3 Lessons on How To Write From Toni Morrison
Here’s how to become a writer according to the Nobel Prize laureate
Being a writer spans more than just composing words into sentences. And how one does this varies from writer to writer. From the likes of Murakami’s ridiculous schedule to E.L James’ blackberry fanfics, every writer writes differently. Still, we can learn a lot by looking at the ones who made it and the disciplined rituals they had in place which propelled them into success. An example is the beautiful Toni Morrison.
Toni Morrison was a lady of many names. Born Chloe Ardelia Wofford on February 18, 1931, she became Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison; Morrison from her husband (that she later divorced) and Anthony from becoming Roman Catholic in 1992. Toni came from the fact that many mispronounced her name, Chloe, and she has later actually come out to say that regrets the name change.
The diverse and unique story to her name sets her up as a person perfectly: she was an American novelist, essayist, book editor and college professor. However, she also had a cunning ability to observe an issue before her or something she wanted to investigate and research to present findings. This sort of journalistic approach to writing was very apparent in her research slavery — namely her research into the ‘bit’ that was put into the mouths in slaves. Morrison herself said in the Paris Review that, “I spent a long time to trying to figure out what it was about slavery that made it so repugnant, so personal, so indifferent, so intimate, and yet so public. I wanted to show the readers what slavery felt like, rather than how it looked.”
So, the question that was going through my head as I researched her life and read her work is also a key question that I have been pondering for a while; that is, what makes a writer a writer?
For Morrison, on paper, she seems a like a good candidate for being a writer. She graduated from Harvard with a BA in English then a masters in American Literature at Cornella and then went back to Harvard and then to Random House in NYC to work as an editor. There, she wrote her first book The Bluest Eye. Following that, she published many a novel such as 1977’s Song of Solomon — which brought her to critical acclaim and then Beloved in 1987 won her a Pulitzer. Six years later in 1993 she would win the Nobel Prize in Literature for works that are “characterised by visionary force and poetic import” and that they given “life to an essential aspect of American reality.” Which is true, many commend her works for being distinctly Morrison in their style, tone, structure and historical/cultural base.
In her acceptance speech, Morrison would language and its importance; “partly as a system, partly as a living thing over which one has control, but mostly as an agency — as an act with consequences.” If this was suffice to say she was a writer, she was a lecturer at Princeton teaching creative writing.
So she was a writer. That much can be established. But at what point did Morrison become one?
- Have a ritual
“The difficulty for me in writing… is to write language that can work quietly on a page for a reader who doesn’t hear anything.”
Morrison discussed that she always wrote in the morning pre-dawn. Before, this was because she had a 9–5 job as an editor at Random House and many small children that needing take care of. She said that “work and the children had driven all of my habits.” However, once this no longer was the case, she still stuck to this as waking up before the light arrive “enables” her. Another part of her ritual is editing. She finds joy in revising and revising. The first draft is yellow legal pads and number two pencils but revising with when it is typed with an editor; someone she refers to as like a “priest or psychiatrist” for if you “get the wrong one, you’re better off alone.”
However, as established; written language is very important to her and part of her ritual. She ‘doesn’t trust writing that isn’t written.’ For her, it then becomes a performance; so she won’t even read aloud when drafting until its published. The reason for this is that she is very careful about what is in between words, what is not actually said.
This is why she finds American literature, in particular, interesting with the “business of how writers say things under, beneath and around their stories.” For example, Morrison said that she doesn’t care “if Faulkner is a racist or not; I don’t personally care but I am fascinated by what it means to write like this.”
2. Have a distinct style / distinct reason to write
One quote I love of Morrison’s is this: if there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it. Many view this as perhaps a little narcissistic as Morrison thus writes with only herself as the target audience. When she writes a book, she writes it to explore something. For her, a book is “this may be what I believe but supposed I am wrong… what could it be?” Or, “I don’t know what it is, but I am interested in finding out what it might mean to me, as well as to other people.”
On top of this, Morrison always tries to know her ending ASAP (familiar advice) rarely draws inspiration from real life people or places — even though she talks about her characters as if real people. When questioned about having strong female characters as a common trait of her work, she answers that its not necessarily that: it’s just that society has lower standards and expectations of women.
3. No one will give you permission to write
Morrison didn’t sign a contract until after her first novel, Bluest Eye, was complete. The reason for this is that she didn’t want to be writing for anyone; that she was only showing up and putting pencil to paper for herself. Therefore, she only had to get ‘permission’ in the success of her novel; after she had written it and therefore could call herself a writer. This could perhaps link into her divorce for she no longer minds failure but minds someone else, especially a male, thinking they know better. A man doesn’t need to anyone’s permission to write or call himself a writer. For a woman, you do. And after you do call yourself a writer, then you’re weighed up and judged on what you have written except of it just being accepted.
So to sum up, Morrison’s inadvertent advice to all of us young writers would be to have a ritual —figure out when/how it is you can write — and to write in a way that is meaning to you primarily. Lastly, understand that no one is going to give you permission and you should consider no one besides yourself when you sit down to compose those words on a page.
If you want to write, you write.
