Don’t Worry. Write Happy.

In a recent Zoom presentation, Linda Landrigan, editor of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, recommended Joni B. Cole’s Good Naked: How to Write More, Write Better, and Be Happier, so I read the revised and expanded edition released by University of New Mexico Press in 2022.

Linda recommended the book because of Cole’s advice about, as Linda put it, “writing from the middle.” Cole advocates that you “dive into a first draft by writing any scene or memory or passage that asserts itself in your consciousness and feels like it might belong somewhere, anywhere, in the story” (p 79). Further, you should “[w]rite the hot spots—the stuff that feels vivid and demanding of your time now—and figure out later how they flow and fit together” (p 79).

Though I nearly always write the first scene first—without it I have nothing—I often do something similar to what Cole advocates: I write scenes out of order, leaving notes between the scenes to let me know what I think should move the reader from one to the other, be it a simple transition or a complete scene or sometimes even multiple scenes.

Writing out of order is one of the ways Cole suggests that we can avoid writer’s block. Putting anything—anything at all—on a page indicates that the muse is still with us, even if not focused on what we wish it to focus on.

Cole also notes that staring at the computer screen until she “came up with a brilliant idea” was for her and is for us counter-productive because “writing is what happens when we are busy looking away from the page” (178). Many of us know this, and it’s why we walk the dog, take extra showers, rearrange the refrigerator’s contents, hang out in coffee shops, and do other things when we are vexed with a piece of writing. The solution often comes when we aren’t trying to force it.

One theme that runs through the entire book—it’s right there in the subtitle—is the belief that happiness and productivity go hand-in-hand. A happy writer produces more and better work and that, in turn, feeds the writer’s happiness. (Don’t we all feel better when we’ve had a good day at the keyboard?)

“Happiness can be an elusive goal,” Cole writes (p 219-220), “and while we have the inalienable right to pursue it, what often remains in doubt is whether we have the gumption and energy to do so. To cultivate a sense of well-being, and open ourselves up to joy, requires a commitment to positive practices.”

So, stop being a writer who claims not to be happy writing, but only happy having written.

Instead, find joy in the creative process itself.

Reward yourself for a well-turned phrase, pat yourself on the back for drafting a complete scene, and celebrate devising the perfect plot twist. In short, find happiness in each step of the process.

If you do this, you will be eager to return to the keyboard, and you will return again and again and again. You will be more productive, you will write better, and you will be happier.