Ralph Keyes

  by Jillian Leslie

JL: Over the years, you’ve written books and articles on a wide variety of fascinating topics. What attracted you to the topic of helping writers transcend fear?

RK: My own anxiety about writing, first and foremost. Then I began to notice how anxious so many other writers were, not just aspiring writers and students of writing but published writers, too. This subject is ubiquitous within the head of every writer. The only place where it's rare is in books about writing. It's almost as if there's a conspiracy of silence about writing anxiety, leaving anyone who wants to write but is scared by the prospect to consider this their own embarrassing little secret. In The Courage to Write I tried to pull this subject out of the closet; expose it to a little air and light. By showing readers how alone they were not with their writing fears, I hoped to encourage them to write anyway. The thought to which I keep returning is this: If you're not scared, you're not writing. Nothing of consequence, anyway. The things most worth writing about are the things to terrify us. Our fear tells us when we've hit the mother lode.

JL: You quote from many famous, well-seasoned writers, like E.B. White and Pat Conroy, who freely acknowledge their own writing insecurities. With their vast experience and publishing success, why do they seem as insecure about their writing as fledgling writers?

RK: As we see in the case of experienced, successful writers such as E.B. White and Pat Conroy, experience and success are no antidote to writing fears. If anything, publishing success can ratchet up our fears rather than calm them down. There's so much more at stake now. That's why there are so many one-book wonders. Publishing a book can give you more things to be afraid of, not less. (Can I pull it off again? Have the critics sharpened their knives for me? Do I have more than one book in me? Will my Aunt Edna be looking for my next book now that she knows I've published one? etc., etc.) There's no way around it. Writing's scary, whether we've published or not. We just have to write anyway; find the courage to write.

JL: Let's personalize this a bit: In The Courage to Write, you discussed feeling insecure before starting your second book project. After you completed your first book, We the Lonely People: Searching for Community, what caused your own fears to resurface? What gave you the courage to write the second book?

RK: Writing my first book was very hard. At the time I would have told you it was just an incredibly demanding and harrowing experience in the same sense that building a house might be, or trekking the Appalachian Trail. Only later did I realize that it was the fear of writing a bad book that made this experience so demanding and harrowing. At the time I wasn't sure I wanted to write a second book. But I went on to write nine more. This was for several reasons. 1) It's my vocation. Writing books is the work I do just like a plumber fixes pipes and a teacher teaches school. 2) I'm compelled to write. I don't feel comfortable if I'm not in the midst of a writing project, preferably a book. 3) Once you've climbed the mountain of book writing, it's hard to return to the foothills of writing articles, or essays, or letters to the editor. I still write articles, essays, and letters to the editor, but writing books gives me the most satisfaction. Plowing into my fears to write a book is never fun, but the process wouldn't be so satisfying without that challenge, would it?

JL: What is "Page fright"?

RK: "Page fright" is the jittery feeling we all get when confronting a blank piece of paper. Will we be able to put any words on that paper? Will they amount to anything? Or will this be the time we simply seize up altogether, never to write another word? Every writer experiences page fright, regardless of how often they've published, and how successful they've been. "Blank pages inspire me with terror," said Margaret Atwood. And Gabriel Garcia Marquez: "All my life I've been frightened at the moment I sit down to write."

JL: In The Courage to Write, you say that writing fears are seldom discussed openly. Why is this?

RK: I'm not sure why it is that writing fears are seldom discussed openly. Among men it's part of a broader macho self-protection, the fear of being less than Ernest Hemingway (who was himself a very frightened person, though not one who admitted easily to having so many fears). Among writers of both genders I think there's a sense that anxiety is for wimpy amateurs. Oddly enough, I've found that some of our most noted writers--Cynthia Ozick, John Steinbeck, Rita Dove, Margaret Atwood, Anthony Burgess, Joan Didion, Rosellen Brown (to name just a few)--have been fairly open about their writing anxieties. After The Courage to Write was published, Sue Grafton told me, "I guarantee you that every time I sit down to write I'm scared to death."

JL: Why you feel that anxiety is an essential part of the writing experience?

RK: Anxiety is an essential part of the writing process because it puts us on edge, makes us concentrate, lends intensity to what we write. Excitement is the flip side of fear, and I like to read writers who are excited about what they're writing. When we're not scared enough we grow complacent, and complacent writing can be awfully tedious to read.

JL: Can writers inadvertently become too comfortable with page fright, to the point where they subconsciously use it as a way to avoid putting forth their best effort?

RK: When page fright becomes an excuse not to write we're in the grips of writer's block. At worst this is a terminal condition (literarily speaking). But it can be deceptive. In other words, we don't necessarily think "I'm too scared to write today." More often we tell ourselves, "As soon as I get the garage straightened and the dishes washed, I'm gonna get some writing done." Except we never do. This is the "As soon as" syndrome. It's a product of fear, unacknowledged fear, which can be the most toxic kind of all.

JL: In your chapter, "A Little Help from Friends," you included a provocative comment from Vladimir Nabokov. To quote you: “Vladimir Nabokov thought circulating early drafts of one’s work was like passing around samples of sputum.” To show or not to show? Writers are deeply divided on this subject. In your opinion, do people who let others read their unfinished work truly want constructive criticism, or do they crave only ego stroking? Can negative feedback from peers or loved ones cause writers to lose their courage?

RK: Too often when we show our work to others it's with the unstated command: "Praise only, please." I know writers who only let others look at their work if they agree in advance not to give them any "discouraging" feedback. This is worse than not showing one's work at all. If we let someone else read our work, it should be on condition that they can give us the full range of their reaction--as an editor will, and a reviewer. If we're as self-confident as a Nabokov, we might not want to show our work at all. I'm not. I get invaluable reactions from readers of my work-in-progress, critical reactions especially. Better to hear it from a kindly friend than a vicious critic, I figure. Soliciting only positive, supportive responses to our work makes critical ones doubly shattering when they arrive--as they will--after we've published.

JL: What do you think of using subliminal tapes to help banish fear?

RK: I don't think fear can or should be banished. It's too valuable a tool in the writing process. Remember what Toni Morrison said: "When you stiffen, you know that whatever you stiffen about is very important. The stuff is important. The fear itself is information." None of this is to say that meditation or subliminal tapes or the like aren't helpful to writers. But in the long run I think confronting one's fear is more useful than trying to find a way around it.

JL: What surprised you the most, as you probed the subject of writing with courage?

RK: The number of people who said "You too? I thought I was the only one who found writing scary." And the number of noted writers I read about who admitted their own fear of writing.

JL: As we all know, e-publishing is booming. Do you plan to use this type of exposure for your own books and articles? Do you think new writers should try to publish online as opposed to submitting to the paper world?

RK: I think e-publishing offers wonderful new opportunities to get our words in print. It's an especially great place to get started. I expect that in the not-too-distant future I'll publish some of my writing on the Net, though I'm sure I'll continue to publish primarily on paper. Personally, I like the look of print on paper, and the feel of a book in my hand. My kids don't, however. They'd rather sit in front of a computer screen, and I'm sure would be just as happy to read a cyber book as a real one. If I ignore this reality, I ignore lots of potential readers.

JL: What’s the most important piece of advice you can offer writers who need a shot of courage?

RK: Welcome to the club. Fear is where writing begins. All writers need a shot of courage. Every one of us.

 

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