Fighting word wanking with Dorothy Parker and Steven Pressfield

Those wankers don’t stand a chance

That’s right…these are all ideas people word wanked about instead of writing about…going cheap, just for today… (Photo: Author)

Are you a word wanker? Many writers are. But word wanking could sabotage your writing….

A few years ago, I found myself in thrall to the idea that there was some secret formula to make writing easier.

Not that I had a problem writing. I had been writing for years, personally and professionally. At that time, I was curious about a writing style I was seeing on social media sites like Twitter (as it was named back then) and LinkedIn. A casual, self-satisfied, certain-about-everything style. A style that often sounded like nothing more than bravado masquerading as competence, but a style readers seemed to eat up.

Some of these writers shared that they were students of a few online writing programs that promised fame and fortune. (I won’t name names, because at least one of those writing programs is still operating — now with a heavy emphasis on writing with AI — and I don’t want to become a target for their eloquence.) A scan of their curricula revealed a mixed bag of obvious, reasonable advice (“write regularly”) paired with techniques that struck me as silly at best and ridiculous at worst (“discuss your ideas with a group of people, then write about the ideas they seem to find most interesting”).

I didn’t sign up. I concluded they were pushing something I branded “word wanking” rather than serious writing. And, because I like to write, I came up with what I thought was a scathing (or at least mildly sarcastic) indictment of this most-odious practice.

Here it is:

Word wanking is talking about writing instead of actually writing. Sharing writing ideas prematurely. Asking for input before writing. Seeking accolades and attention for writing you haven’t done yet.

It’s intoxicating, pleasurable and much easier than actual writing. But it isn’t writing; it’s a bad habit. If you have an idea you think might be worth writing about, keep it to yourself. Don’t talk about it with your friends. Don’t post it online and collect feedback. Don’t even share it with your dog. Write about it.

As Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art, said, “Are you writing a novel? Don’t talk about it. Are you recording a new album, planning a new product launch, gestating a new philanthropic venture? Keep your mouth shut. Talking too soon is bad luck. It’s bad karma.”1

I have spotted two forms of word wanking in the wild:

• Circle word wanking — It’s fun to sit and talk with friends and colleagues about writing ideas. And it’s easy to rationalize doing so. You’re clarifying your thoughts! You’re unearthing new truths! You're young, you're clever and the ideas are gushing and juicy. You and your friends are like a new, kombucha-fuelled Algonquin Round Table! That’s not writing. Writers write, usually alone. Know-it-all children blather at length, fascinated with the sounds of their own voices and intoxicated by ideas they think are original or noteworthy. Most aren’t. Writing, like showering, is not a team sport. Remember what Dorothy Parker, a charter member of the actual Algonquin Round Table, said about the group years later: “These were no giants. Think who was writing in those days—Lardner, Fitzgerald, Faulkner and Hemingway. Those were the real giants. The Round Table was just a lot of people telling jokes and telling each other how good they were. Just a bunch of loudmouths showing off, saving their gags for days, waiting for a chance to spring them....There was no truth in anything they said. It was the terrible day of the wisecrack, so there didn't have to be any truth.”2

• Online word wanking — Posting writing ideas online and hoping for feedback. Sadly, it now seems common for anyone with the glimmer of a writing idea to rush out and publish it online. It doesn’t matter how half-baked the idea is. Their thoughts are precious and should be shared, like a proud toddler displaying the contents of its diaper. Look what I made! A subset of online word wanking is the “zinger” — a pithy phrase or word the writer hopes will catapult them to fame. Sadly, writing is more than inventing clever one-liners and hoping for responses. Virginia Woolf didn’t tweet “Thinking crab shack…but maybe boat house? Or lighthouse? Let me know!” Ernest Hemingway didn’t post some zinger about the sun also rising, then peruse the comments to sharpen his prose. And let’s not forget what Dorothy Parker (yes, her again) said: “wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.”3

Bottom line: don’t talk about writing or share early ideas online. Just write. Get deep into your ideas. Write about them, rewrite, revise then repeat. Word wank in private, preferably in front a computer keyboard. Release your pearls of wisdom into the world only when you’re sure they’re fully developed and bulletproof.

I’ll concede that there’s no shame in the occasional word wank. It feels good. It makes you feel full of magic, so alive! Zingers popping off left and right! But remember that when it’s over you’ll probably feel empty and have no impulse to sit down and write. And it’s not something you’ll want to brag about.

Notes:

1. https://stevenpressfield.com/2013/06/dont-talk-about-it/ Steven includes a lot of other good advice in this post, such as “premature yakking is a form of self-sabotage.” I think he’d be with me on the word wanking thing.

2. https://authorsinink.com/dorothy-parker/ The actual quote is included in Dorothy Herrmann’s 1982 book, With Malice Toward All: The Quips, Lives and Loves of Some Celebrated 20th-Century American Wits. More accessible through the link provided, however.

3. en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dorothy_Parker. The quote is from a 1956 interview in The Paris Review. In the same interview Parker showed she was well-acquainted with the rigours and pain of writing: “It takes me six months to do a story. I think it out and then write it sentence by sentence—no first draft. I can’t write five words but that I change seven.”