Why We Write: Ron Harner

I remember the first time it hit me. My eyes hadn’t adjusted to the light outside the theater yet, but something inside me was different. I felt lighter. I felt funnier. A movie screen had just administered the visual equivalent of nitrous oxide. It was a high I would chase from that day forward.

I returned to the cineplex over and over again. The problem was that I couldn’t isolate the drug or, rather, the dealer. After I saw ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN I became a journalism major. When the lights came up on DEAD POETS SOCIETY I went out and got my teaching degree. I went that far. I really did. It’s a little unsettling how long it took me to realize that it was the storyteller and not their subjects who were giving me this push.

So I started writing every night. Clumsy at the outset, then marginally better. I found other writers, and we stumbled across the pages together. When I began getting paid for it, I felt as if I was getting away with something. I was chasing that high and, on a few happy occasions, I’d find it. That was the big payoff. An older staff writer from the I LOVE LUCY show once told me, “You’ll go through your personal recessions, but you’ll always come back to writing. It’s what you do.”

I wrote the words, “It’s what you do” on a notecard and pinned it to a cork board over my desk in my crappy, little West LA apartment for years. I still have it. It’s the truest thing I know.

This past year, when the pandemic hit, I started in on a new script. I don’t know if anyone else felt something like this but the act of writing was different this time. Tucked away from most of the people I love, I found that the new characters I was hammering out were good company. Writing can be a confounding craft, but each morning I found myself energized by what these friends were going to reveal. That might sound affected, but it was tangible to me. It was as real as fiction could be.

There will come a day when my wife and friends stop working. I look forward to the extra time I will have with them. But I can’t envision a day when I stop writing. As long as the next line still provides that lift, I’ll continue to put pen to paper. It’s what we do.

Thanks to Ron!