Here’s the Thing

By Gary Reddin






You write the thing. Then you rewrite the thing. Then again and again until it’s done. That last part is key. Because you don’t decide when your writing is finished – it does. This, or some approximation of it, is the advice I give new writers when asked. And for the most part, I believe in it. But I’ve never been a planner, not when it comes to writing. Or, if I’m being honest – and the thing demands I be honest – that lack of planning extends to my life overall. The only plan I’ve ever made, ever truly been sure of from the get-go, was that I wanted to be a writer. But even my writing career is a heuristic one. I’m not quite a novelist, or poet, or a screenwriter, or journalist. Hell, even my MFA just says, “in writing.” Not in fiction, or nonfiction, or anything that could lend itself to the idea that I’ve ever mastered the thing. If a casual acquaintance asks what I write, I tell them I’m “genrefluid.” Which is fun, quirky, and just technical enough to keep them from asking for more specifics. What I want to say, of course, is “everything.” I write everything. And each piece is its own thing. A poem thing. A fiction thing. A craft essay thing.



But what do I know about anything? I went to college ten years ago on a government program for people who’d lost their jobs in the oil and gas industry. I became a journalist because it was the closest you could come to “being a writer” in Oklahoma. I went to graduate school during the pandemic. And now I’m somehow working with one of the most popular young adult novelists of the past decade. But the truth is, despite that meandering if semi-successful history: I can’t tell you how to write the thing. I don’t think anyone can. Which maybe invalidates this whole essay. And if that ends up being the case – after I’ve written the thing, then rewritten the thing, and then rewritten it again until it’s done – well, I’m sorry. But I hope that I’ve done enough to bring you to the end with me. Because I do think it has something to say. And we’re close now. Close to the heart of the thing. Because I have one more piece of advice. One I save for the people I trust, and something tells me I can trust you. So here it is: don’t edit yourself. Which is to say, rewrite the thing – again, and again, and again until it’s done. But don’t cut it open like some 8th-grade biology project. Don’t pin it to a board or press its wings under glass like a moth in your collection. You can’t piece it together like a puzzle. It’s a wild, wanting creature, this thing we call writing. It yearns for the reader. So let the thing live as it was born: ravenous.



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Gary Reddin grew up in Southwest Oklahoma, where he mythologized Springsteen lyrics as gospel truth. These days, he writes from Southern California but still considers himself Oklahoma’s son. He is the author of An Abridged History of American Violence , and Quantum Entanglement . He can be found everywhere online as @reddinwrites, though it’s mostly pictures of his dog.