us know when our doodling is just that, and when it’s the start of a career to rival Rembrandt or Picasso. Yet, when I first started telling people I was a struggling writer working to become a published author, many of them confided that they thought about writing a book. A number told me that, “Everyone has a book inside of them.” And for many of them that’s where the book should remain.

It’s not just about aligning subjects and predicates, or even knowing what nouns, verbs and prepositions to use. We all know people who’ve mastered all the technical skills of cooking or playing an instrument, but fall short when the terms chef or musician are applied.

There’s no doubt that like cooking and playing an instrument, writing is a lot of practice, practice, practice. But no matter how masterful a writer becomes at laying out sentences or paragraphs that adhere to the rules of structural or transformational grammar, if the words don’t jump off the page and capture or inspire the reader, she will never experience the thrill of being an author.

When I sit down to write, it’s the discipline of getting something on a page that brings me there, but when my characters show me where they want to go, when their dialogue comes from the voices in my head and their destination is determined by the narrative they want me to construct, then I know I’m in the place psychologist Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi named, “Flow.” Some people refer to this phenomenon as “being in the zone.”

Whether it’s the surgeon cutting loose a tumor to save a patient, a teacher observing the light go on in a student’s eyes when a new concept becomes clear, or a group of musicians coming together for the first time to capture a unique sound, the adrenaline rush makes all the practice worthwhile. When a writer discovers this “Flow,” she knows she’s on the path to becoming an author.