The Hell's Angels made me write
Or, at least, that's how the story goes
I knew when I was nine years old that I wanted to be a writer. I remember the realization like this: I was in the backseat of my grandmother Grace’s little white Dodge on the way from Lawrence, Kansas to Kansas City, when suddenly we were enveloped by a pack of Hell’s Angels filling both eastbound lanes. There were beards and curls and clumps of hair clapping in the wind and the jean jackets and leather vests were greasy beneath the colors reading “Hell’s Angels” above a skull with angel’s wings. I felt right at home with these guys. I wanted that freedom. That hair. I wanted to be driving down the highway scaring the shit out people with no care in the world. That’s how I saw it as they sped ahead of us, my grandmother shaking her head. Not long after, I saw a copy of Hunter Thompson’s book, Hell’s Angels, on our coffee table, and looking through that I knew I wanted to be a writer more than I wanted to be an Angel. I wanted to observe, not be.
Ever since, I’ve been observing. I’ve been a writer my entire life, but all that means is that I’ve been looking, searching, uncovering, finding, imagining, with the lucky skill of being able to put it all into words. Now, 57 years later, when I think about writing I picture a machine in my brain going click click click, ordering my thoughts, my wishes, my life. I don’t know that I could continue living without constantly structuring my reality into sentences. I even rewrite other people’s sentences as I read, to see how they would sound. I am thrilled by good sentences written by others. And I’m not that bothered by bad ones.
Now that I know how to write well, I dislike perfection. I revise my writing over and over, building and shaping it until it takes the right form. But I’m very careful not to overdo it. Too much revision kills the page.
That’s the best advice I can offer any writer who might want some advice (most don’t): There is a point where revising something sucks the life out of it. I have learned this the hard way. And often, the revisions come at the behest of others — editors, agents, publishers, collaborators. So I try to trust my gut, always, rather than the ideas of others. Arrogant, for sure. But also correct. LOL.