Opening the Writer's Desk: Writings Tips from Toni Morrison
Hi, welcome to another installment of ‘Opening the Writer’s Desk,’ where we take a deep dive into the writing tips from today’s most widely-read authors.
Today, we’re going to be taking a look at author Toni Morrison and the techniques she’s used in her own writing.
Let me say how much of a fan I am of Toni Morrison. I love the way her writing balances the brutal with the lyrical, and gut-wrenching moments with the tender moments.
Best known as the author of novels including Beloved, she’s someone who we all can learn from, and I’m excited to share with you some tips straight from her desk today.
Tip #1: Write what you want to read
Toni Morrison did this herself, and I think that’s one of the reasons why all of her work to me feels so revolutionary and new, even all these years later. Morrison herself said:
“I wrote the first book [The Bluest Eye] because I wanted to read it. I thought that kind of book, with that subject—those most vulnerable, most undescribed, not taken seriously little black girls—had never existed seriously in literature. No one had ever written about them except as props. Since I couldn’t find a book that did that, I thought, “Well, I’ll write it and then I’ll read it.” It was really the reading impulse that got me into the writing thing.”
I say to writers in my program all that time how important it is for them to remind themselves that there’s a reason why you are telling this story and not somebody else.
Your book is your vision, and you are the only one who has the vision.
We all deserve the chance to pick up the exact book we want to read, and if you don’t see it, maybe you should write it. I certainly relate. All of my novels have been books I wanted to read.
So ask yourself, if you’re not sure what direction to go with your book, or if you have a few ideas you’re choosing from—what do I most want to read?
Tip #2: The best writing process is whatever works for you
If there’s one thing I tell all the writers I work with over and over, it’s that every writer is different. No one is going to have the same writing process as someone else, because we all have different needs, different strengths and weaknesses, and different schedules.
Writers derail ourselves a lot of the time because we think we need to conform to a particular method of doing things—especially when we google writing tips and see things like “A writer must write every day!” and claims that you need a ritual like lighting a candle, or whatever… I’ve never lit a candle, by the way.
Actually, I did once, and it gave me a headache.
In reality, we work best when we do what works best for us, not what works best for someone else.
I love this quote from Morrison:
“I tell my students one of the most important things they need to know is when they are their best, creatively, they need to ask themselves: What does the ideal room look like? Is there music? Is there silence? Is there chaos outside or is there serenity outside? What do I need in order to release my imagination?”
Isn’t that great?
I recently was being interviewed on a podcast about my writing process, and until this host was asking me the question, I’d never realized that I have not once, ever, written at a desk.
I have a desk. I actually have a desk I love. But I cannot write there.
I write on couches, on lawn chairs, in cafes, on my front lawn, in bed… I write where I am, and where inspiration strikes.
Back in New York when I was working on my novel Privilege with a newborn at home, I had to leave the house during my precious writing time, because we lived in a tiny apartment, and it was summer and too hot for my weeks-old son to go anywhere.
So I sometimes wound up at bars—like, a bar—with regulars drinking and watching sports. And there I was with my maternity bra on and my notebook, writing a novel about college girls in front of a lukewarm glass of white wine until I had to go home.
One afternoon, doing this, I had no idea what to write, but I had a page goal I had to meet for the day, so I just started describing the men around me.
That scene became a scene in Privilege—it takes place in a diner, and there’s more that happens, of course, that wasn’t actually happening in this bar on a July afternoon in Queens, but the diners in that scene were the men sitting around me that day.
We write where we can…and we should allow ourselves the freedom to find the place where the words flow, even if that’s somewhere out of the ordinary.
Tip # 3: Be open to what your writing can tell you
Morrison says:
“It’s that being open—not scratching for it, not digging for it, not constructing something but being open to the situation and trusting that what you don’t know will be available to you. It is bigger than your overt consciousness or your intelligence or even your gifts; it is out there somewhere and you have to let it in.”
Ahhhh, I love this one so much!
