The mysterious process of writing
A keen analyst of contemporary society, Karine Tuil shares her thoughts on the mysterious process of writing.
On the one hand, fantasy, legend and idealization; on the other, reality and its opacity, frustrations and inability. That’s what writing is: a disconcerting mystification. It always comes up in conversation: I write too; I’d like to write too; I have an idea, a few lines, a subject, an ambition, a dream, immediately followed by the question: how is it done? I’d love to be able to provide the instructions, the keys to understanding; to suggest that there are techniques, that it’s easy. Writing is first and foremost an experience of resistance, of defeat, of absolute solitude – something writers rarely talk about or only among themselves, as if it were a well-kept secret. This is a profession in which doubts are rarely exposed, as if it were essential to keep the fantasy machine going. In her book Writing, which I always reread when writing a novel, Marguerite Duras notes: “If we knew anything about what we were going to write, before doing it, before writing, we’d never write. It wouldn’t be worth it.” We move forward in the dark, not knowing if we’ll get anywhere, if there’ll be any light, if we’ll find any meaning; we set off without a strategy, always alone, for an indeterminate period of time, with no assurance as to the successful outcome of the operation. This is the union between “urgency and patience” as Jean-Philippe Toussaint described the writing process in his eponymous book. Writing is at once the simplest activity (a sheet of paper, a pencil, nothing more) and the most complex (how do you get something to emerge from the impalpable, enigmatic material represented by words?). Yet we must also perhaps allow ourselves to succumb to imperious necessity, to search deep inside ourselves, without restraint, to bring out the singularity of an inner voice. This requires solitude, courage, blindness, discipline, breath – a room of one’s own.
About Karine Tuil
Author of 13 novels and a collection of poems, Karine Tuil received the Prix Interallié and the Goncourt des Lycéens for Les Choses Humaines in 2019. Her books explore human ambiguities and social issues. In 2023, she held the Sciences Po Writer-in-Residence Chair, supported by Karen and Michel Reybier.
About the Prix Littéraire Michel Reybier
The Prix Littéraire Michel Reybier was created in 2021 in partnership with Sciences Po to encourage culture and transmission. It rewards French-language authors for the quality of their work and their commitment to students.
This article is an excerpt from La Réserve Magazine N° 31 by Michel Reybier Hospitality, which you can consult online here.