The Writing Life

The dual mental and physical worlds that a writer inhabits interact and blend in a variety of ways throughout The Writing Life. Dillard devotes several sections of the book to depicting the writer’s isolation due to the primarily mental effort that writing entails. The writer’s central task is using imagination and representing its images in words, and so the writer finds themself living and working in a world of fancy, distanced from reality around them “to the point of sensory deprivation” (44).

Dillard explores this personal isolation through anecdotes about her visible, physical isolation in the cabins and studies that she used as offices. In these stories, a young Dillard is so thoroughly entrenched in her work that she feels as if she is in a “trancelike” state (76); she worries that she is “too far removed from the world” (54). Although the writer works in the mental world, they also live in the real world. Dillard tries to use herself as an example of when the mental world’s influence is too strong. The real world asserts its presence through violent intrusions—a blown open door, the explosion of fireworks, or a clothespin on the finger—to remind Dillard of where and when she is (31-45). Using these stories, Dillard depicts the all-consuming nature of the writing life that can lead to issues if the writer does not remind themself of reality.

Dillard directly connects the mental world of the writer to the physical with the actual tools of the trade: words on paper. The meeting of the mental and physical worlds through the written word causes the writer great turmoil because the material version can never quite live up to their imaginations. The “eternal blankness” (58) of the physical page offers the “purity of […] possibilities” (59), but also teaches writers about their own limitations. Like with a painter’s first strokes, as soon as a writer puts the words down, the material restrictions of the project confront them and “the thing is no long vision: it is paper” (57). The transformation from mental vision to “words lead[ing] to other words” is a discrepancy (57), Dillard notes, which can cause the writer to despair. In Dillard’s own experience, putting a difficult idea into words could be so distressing that “the very thought of writing a word or two further made [her] tired” (47). This highlights the extreme mental effort necessary to go from the standstill of “intellectual passion to [the] physical energy” (49) of making words material on the page.

For a non-writer—like the “sane” islander who confronts Dillard about her decision to continue her work when she herself “hated to write” (53)—visualizing the writer’s mental exhaustion can be difficult. Dillard uses corporeal imagery to make the writer’s internal struggles visible and thus easier to understand. First, Dillard explains, the writer undergoes a physical, neurological transformation “cell by cell, molecule by molecule, atom by atom” to accommodate the literature that must enter their body (69). The physical change in the brain—the seat of the internal world—then manifests outwardly in the writer’s work, as they use their writing as an extension of their body.

Dillard uses the phrase “body of literature” at once colloquially and literally (69); the writer themself is truly a body of literature who “write[s] with that blood” full of stories (20). Dillard sometimes employs violent imagery, particularly when describing the writer’s struggle to find a story. Like the Algonquin woman in Ernest Thompson Seton’s story who uses “a strip from her own thigh” as bait for fish (13), the writer looks to themself for the stories that are “bed[ed] in the muscle like a worm encysted” and then “dissects them out” (20). These images demonstrate that although a writer is occupied with the imagination, their struggles are not imaginary; the writer’s mental strain feels like it is direct bodily violence.

Dillard continually returns to the image of the writer persevering through difficulty by exerting constant effort into their writing project. As writing a book, for the average person, can take several years, Dillard emphasizes the necessity of working on a piece daily so it does not become a dreaded sight. The writer cannot maintain the fervor and energy of the first days of inspiration throughout the whole project, considering how long it can take, and so they invent ways to keep themself motivated. The writer manufactures a “dangerous edge” that can “set [them] spinning” (47) and spur on a continual effort. The forward progress during a project isn’t solely writing a set number of pages every day for a decade; indeed, Dillard notes that for many nonfiction writers, “amassing and mastering materials” can take the same amount of time that a novelist uses to “[fabricate] solid worlds that answer to immaterial truths” (14). By urging the writer to avoid disinterest in or hostility towards the writing, Dillard stresses the significance of finding something to work on each day—even if, like her, that work is “doodl[ing] […] in the legal-pad margins” or “reread[ing] a sentence maybe a hundred times” (30).

Despite claiming to dislike her work, Dillard motivates herself to continue because of her love of learning. To write well, Dillard argues that one must learn by reading extensively (68), and so reading becomes an important part of the writing project. When Dillard did not know how to continue her work, she would “read poetry Conrad Aiken’s poetry” in hopes that it would “set [her] off” and reignite her imagination (50). Dillard catalogues many notable writers who used the work of others as influence for their own projects—like Shakespeare, Hemingway, and Tolstoy—and who made a career out of exploring their interests’ boundaries.

Therefore, Dillard argues, one of the best ways for a writer to avoid stagnation is to apply what they’ve learned through reading into their writing and have the page teach them new ways to develop. When a writer cannot find motivation to write, Dillard explains that reading and learning can renew enthusiasm for a return to work.