Comment by DoreenMichele | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DoreenMichele | Hacker News Reader

Maya Angelou, one of the great writers of her age, was violently assaulted as a child by her mother's boyfriend. She told her brother who had done this to her and he turned up dead not long thereafter.

I think she didn't speak for five years after that. She experienced it as "I spoke his name and it killed him."

She learned the power of her words at an early age and it made a really huge impression on her. That no doubt was not irrelevant to her amazing career as a writer.

One reason writers agonize is because words can have power and because writing can be like doing therapy on stage while everyone watches. Good writing often contains some piece of the author's soul and that's always a risk to take.

It's not neurotic that some people find writing emotionally hard and all that. If you happen to have found your way to writing via a path that didn't leave you fearful of the power of your words, well, nice for you.

But "get off my lawn" as they say. (I generally enjoy writing. Get off my lawn anyway.)

> She told her brother who had done this to her and he turned up dead not long thereafter.

For those who don't know, the boyfriend turned up dead, not the brother.

Writing is powerful and involves a lot of responsibility. Torturing yourself does not necessarily improve your ability to wield this tool responsibly.

> Good writing often contains some piece of the author's soul and that's always a risk to take.

Ego risk or reputational risk should not be treated the same way as risk to others. It's also easy to avoid.

Very few writers are so monumentally important that the world would mourn for them having never published -- and most of those who would have been were, of course, never published. My advice to people is that if writing feels like self-harm, you're better off not doing it & the world probably won't notice. Folks who have something so important to say (or who are so desperate to say anything at all) that they ignore my advice have made their choice :)

Torturing yourself does not necessarily improve your ability to wield this tool responsibly.

A lot of my writing grows out of the fact that my life is torture. Writing helps make it less torturous but it doesn't come without risks.

It is rather arrogant and likely comes from a place of privilege to presume that people who find writing torment are in a place to chose to not be tormented. Not everyone has some nice, cushy life where they can decide between "Get X job or write" and choose X job because it comfortably pays the bills without being emotional torment for them.

It doesn't have to change the world for it to be monumentally important for that specific writer. Their torment is no less real just because most of the world didn't care about their personal struggles in the face of monumental personal problems, even if solving their own problems only solves it for them and for no one else.

If writing actually improves your mental state, then you are not in the group of people I am criticizing.

No, writing doesn't improve my mental state. It improves my actual life and that improves my mental state.

I mostly like writing anyway, so you aren't criticizing me anyway. That doesn't mean I can't criticize your criticism.

Just because you don't understand why people do what they do doesn't mean their reasons are neurotic or invalid and they should go do something else.

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