If You Don’t Do It: Crewe, Grady, Merz & Perry on Writing & Martial Arts

“If you don’t do it,” says novelist James Grady, “it is not done.”  Grady’s advice is simple and true, yet surprisingly easy for writers to forget.  It’s obvious in the same way that  “writers write” is.  Below, Megan Crewe, James Grady, Jon F. Merz, and Steve Perry talk about what they have learned sitting in a chair and putting words on the page and how they did (or didn’t) use those lessons in the study and practice of martial arts.


Megan Crewe is the author of the YA paranormal novels, Give Up the Ghost and The Way We FallJames Grady is the author of such thrillers as Six Days of the Condor and the recent Mad DogsJon F. Merz writes the Lawson Vampire Series, Jake Thunder Adventures, and contributes to the Rogue Angle series under the housename Alex Archer. Steve Perry’s recent novels include Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead, The Musashi Flex, and Champion of the Dead: a Buddhist Martial Arts Fantasy Novel.

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What has writing taught you about the martial arts?

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Steve Perry: Um. I’m not sure that writing has taught me much about the martial arts. Reading has, I’ve got a shelf of books and I have read a lot of stuff on the web, but writing is ass-in-chair, words-on-paper. True, it’s a discipline, and so is the practice of martial arts, and there are some things you can lay on on a page that might stir thoughts when you workout, but overall? Not so much.  Telling a story about getting into a punch-up is not the same as getting into a punch-up…

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Jon F. Merz: Writing helps me in the dojo. Being able to embrace a certain amount of creativity is a good thing. What may seem like a trap in a fight may actually turn out to be an opportunity for me to exploit and one I may not have seen if I hadn’t been so familiar with creating twisting plot lines and working my way out of a corner I’ve written myself into.

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Megan Crewe: Working toward becoming a published author has taught me a lot about discipline.  The patience to keep at something even when it’s hard and I feel I’m not doing it very well yet, feeling comfortable with knowing that learning will take time and work and there will be disappointments along the way, and the dedication to stick to a routine and practice regularly.  All of that applies just as well to martial arts as it does to writing, and I think it’s helped me keep a positive attitude and realistic expectations of my own performance.  I’ve been practicing kung fu for almost four years now.  While I’m a lot better than I was when I started, I’ve still got a long ways to go, and I’m okay with that.  I think I’d have gotten frustrated much more easily, and had more trouble sticking with it, if I hadn’t been a writer already.

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James Grady: What writing has taught me about the martial arts is first, if you don’t do it, it is not done, and second, if you try to impose the arbitrary control of your ego on your writing and disregard the facts or – in fiction – the fantasy’s self-generation – what you end up with is less than what your reader deserves.

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Jeremy L. C. Jones is a freelance writer, editor, and teacher.  He is the staff Interviewer for Clarkesworld Magazine and a frequent contributor to Kobold Quarterly.  He teaches at Wofford College and Montessori Academy in Spartanburg, SC.  He is also the director of Shared Worlds, a creative writing and world-building camp for teenagers that he and Jeff VanderMeer designed in 2006.