I could write some really good stuff, some really compelling stories, some achingly vivid descriptions of relationships. But I would not want to be held to any expectations of being LDS or being a mom or being Natasha. I'd want this writing secretly published. But secrets like that are never really kept.
So I don't write these stories or emotions and I'm starting to feel like they're trapped inside, growing insistent. And the reason I have writer's block and the reason I think my writing sucks much of the time is because I'm not writing that which is demanding to be written, because I fear anyone reading it. Where can I write and store something that no one will find? Write and burn? No, I could never do that. If it's worth writing, it's worth being read. I just don't want my name attached.
I believe that personal writing should be an accurate representation of the writer, not a pretense of things or feelings. If a writer is retelling a story, including quotations of what someone said, is it appropriate for the writer to edit what's been said? I know that if I'm being quoted I don't want anyone taking license with my words. So then, if the writer is the subject herself, should she edit the subject's thoughts, words, or deeds?
Must writing be a vehicle to uplift the reader and the writer?
What are some purposes of writing and art? Must everything have lofty goals? Or can these vehicles for self-expression be sufficiently good and useful just by reflecting human experiences? Isn't it enough to just be, to just share, to just create a home for a soul who is in that exact same place emotionally, right now, today? Or, can it create a world in which people can live safely, giving them a taste of something different, without having to actually venture beyond their comfort zones?
Can the reader live in Africa, through the writer? Can the reader feel what it's like to be a man or a woman or remember what it's like to be a child though she doesn't really remember? Can the reader experience hard life on a farm, or the pain of infidelity, or childhood abuse? Can art inspire compassion and isn't compassion enough of a justification for art?
Alice Walker asked a similar question:
"Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for."
When an amateur seeks answers, it's not a bad idea to consult professionals. I like these quotes on writing. They ring true to me.
"One of the obligations of the writer is to say or sing all that he or she can, to deal with as much of the world as becomes possible to him or her in language." -Denise Levertov
"The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it." -Elizabeth Drew
"Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking." -Jessamyn West
"Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart..." -William Wordsworth
"There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." -Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith
"The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say." -Anaïs Nin
"Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia." -E.L. Doctorow
"The poet must not avert his gaze." -Werner Herzog
I am also feeling self-conscious of Style. I never used to be until I started paying more attention to the style of those I admire and I thought, If I enjoy their writing and mine isn't like theirs, doesn't that mean that mine is not as good? Namely, I wondered if I should try to be more lyrical. I wondered if my writing was too choppy, too matter-of-fact, too hard. I am somewhat concerned that my writing gives off a different impression of who I am than who I actually am. Three people have told me that I'm softer in real life than my writing suggests. It's true that in real life I'm mostly cheerful, warm, excitable, easy going, easily amused, and I blubber all over my words and I talk too much. What does it mean if I surprise people in that regard? Is this okay? Is this common for writers? I have no idea.
I think writing is simply an avenue of self-expression and often the self that does not get expressed enough is the self that emerges in the writing. I think that quote above about schitzophrenia was suggesting the same sort of thing (except I think E.L. Doctorow meant "multiple personality disorder").
Mark Twain made me feel better about my non-lyrical writing:
"I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English - it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them - then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice."
Writing is a great struggle and I tend to assume that if I'm any good, it wouldn't be a struggle. I shouldn't need a thesaurus. I shouldn't stop and start, unable to keep my own attention. What if the mood doesn't strike? What if the perfect words just aren't there but the feeling is eating at me and wants to be written?
These quotes encourage me:
"I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work." -Pearl S. Buck
"Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. The chasm is never completely bridged. We all have the conviction, perhaps illusory, that we have much more to say than appears on the paper." -Isaac Bashevis Singer
Sigh.
Get down to work. Be alone. Be intense. Be slightly savage. Open a vein. Live as much of the world as you can. Do not avert your gaze.
But... but... what if I have to wipe a 3-year-old's bum? What if I have to do a kindergarten pick-up? What if the laundry is piling up?
My circumstances are not ideal; like many things, writing would be so much easier without children. But then, where would the soul of my writing come from? Who would I be?
And does anyone care to venture an answer to any of these questions that were not entirely rhetorical?Daily Gratitudes
- Feeling safe with someone.
- Being able to say sorry for having a spat with Jude, only minutes after the spat. We're so much better this way than when we were first married.
- I really ran today. I mean, it was pathetic for most anyone else but for me it was the best run I've had in years. I didn't need to stop for breath. I was steady at a good pace. I was in a zone. My breath wasn't too strained. I could have gone on like that for a while... if my left hip hadn't started hurting. Stupid hips.
- Tomorrow is the last day I will have to pick anyone up from kindergarten at 11:45 for... 14 months. And then it will be Lulu's turn.
- It keeps raining just enough on my grass seed.
