At the Cleveland International Film Festival this year, one of the many films I watched with my screener’s pass was Mountain Miracle, a German/Italian film about a teenage girl, Amelie, who suffers from life-threatening asthma attacks. When her parents send her to a special program in the mountains for treatment, Amelie isn’t having it. She’s angry, defiant, and rebellious, and in the process, she repeatedly doles out the following insult: “Write a book.”
Amelie interrupts her worrying mother to tell her to “write a book.” She says the same thing to leaders at the treatment program and to the new friend who helps her climb a mountain in search of a miracle cure. “Write a book,” she orders, which basically translates to “Go tell someone who cares.”
As a writer, however, it’s hard for me to consider the directive to “write a book” in an entirely negative light. Every time Amelie said it, I found myself reframing her words in a new way:
“Write a book.” Your energy is better spent crafting a piece of writing than it is lecturing me.
“Write a book.” How about you take all those words inside you and put them down on paper.
“Write a book.” Let’s agree this interaction is exhausting and that we’d both be better off pursuing our private artistic goals.
“Write a book.” I’m not your audience, but I invite you to find your true readers.
“Write a book.” You have my permission to attempt the impossible.
Yes, it’s unlikely Amelie would recognize those literary interpretations in her insult, but even so, there seems to be a type of power in telling someone to write a book. Doesn’t she say it, in part, because it’s such a ludicrous thing to do? To pour all those solitary hours into the page, to transfer a world of thoughts and ideas into a stack of bound paper—it’s preposterous.
It’s also a display of willfulness and strength and persistence. The act of writing a book is a little rebellion all on its own, which is something I think Amelie would understand. And so maybe I’ll borrow her insult sometime.
Write a book, I’ll say. Write a book even if it seems no one is listening, even if the world is trying to shut you out. Start right now, in fact—walk away from this conversation and get going. Don’t give yourself time to doubt. Just do it.
Write your book.