The Gift of Hunger
By Natalie Hart | August 27, 2021 |
What hunger drives your writing life? The hunger for approval by the publishing powers that be? For seeing your name on a cover? For developing your talent and improving your storytelling? For immortality? Glory? Money? Fame? Validation? Excellence? For shoving your success in the face of naysayers? For seeing a story to its end? For proving you can do it? For losing yourself in story? For making gifts for others? For changing the world?
Is your hunger enough to keep you going when writing and life get really hard? Will it keep you going and growing through repeated failure? Through success?
Chris Bosch, a champion basketball player, talks about the gift of hunger in his Letters to a Young Athlete:
Hunger can’t make you seven feet tall or tell you how to defend Steph Curry, but on those nights when your shot isn’t falling, when you can’t get a single call from the refs, when it seems like all the breaks are going against you, hunger can pull you through.
In the writing life, it might look like this: Hunger can’t give you an idea like The Boy Who Lived or tell you how to worldbuild like Tolkien, but on those nights when your words are stilted, when you can’t figure out a thorny problem, when it seems like all you get is rejections or one-star reviews, hunger can pull you through.
Bosch tells young athletes that they have to not only be hungry, but they have to stay hungry. That to be great, they have to nurture a hunger that will keep them pushing through each level of achievement.
That is compelling to me. The writing life is an emotional rollercoaster and there has to be something that pulls and pushes us through the slog times, the disappointing times, the times when our skills don’t yet equal our vision.
Looking at the list of possible writing hungers above, it’s not hard to see that some will be better at sustaining us when things get tough–or when we achieve what we’ve been working for. Money and fame are too rare. And we aren’t in control of the powers that be. But others have longterm potential.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this gift of hunger lately because, after 15 years of writing with the goal of publication, I lost mine. I can even pinpoint the exact day: August 24, 2015. My kids were in school and I was sitting on my porch, manuscript open, diving into edits, so happy to get some time to focus, when three police officers walked up to arrest my then-husband of 21 years for a sex crime. The project went on a shelf and I stopped even daydreaming about stories as I dealt with all the changes.
Maybe a similarly seismic event made you lose your writing hunger(s). Maybe you reached the goal you’d been striving for and felt adrift. Maybe publishers have repeatedly turned you down no matter how much you’ve improved. Maybe choosing self-publishing wasn’t what you’d hoped it would be. Maybe your hunger ate at you with recriminations and obsessions that kept you from moving forward.
Do I need to add the chronic stress of this pandemic?
What can we do when we’ve lost our hunger?
We can decide that it’s okay not to focus on writing for now–self-compassion is a healthy skill and there are plenty of other ways to express our creativity. We can keep moving forward, even if just infinitesimally–reading craft articles, connecting with our writing tribe, feeding our curiosity, staying alert for story sparks. We can wax nostalgic about those days when our hunger drove us to daily practice, to improve, to deepen our skills and our stories, when we could lose ourselves in a world of our own creating–but that only feeds itself.
Or we can decide that it’s time to write again, that it’s time to chase that gift of hunger.
How can we nurture our hunger?
For a long time, I only wanted to want to write, but I’m at the point when I want to write fiction again. I’ve been feeding my creative well, reading, walking outdoors, reading Writer Unboxed, following my curiosity, exploring why I write, but those haven’t gotten me closer to my dormant projects. Not even doing all nagging house and yard projects last year got me writing–and that was why I’d done them.
Bosch talks about two traits that fuel the hunger of the greats: commitment to excellence and taking pride in the beautiful things of your field.
To win repeatedly, you have to push through adversity, even when the hunger you experienced when you were just a young challenger to the throne is sated. You can’t be driven by a need to prove yourself, because you’ve already proven yourself. You have to be driven by a love of excellence, by a desire to play the game at the highest possible level for as long as you possibly can. And every time you succeed, some of your external motivation gets chipped away until all you have left is that inner commitment to excellence.
He takes pride in the beautiful things of the game…that are beautiful whether you’re up 20 or down 20. And because he understands the game is bigger than him, he never lets a win get him too high, or a loss get him too low.
