How writing is like ironing linen

by Amy Sue Nathan


I was ironing a pale blue, linen, button down shirt — getting ready to meet friends for dinner. I flipped the shirt to iron the back, and smoothed the collar to iron it flat. I did the sleeves and the cuffs, the front, and checked it all again, making sure to get between the buttons (those buggers). And I wondered, on a thirty-minute drive to the restaurant, how was the shirt not going to be wrinkled when I arrived?


And then I remembered, linen is supposed to wrinkle.


As I finished ironing and packed away the spray starch, I thought about writing — and how it’s not much different than linen.


We want our writing to be smooth and pristine, but it’s supposed to have some wrinkles.  Wrinkles add personality – make it real. Wrinkles – even in our faces — are signs of who and what we are and where we’ve been. 


Wrinkles in writing can be anything from quirks in the method of how we do what we do —  to the idiosyncrasies in our characters, language and voice. Often we aspire to writing that looks a certain way – and it’s not that we shouldn’t do our best and make things as perfect as possible. A little wrinkling means you’re not too uptight to live and write fully – to just be yourself and put yourself out there with the little bits that make you — and your writing — uniquely you.


How stiff and unnatural it would be to arrive in an unwrinkled linen shirt and how boring writing would be without the personal wrinkles of each individual author or book or character.


What are the wrinkles in your writing? 

Amy Sue Nathan is the editor of STET and the only wrinkles she wants to discuss are the ones in her writing and linen shirts.  


You can also find Amy at Women's Fiction Writers.