Joseph Sutton - My Writing Year

Sometimes I come across an unexpected gem. This is one. Joseph Sutton has been writing for fifty years. He published fourteen books and numerous essays and short stories. He set himself the task to write an essay each week for a year about the writing process. It became a book called My Writing Year: Making Sense of Being a Writer. 

A delight of a read in which Sutton shows how excellent writing can be short and succinct. He muses about why he writes and his thoughts are terse with descriptive honesty. 

"I write because it makes me happy.  I write to find out what I’m thinking, feeling, imagining. I write to create something out of nothing. I write to chronicle my time here on Earth. I write to tell stories from my own perspective. I write because it gives meaning to my life. I write to find out where I’m headed and where the human race is headed. I write to try to make sense of the world. I write to keep my brain healthy.

I write to try to explain my existence in the universe. I write to extol life, to show how fortunate most of us are to be alive and kicking. I write to be immortal. I write because there’s nothing in the world that suits me better. I write because I’m a writer. I write to be serious, playful and insightful. 

I write to be a historian of my time and place. I write for future generations to read my words. I write to present a new and different perspective on things. I write to tell a damn good story. I write, therefore I am." 

Sutton worked intermittently as a teacher and later as a sales representative for a jewelry company. In his fourth year of jewelry sales, he hit upon the idea of a book of quotations on all aspects of health. It caught a publisher’s eye and Words of Wellness: A Treasury of Quotations for Well-Being was released in 1991, which gave him the freedom to write full time. Here are a few further quotes I took from his book My Writing Year. 

"There have been many times I’ve looked out the window of my study and said to myself, “It sure would be nice to get outside on a beautiful day like this.” Oh, I’ve played hooky a number of times over the years, but most of the time I do what writers do, and that is to sit at my desk and work on a story or novel, write in my journal, post something on my website, send my work out to magazines or compose a query letter to an agent."

"If you wait for inspiration to start writing, you might have to wait weeks, months or even years. The first thing you have to do is sit down and start writing, or write standing up like Hemingway did. If you let the words gush out, you’ll then have something to mold to your liking during the revising process."

"If you have an idea but don’t know where to start, just start. If you have a desire to write but don’t know what to write, I’d like to spur you to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and start writing something, anything. Forget about making sense at the beginning, you’ll automatically make sense as you go along and as you revise."

"Just write, don’t stop, keep your pen or fingers moving and don’t look back until you’re finished. If you do this non-stop kind of writing, it’ll be good for you, for humanity and the universe because writing is fuel for the soul. You’ll have peace of mind. You’ll discover new things about yourself. You’ll create something that no one else has ever created."

Sutton ends the book with a few of his favorite quotes. This one strikes me. “There are thousands of thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen and writes.” - William Thackeray

How shall I end this post? With these few words. 

Take a pen, write your story, give it wings. 

Make it a writing year.