Weekly Quote: Raymond Carver on Being Patient

When I'm not writing, it's as if l've never written a word or had any desire to write. I fall into bad habits. I stay up too late and sleep in too long. But it's okay. I've learned to be patient and to bide my time.

Raymond Carver

This week’s quote comes from a 1983 Interview in The Paris Review with the short story writer and poet Raymond Carver, considered by many to be one of the defining voices of short story writing in the later part of the 20th century. If you’re new to Carver and want to read some excellent short fiction, I recommend starting with this collection.

While I cannot attribute my lack of writing to bad habits so much as to the demands of being a busy parent, I can relate to the idea that I feel far away from writing when I don’t do it regularly. Lately, my time to write has been less regular than I’d like or is even typical, so when I consider getting to my desk during quiet moments either late at night or occasionally during the day when there’s a bit of a lull, it feels more daunting than usual.

Yet, when I sit down, and my hands touch the keys, it feels entirely right again. Now, I’m not writing short fiction or poetry, at least not right now, but what I am writing, the story I’m telling, is something that has an impact on me and, I hope anyway, an effect on others, too.

Maybe you haven’t picked up your guitar in a while, or haven’t made it on a run in a few days, or perhaps you haven’t sat at your computer to write the next chapter in your novel. This happens to everyone. We lose the thread and sometimes for no reason that we can parse except getting busy or getting distracted. Don’t worry about the why right now. Be patient, and when there’s time and space find your way back to whatever it is you’ve lost touch with, embrace it, and make your way.