I believe a huge part of writing is simply being open. Not trying to control it, not trying to generate it solely out of the same part of our brains that we use to make grocery lists and Powerpoint presentations.
I call it writing by spreadsheet—this drive to over-control things.
It’s understandable to think this is how it should be done, because it’s how much work in contemporary society is done. But it doesn’t work for creativity.
We end up over-structuring our writing: we use outlines, or extremely detailed character profiles, or do months and months of planning so that by the time we’re actually writing, it feels forced and stilted.
Nothing is surprising because we’re not letting our writing surprise us. But when we let go of that control a little and let ourselves be guided by our own writing and our characters, we can stumble into something real and vulnerable that we couldn’t have imagined otherwise.
When I’m open, I’m always surprised by what I discover, and it’s better than what I had come up with or could have come up with myself.
Tip #4: Know when to let go
I know this is going to be a tough one for a lot of you—calling all perpetual revisers! It can be hard to know when it’s time to let your writing go and put it out into the world.
Maybe that means finally submitting your manuscript to agents, or if you get that book deal, finally letting the manuscript go to print.
And while you should give your work the time it deserves to get it where you want it to be, you can’t spend forever just editing it into oblivion.
As Morrison says:
“Those [paragraphs] that need reworking I do as long as I can. I mean I’ve revised six times, seven times, thirteen times. But there’s a line between revision and fretting, just working it to death. It is important to know when you are fretting it; when you are fretting it because it is not working, it needs to be scrapped.”
If you know deep down something is not working, dump it. But if you’re just re-working for the sake of re-working, let yourself stop and be done (and maybe reward yourself with some tea or a foot massage).
Honestly, I’m never done with my books. Even when I do book readings, I’m not reading the words on the page… I’m tweaking as I go!
It’s normal, I think, for a writer never to be done revising. We don’t let it go because it’s done. We let it go because it’s time.
Tip #5: Do what you can with what you have
Here’s our last quote from Morrison. She says:
“I have an ideal writing routine that I’ve never experienced, which is to have, say, nine uninterrupted days when I wouldn’t have to leave the house or take phone calls… But I am not able to write regularly. I have never been able to do that—mostly because I have always had a nine-to-five job. I had to write either in between those hours, hurriedly, or spend a lot of weekend and predawn time.”
Fun fact: before she published her first novel, Morrison made history as the first Black female editor at Random House in New York City, and she’s considered to be a huge influence on Black American literature not just as an author, but also in her role as an editor in the 1960s and ‘70s.
Aside from having that literary influence, her time as an editor also demonstrates that it is possible to author books while holding down a demanding full-time job.
As she says here, it’s not easy, but it is possible.
I’ve worked with one writer who’s a doctor, and she wrote the first draft of her book on the notes app on her phone in between seeing patients.
I’ve worked with another writer who wrote her draft in her car while waiting to pick her kids up from soccer practice.
Even if the circumstances are not ideal, you can write a book without having all 24 hours of the day to yourself, and that’s a good thing. Life is imperfectly designed for authoring books, but that doesn’t have to stop you.
Ready to write your dream book?
If you made it this far, I’m guessing that you are writing a book, or want to write a book. If so, I want to talk to you.
When I’m not writing, my mission in life is to help talented writers write their dream books. I love it. I live for it.
Because before I published my novels, I first had to figure out how to write one. It wasn't easy because none of the writing classes I was taking showed me how to actually write a novel.
Not until I had a newborn and only a couple of hours to write did I come up with a process. The process worked. I wrote my entire novel during my 8-week maternity leave.
Now, I teach it in my program the Book Incubator and it works for dozens of other writers.
If you're curious to know more, I have a free video walking you through my exact process for writing a book. You can get it by clicking below and answering two questions to apply to the program.
You get the video whether you join or not—no pressure to enroll.
Just click below to tell me a little bit about you and your book—you can fill out a form online. I’m so excited to hear from you!