Neither of those traits depend on what anyone else might think of what we’re doing. You know your own abilities, your vision for whatever project you’re working on, and it’s your own commitment to excellence that keeps you editing and honing your words, turnings points, and character arcs. No matter how harsh a self-critic you are, there are always beautiful moments in any project: a turn of phrase, an apt metaphor, a character arc, a hook, a perfect comeback. And we can take pride in the beautiful moment we created. These two traits are distilled out of long practice.
“Long practice” gives us a clue about Bosch’s final way to nurture elite-level hunger: Do the Work. Do. The. Work.
What if the number one way to nurture and fuel our hunger is to do the work?
We don’t give our characters the luxury of waiting until everything is just right for them to act. No, we force them to go out with their incomplete knowledge and their weaknesses and strengths and do it anyway. What if I treated myself like one my characters and just opened my dusty manuscript for book 2 of my trilogy and got to editing? And then kept at it. Regularly. If I opened a new document and started on the idea that’s been rattling around in my head for so long that I actually have a good direction for it. And then kept at it. Regularly.
Soon I would have a practice again.
Bosch talks about the great basketball players who practiced the fundamentals of the game as diligently when they were champions as they did when they were just starting out: they put in the work, they practiced, they had a “long-haul dedication to a craft.”
That’s inspiring to me.
The writers we admire, whose work we love, are human beings. Like you and like me. They are not superheroes who wrote unachievable things. They are people with lives and complications who figured out how to do the work.
I hunger to join them. And that hunger feels good. Like a gift.
What is your hunger? What fuels your hunger? What’s gotten you going again after a time away from writing? Have you ever given yourself permission to step away? I really enjoyed Letters to a Young Athlete–what non-writing book have you found inspirational?
[coffee]
Natalie Hart writes stories for children. Her father was an entrepreneur, so she never intended to be one herself, but she’s become a proud indie author. She is the author of The Giant Slayer, an imaginative retelling of the first eight years of adventure in the life of the boy who would become Israel’s King David.
I almost fell out of my chair when I read the moment you stopped writing. Tears came to my eyes. Thank you for sharing this! Your words make me think hard about the forces that drive my hunger. At some point I decided this game was going to be a Rocky Balboa type deal. That getting up for more punches was the way forward for a would-be author. Still, I always appreciate hearing about writer-grit. Best to you!
Indeed! doesn’t matter how many times you get hit, it’s how many times you get up :-) Love that analogy.
Excellence and beauty! Yes!
Applicable across every field of endeavour :-)
Do the work. Love the work. Thanks for the inspiration this morning, Natalie.
I was hoping it’d be inspiring for more than just me :-)
Usually what gets me going again when I think too much about how long I’ve been writing and failing is to consider my son in the future. Will he tell people, “My mom had a dream and gave up”? Or will he say, “My mom had this crazy dream and clung to it”? Even if the dream never comes true, I’d rather he say the latter than the former, so that’s the kick in the pants that revives the hunger.
That is a GREAT one! I’ll do things for my kids’ sake that I won’t do for mine. Thanks, Marta.
Dang, Natalie. This essay is a gem. The message is straightforward yet oh-so-powerful, made all the more so by your openness and humility. The strength that you’ve gathered and utilized to move forward, and *then* harnessed to put yourself back on the path to your passion, is palpable and inspiring.
You’ve been at this even longer than I have, so I’m sure you know the feeling of moving beyond that initial hunger. We start with such a starry-eyed but short-sighted gaze forward. I’ve gotten beyond the yearning for validation that I once had (most days). I have finally accepted that my vision for this work is the only one that matters. I’ve finally accepted that the daily practice–the drive to excellence–is not just a step along the way to some goal-line, but one of the actual gifts of the life of a creator.
You filled me right up with the right sort of fuel this morning. This is one of those essays that both takes me back and propels me forward. Back to feeling all of the exuberance of the early days of the journey, and forward with the understanding that the external will continue to be chipped away until I’m left with nothing but the inner drive to strive for excellence–likely for the rest of my (capable) days.
