Benson - Dancing on the head of a pen: the practice of a writing life

Praise for
Dancing on the Head of a Pen

Robert Bensons Dancing on the Head of a Pen is a gem. It is wise, witty, and inspiringa trifecta seldom achieved by a book on the writing life.

J AMES S COTT B ELL , best-selling author of Plot & Structure

With deceptive simplicity and a kind of almost-seductive easiness in his voice, Robert Benson lays open before us the filigreed mystique of the writing life in all its beauty, its unmitigated angst, and its inescapable vocation. This one is a classic.

P HYLLIS T ICKLE , author of The Divine Hours

I needed this book. And I need to read it againand probably again. Thank goodness, its a pure delight to read. Encouraging, honest, practical, and important. If youre a writeror have any aspirations to become oneRobert Bensons words will resonate deeply within you. I will highly recommend this to all my writer friends and even the writer friends I havent yet met.

M ELODY C ARLSON , author of more than 200 books, including Finding Alice and Diary of a Teenage Girl series

There is little more enjoyable for a writer than to read about the craft, especially when the book is fashioned with the grace and style of Robert Bensons prose. You dont even have to be a writer to savor this delicacy. Just do yourself a favor and settle in for a treat that goes down like dessert but is also full of nutrition. I read everything I can find on writing, and I loved this.

J ERRY B. J ENKINS , novelist and biographer

I love reading and spending time with what Robert Benson writes. I think it is because his words and Gods Spirit meet and dance on each page. In this book Benson generously shares how writing becomes art. Dancing on the Head of a Pen is direction for struggling writers and balm for the bruised writers heart.

S HARON E WELL F OSTER , author of the Christy Awardwinner Passing by Samaria and Shaara Prizewinner The Resurrection of Nat Turner

A LSO BY R OBERT B ENSON

Between the Dreaming and the Coming True

Living Prayer

Venite: A Book of Daily Prayer

The Night of the Child

The Game: One Man, Nine Innings, A Love Affair with Baseball

That We May Perfectly Love Thee

The Body Broken

A Good Life

Home by Another Way

Daily Prayer

Digging In: Tending to Life in Your Own Backyard

In Constant Prayer

The Echo Within

A Good Neighbor

Moving Miss Peggy

D ANCING ON THE H EAD OF A P EN
P UBLISHED BY W ATER B ROOK P RESS
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921

Details in some anecdotes and stories have been changed to protect the identities of the persons involved.

Hardcover ISBN 978-1-4000-7435-8
eBook ISBN 978-0-307-45814-8

Copyright 2014 by Robert Benson

Cover design by Mark D. Ford

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, New York, a Penguin Random House Company.

W ATER B ROOK and its deer colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Benson, R. (Robert), 1952
Dancing on the head of a pen : the practice of a writing life / Robert Benson.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-4000-7435-8 (hardback) ISBN 978-0-307-45814-8 (electronic)
1. Authorship. 2. Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.) I. Title.
PN149.B37 2014
808.02dc23

2014002683

v3.1

This book is for
Ms. Jones of Merigold,
who first suggested I write these things down.

It is for
Messrs. Grady, Fotinos, Major, and Cobb,
Mmes. Mao, Copan, Lind, and Clements,
who kept giving me chances.

And it is for all those
who hear the call to wrestle with words and
have the courage to tell the stories
that are the salvation of us all.

And as always,
it is for the Friends of Silence and of the Poor,
whoever and wherever you may be.

To condense from ones memories and fantasies and small discoveries dark marks on paper which become handsomely reproducible many times over still seems to me, after nearly thirty years concerned with the making of books, a magical act. To distribute oneself thus, as a kind of confetti shower falling upon the heads and shoulders of mankind out of bookstores and the pages of magazines, is surely a great privilege and a defiance of the usual earthbound laws whereby human beings make themselves known to one another.

J OHN U PDIKE , Odd Jobs

I THINK I HAVE A STORY TO TELL . I JUST DO NOT KNOW how to begin. Can you tell me how to write a book?

Most often I hear such a comment during the question-and-answer session after I have given a reading or a talk. The question also appears in some of the letters from people who are kind enough to read my books and kind enough to write me after they have read them.

The question comes up more and more these days. The digital age has changed so many things about the way writers and publishers find each other and ferret out access to sales and media outlets. And more and more the writer must not only make the art but deliver the audience as well. The whole process can seem a little daunting.

I always take the question seriously. I was once in the same spot and grateful for any help that might move me along toward learning to get a story down on paper.

Henri Nouwen was right when he said, As long as we have stories to tell to each other there is hope.

Sharing the things I know about how a person goes about telling his story seems only right. Perhaps it is even, as the old prayer book says, a good and joyful thing.

My father came into my office one day at the publishing business the family owned and handed me a stack of cassette tapes and a stack of manuscript pages, and then he gave me an assignment. I met this young woman in Canada, he said. I liked the things she was saying when she was speaking onstage, and I told her we would help her make a book out of it. I have been working on it some, but I cannot seem to capture it somehow. Why dont you give it a shot?

The book I helped the young woman make in those early days of my wordsmithing career is considerably different from the books now published under my own name. But it was the first chance given to me to learn how to make the only art I ever wanted to makea book.

It was my first ghostwriting assignment. I was nineteen years old.

Many years and many books later, I found myself leaning on my best friends doorjamb on a warm afternoon. I was half conversing about writing a book and half watching the roses blooming in our back garden. Out of one eye I was also watching the fountain beside the path that leads to the studio where I write.