Writing as therapy

Nora Ephron was one of the great screenwriters. If you don’t know her name, you know her movies: When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, Julie & Julia, to name a few. The other day, I stumbled upon the documentary, “Everything is Copy: Nora Ephron, Scripted and Unscripted” and found myself taking notes like a total nerd.

It was her mother, also a screenwriter, who told Nora, “Everything is copy.” Meaning, everything writers experience in this life is potential material. With this perspective, we can find meaning in the greatest of life’s hardships and tragedies. With this perspective, we can gain a sense of control. We can take our most painful moments and turn them into something beautiful (or even funny). As Nora says, “When you slip on a banana peel, people laugh at you. But when you tell people you slipped on a banana peel, it’s your laugh.”

The universe has doled out a lot of shit to my husband and I in the past couple years. We’ve had a lot of loss, a lot of tears. I have read On Grief and Grieving twice. There are plenty of moments when I wonder why we’ve had to deal with so much. I’ve thrown my share of raging pity parties. But then I sit and write and see the proverbial forest for the trees. The shit I face in real life always makes its way into my stories. It’s fictionalized and dramatized and all that, but it’s there. Putting it on the page gives me a sense of control when I feel like I have none. By describing experiences or the feelings associated with those experiences, I achieve some power over them. I contain them. I assign them meaning and purpose. I move on.

Writing has always been my therapy and I can’t imagine surviving life without it. I started keeping diaries when I was in elementary school, not because anyone told me I should, but because I felt like I had to. I don’t keep a journal anymore, but I write emails to myself sometimes, just to vent thoughts. If things stay in my brain, that’s bad. I need to get them out. Talking is good, but can be meandering; writing gives me more concrete understanding (and, eventually, closure). In that way, writing is a selfish pursuit, I guess. Publishing is a different thing. Publishing is communal. Publishing is inviting commentary. That’s why it’s so scary.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my second novel. I have two semi-done novels that I love, but I don’t know if either of them will get a thumbs-up from my publisher. And then what? I have no idea, but I do know that I will always write. That’s one certainty in this crazy life.