The Book I Bought When I Had Stopped Writing

I found Eun Yu’s Words on Writing on a trip to Jeju, at a bookshop called Pulmujil. There had been a tiny Pulmujil in Myeongnyun-dong, near Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul. By the time of my trip, its longtime bookseller, Eun Jong-bok, had opened a small shop of his own on Jeju.

I had been in the Seoul shop once or twice as a student and had only said hello. We crossed paths later through friends. When I walked into the shop on Jeju, he welcomed me as if we had known each other much better than that.

The year I put writing down

It was early 2022. I used to post to my blog almost every day. Then my business failed. I took another job and the work left me too tired to write. After a while, I left that job too and went to Jeju for a short break.

I saved Pulmujil for the last stop. I talked with Eun Jong-bok, looked around the shelves and thought about what I might take home. I usually buy something small to remember a trip. This time it was a book.

A book small enough to begin

I needed a way to get back into the habit. Eun Yu’s book caught my eye because I could imagine reading one or two pages at a time. Each short piece begins with somebody else’s words about writing and gives Eun Yu room to think on the page beside them.

At first I mistook it for a little independent publication. Then I saw that it had gone through 17 printings. I could see why a reader might pick it up, put it down and come back the next day.

Four ideas worth returning to

The quotations are a way in. Writers and other people speak about what it takes to put something into words. Eun Yu keeps asking what those words do once somebody else reads them.

Four ideas from the book stayed with me.

1. Begin with an experience you know firsthand.
2. Make room in your writing for someone else to live.
3. Show up for the work, steadily and often.
4. Let other people read some of what you write.

I found all four connected. Repeated work builds stamina. Writing from a place you know gives you something to hold on to. When the writing reaches a reader, another person can find a place for themselves inside it.

Writing makes me feel alive

I opened my first blog in 2008. In 2013 I was selected as a Power Blogger. By the time I wrote this review, I had been keeping at it for about 15 years.

There were more selections after 2013, and I put out a book of my own. I still find it easier to say I am someone who likes to write than to call myself a good writer.

I do know that I feel awake when I am writing. I would like to make another book with work I am proud of. Even if that takes a while, I want to keep going and see what another ten years does to the way I write.

Book details

Words on Writing — For the Moment a Person Who Doesn’t Write Becomes Someone Who Does

Author

Eun Yu

Published

August 4, 2016

ISBN-13

9791185152516

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