Comments on: DEAR SUGAR, The Rumpus Advice Column #48: Write Like a Motherfucker

By: Kate

Kate — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 18:48:54 +0000

Please go to your nearest bookstore and buy The Untethered Soul. This book will wrap you up like the softest blanket, and whisper liberating wisdom into your ears. You’ll fall asleep in its glow and when you wake up, the world will be a far sweeter place….

By: Aine

Aine — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 19:53:13 +0000

Elissa, have you ever heard of the Enneagram? It sounds like you might be a Type Four:

http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/TypeFour.asp

When I found out I was a Four, it explained a lot about myself. I seemed to have been given the gift of being able to see inside myself and pull out my story to share with the world. But the other side of this gift was a terrible awareness of how we humans suffer, and when I say humans, I mean specifically me.

Learning that these feelings are par for the course for Fours made things a lot easier.

By: Katherine Owen

Katherine Owen — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 21:15:20 +0000

“But the best possible thing you can do is get your ass down onto the floor. Write so blazingly good that you can’t be framed. Nobody is going to give you permission to write about your vagina, hon. Nobody is going to give you a thing. You have to give it yourself. You have to tell us what you have to say.”

Love. This.

Thank you.

I’m giving it to myself from here on out and I’ll be telling all of you what I have to say.

By: MrMike

MrMike — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 13:38:19 +0000

Dear Elissa,
As a 43 year old who struggles to write, much less find the courage to share that writing, I want to tell you you’re not alone. I am possessed by the demon of Bipolar I, and I range from feeling like a bug on a windshield and feeling like I’m Superman. My point is this: all that tension and emotion and everything else you say that makes your writing seem trivial, is actually what will make it great. Use every emotion you feel, good and bad. They will elevate your craft while anchoring it to the hearts of your readers. People recognize a fake pretty quickly. So dig deep. A quote for you: “Writing is easy. All you have to do is stare at a sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.”—Gene Fowler
Don’t quit. We need you out there!

By: Alanna

Alanna — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 14:35:35 +0000

I get hot angry, helpful tears every time I read this. Which has been many times. You are we, Sugar, all of us crazy glowbugs out here. And I know you wrote this for all of us.

By: Susan

Susan — Sun, 06 May 2012 16:50:14 +0000

This will help me! And I will pretend this letter was written to me. Thank you for the clarity. I know I have to get my own courage and humility!:

“I’d lowered myself to the notion that the absolute only thing that mattered was getting that extra beating heart out of my chest. Which meant I had to write my book. My very possibly mediocre book. My very possibly never-going-to-be-published book. My absolutely no-where-in-league-with-the-writers-I’d-admired-so-much-that-I-practically-memorized-their-sentences book. It was only then, when I humbly surrendered, that I was able to do the work I needed to do.”

By: Jules

Jules — Fri, 04 May 2012 15:35:55 +0000

Thank you so much for this piece. I am in the midst of writing a novel and I’m 25. At times, it feels as though it will never live up to the grandiose expectations I have set upon it, but I force myself to keep going. And as per your advice, I’m going to write like a motherfucker!

By: Megan Frances

Megan Frances — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 18:28:33 +0000

Genius. Moving and kick-ass at the same time.

(BTW – Google has absconded with my blog, and until I can sort that out, it isn’t visible, but I’ve left the url anyway)

By: Belinda

Belinda — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:33:06 +0000

I also began writing after my Mom died. Became a stand-up comic as well as humor writer. Her death was the catalyst for my beginning my life. Thank you for this article, it was inspiring.

By: JC

JC — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 05:11:32 +0000

For what it’s worth, I’ve written and published 3 books, and I still want to kill myself on off days.