In a post on Lit Hub, Aimee Bender says that not being able to write the book that’s already in your head may not be such a bad thing after all.
“The act of writing is how I get access to the material I might not readily know about,” Bender says. “But there is a very important implication worth examining that is tucked inside his statement, upon which it rests: if the thing on the page does not match the thing in the mind, then there must be an actual thing in the mind that is perfect and whole. What appears the page, then, is just a weak, disappointing copy.”
But is that true?
Bender says it’s a fallacy. “There is no book in your mind,” she writes. Instead, writers struggle to translate an image or idea onto the page, forcing their story into a shape they only imagine. Some writers do that, but most discover their story by writing.
“If there is no book in my mind, then the only way I can find a book is by writing it,” Bender says. “This act of writing is how I get access to the material I might not readily know about.” While you might never write the amazing novel you imagine, you might write something else that’s just as great.
