While we were catching up over the weekend, a friend asked me, “have you told anyone to ‘write drunk, edit sober’ yet?” We got a good chuckle out of it but the question was on my mind when I chose “Writers are Mythical, Magical, and Damaged” by Teri Holbrook and Melanie Hundley as one of the articles for today’s readings. In the article, Holbrook and Hundley tackle romanticized stereotypes of writers, from predestined, effortless talent to agoraphobic alcoholics. The persistence of these stereotypes obscures the labor that goes into a piece of writing, erases the majority of authors who don’t fall into one of the myth categories, and discourages young writers who might feel they don’t possess that special essence of a writer.

In her article “Some People are Just Born Good Writers,” Jill Parrot specifically tackles the myth of predestination of talent, or what Hundley and Holbrook call “Writers Possess Magical Gifts.” Parrott explores how this myth originated, what has propelled it, and ultimately how it should be dispelled. Parrot points to socioeconomic status (more access!) and the traditional practices of writing instructors as two major factors in the persistence of this myth.

Both previously mentioned articles interact with Jimmy Butts’ “The More Writing Process, The Better” in a complex way. Butts focuses on how an obsession with extensive editing and rewriting devalues writing as a product. “Perhaps we should drop writing as a verb,” Butts writes, “and see it more as a noun.” However, according to Parrott, “America focused on the object produced by writing, not the process of writing a text.” To Parrott, as well as to Holbrook and Hundley, extensive focus on finished product without attention to process created and continues to perpetuate the myth of worthwhile writing as effortless.

Butts may identify a problem exactly opposite from that identified by Parrott, Holbrook, and Hundley, but the solution by all authors falls somewhere in the middle. Process should be recognized and valued but no more than the finished product; the product should be demystified but not to the point that process is all that matters. The ultimate effect of a nuanced approach to writing is an increase in accessibility. Through killing the myths of writers as “Mythical, Magical, and Damaged,” and rejecting the prescriptive endlessness of the writing process, the idea of who a writer is is put back into the hands of the individual. They get to decide their process. They get to inhabit “writer” as part of their identity. As Butts puts it, “making writing achievable and real is the goal.”