I’ve come to the point of recognizing and appreciating the gift that you’re offering here. Thank you.
You made me tear up, Vaughn. Thank you. YES–the practice is the gift. I hope to get back there <3
Natalie, this post, so honest and purposeful. I lived through some months when writing in a quiet house, pouring out my sorrow through a story, was one of the major trajectories toward healing. Whatever your purpose when you sit down to write–there is a reason for it. I believe writers see the world in a different way, words on a page. We might need a counselor and the love of friends and family, but we also need the love of the page. Artists need paint and canvass, we need writing, which in some ways becomes a spiritual act. Thanks for your words.
The love of the page — yes! Your months of writing your sorrow through story sound soul-good.
Love what you said about writers needing the page, like painters need the canvas. So true!!
I am hungry…
…to fit words together to solve the puzzles in my heart.
…for real people to know the imaginary people that I do and see that they are, after all, us.
…to find courage and lose fear.
…to speak what I know and discover what I don’t.
…to challenge myself.
…to do what my maker put me on Earth to do.
…to fulfill my responsibility and escape from the ordinary.
…to make something that might last and leave behind experiences to remember.
…to do what is right and show my children what that is.
…to be with my friends.
Never thought about it before, not as deeply as this. Thank you!
I’m shouting my AMENs over here. A powerful list.
Thank you Natalie for your vulnerability, your journey and insightful words. Loss has been my block and writing my gift.
I also love the O.T. and have preached David’s stories several times. Can’t wait to read your book.
What a beautiful phrase, “loss has been my block and writing my gift.” Thank you.
Dear Natalie, you are so brave. And I loved the quotes you shared from Letters. Do the work. Always, always, whenever I feel stressed about anything, the antidote is to get the thing done, whether it’s clipping the dog’s nails or meeting that deadline. I always feel so much better. And Heather’s post yesterday about being in it for the long haul dovetails so very nicely with keeping the hunger alive. I equate it with desire. I believe these deep desires are placed upon our hearts by God and if we’re not about them, we can’t be happy. I truly am my best self when I’m writing and I pray that at the end of my earthly life I’ll hear: well done, good and faithful servant.
The most recent non-writing book that inspired me was Paulo Coelho’s Alchemist. Here’s just one quote I loved (there are so many more): Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.
Blessings to you and yours.
What a wonderful quote from the Alchemist. I read that a couple of year ago–I need to crack it open again!
What a beautiful quote, Vijaya. Imagine saying that to someone who asks “Why don’t you just give it up?” Thanks for sharing!
I’ve been writing stories for many, many years. Since I could first put a pencil to paper. From that time to now, I’ve put my dream of being a professional writer aside a number of times for a variety of reasons. But I never could just quit forever. Something would start stirring in my mind – either an opinion about what was going on in the world or a snippet of a story – and I’d write. On steno tablets or other notebooks, so you do know how long ago that was.
What always seems to bring me back, even though now I fight a battle with atypical trigeminal neuralgia to be able to write, is what you said here: “long-haul dedication to a craft.”
When I flirt with the idea of quitting again. I certainly have a good reason to, I can’t imagine myself as anything other than a writer. Sure, productivity is way down compared to six years ago before I got Ramsay Hunt Syndrome – the gift that keeps on giving – but I’m still doing what I love. And we need to love the things we do.
I’m so glad to hear this. It isn’t how many times we slow down or almost quit–it’s how many times we get going again that matters <3
All the reasons you note fit why I started writing. But I keep writing because there’s joy and peace in the exercise. I still want all (or most) of the things–like seeing my book on a library shelf–to validate the choice I’ve made to spend this time and effort on, so far, nothing. I’m getting back on task now–but I had to take this moment to thank you.
Joy *and* peace … powerful motivators.
Exactly what I needed to read today. Thank you, Natalie.
I’m so glad <3
Natalie, such a great post and–coming from someone who’s struggled with resistance, too–I couldn’t agree more with your conclusion: Just do it. Thanks!
Thank you, Therese <3