Stop Underselling Yourself as a Writer. Words Are Magic (With Example)
I have been enjoying the work of fellow Medium writers for the past 6 months now.
While I really enjoy the wealth of themes and viewpoints available on Medium’s daily stream, not a day goes by that I don’t think of Nanni Moretti’s 1989 Palombella Rossa, in which the main character starts yelling at a journalist, “LE PAROLE SONO IMPORTANTI!”
I wish people would sometimes yell this sentence at my face too. It’s easy to forget the simplicity of its message: that I need to take time with words, to weigh each one in my hand before throwing it on the page.
Nanni Moretti was definitely onto something. But he was wrong. Words are not simply important. They are magic.
As Alan Moore argues in his brilliant BBC Maestro storytelling online class:
“writing and magic are practically the same thing. You should never think of yourself as merely an entertainer for hire who is lucky to have the work. You should try to remember the tradition that you are becoming part of. You should try to remember that a writer can change the world with their writing (….). If you are a writer, then the substances that you are handling, the things that you are juggling, you are having an effect upon human history and the entirety of the human future.”
Words are powerful, and they can lift you up. Or bring you down. Let me give you an example.
Earlier this week, as I (reluctantly) watched the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II on the telly, I started noticing a troubling pattern in my mind. Every time the camera focused on Charles III, I immediately thought of a word. Tampax.
It is unfortunate, to say the least, that, of all the words that have come out of the newly appointed King’s mouth, this is the one that has attached itself to the deepest recesses of my imagination, like a stubborn mussel.
To the younger ones out there, this was a word that Charles, the former Prince of Wales, uttered in a private phone call to Camilla, now Queen Consort, as he expressed his urgent desire to be inside her, like a Tampax. The phone call, which took place in 1989 — the same year Palombella Rossa came out, by the way — should never have seen the light of day, were it not for the People newspaper, who printed the transcript of the sexy phone call. Here is more information on the scandal.
Allow me to clarify. I’m not making a moralistic comment here. Charles III is entitled to his sexuality just like everybody else. He can talk dirty to whoever he wants if he so chooses, because he is a person like everybody else, with particular physical circumstances and desires, and the fact that today he is an acclaimed King does not change his humanity.
What I am noticing here is something else, namely the extent to which my perception of the current King is reliant on a simple word that, having been uttered in private in the 1980s, somehow slipped out and ran amok around the world, and is now forever lodged in my mind.
Tampax, my friends.
Words spell out the world to us. This is where their magical power lies. They materialise things into being, and our world is only as rich or as poor as the diversity of words we are able to contain and voice.
We only name what we are used to seeing. Naming the unseen is our craft, as writers.
Think about this for a minute. We name the unseen.
Which leads me to my punchline. The large majority of Medium articles (mine included) are meant to create mild entertainment, and to help us make money. But, if we take our time and really think hard about the words we are using and putting out into the world, then we may be on our way to actually changing people’s consciousnesses, lives, experiences, and health, and not just our bank accounts.
So, do the world a favour and stop writing to earn. Write to transform.
Stand tall as a writer.
Bring out the dynamite.
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