“'In an essay, the track of a person’s thoughts struggling to achieve some understanding of a problem is the plot, is the adventure.’” Rather than simply telling a story from her life, the memoirist both tells the story and muses upon it, trying to unravel what it means in the light of her current knowledge.”
My very good friend, who has been instrumental in my efforts to reconnect with the dream of writing, of looking for and listening to the muse within, was speaking of his own writing style and said that he thinks many people write, particularly on blogs, as a form of therapy. It was a comment casually made without judgment, a conversation not deeply explored at first, although we did speak of it again later. My insecurities about this very tendency are what have held me back from writing more often. I start a journal, or a snippet of a story, and I stop before I really get going because I can’t lose sight of the potential audience and the worry of what they will think; I begin to hear the whine and self-pity in my words as I write of recent sorrows in my life; I fear the reaction of those who see themselves reflected on the page and who may not appreciate the observations I record; I shy away from the criticisms I am certain will come, either directly to me, or worse, behind my back. Even while banging out professions of love or anger, protestations in defense of myself or my loved ones, or preoccupations with things that may only matter to me, I am certain that no one on the other end of the message really cares about anything I have to say. I see little in my writing that reflects originality of experience.
So I don’t write. I only think about writing. I see a story in nearly everything around me, and I push the images and the textures of my days into the back portions of my brain to mull like cider, waiting for the right moment to draw them out and onto a page where I might try to make some sense of them. I’m only waiting … for something, ... maybe maturity or insight or wisdom or less pain, so that I can process the mish-mash of impressions and sculpt them into something real.
And my friend says, after we had later brought this back to the table of our conversation, that perhaps it would be better to get the words onto the page while the pain, worry, fear, and confusion are still driving them. That perhaps the power of the emotion lies within the desperation and the dismay of not fully understanding them. That perhaps the writer releases them and then goes back to craft them into the message that is ready for delivery, and until that delivery, the words are only mine and only a reflection of what is real to me at the moment they are produced.
God, I loved that conversation. It has brought an old dream back to life and lit a fire under the dormant writer in me. I think the “art” of writing is still a long way out of my reach since I have not only been a long time out of touch with myself and my emotions, but also have not used words as a tool of exploration. Certainly, I have done a lot of writing for work, to communicate news to family, to argue various points on behalf of my children on occasion. But actually putting my hands on the English language in a way that transforms it into something fluid beneath my fingertips and allows me to create an image from my heart or mind … this is something I have lost, or given up voluntarily, and I would like to have it back.
For the first time, I think I can do that; I think I can reach into that back section of my mind and begin to make sense of what’s lurking around in there. Also for the first time, I think it is okay to let the words pour out of me, however they wish to be, and to accept them and love them just as they are. I will let them be, let them stare back at me from the page for a while before taking them in hand and massaging them so that in the end, they are who they are … "truth" in a shape and form that helps me makes sense of them and shows the world nothing more than a vision of who I am, have been, and wish to be.
My very good friend, who has been instrumental in my efforts to reconnect with the dream of writing, of looking for and listening to the muse within, was speaking of his own writing style and said that he thinks many people write, particularly on blogs, as a form of therapy. It was a comment casually made without judgment, a conversation not deeply explored at first, although we did speak of it again later. My insecurities about this very tendency are what have held me back from writing more often. I start a journal, or a snippet of a story, and I stop before I really get going because I can’t lose sight of the potential audience and the worry of what they will think; I begin to hear the whine and self-pity in my words as I write of recent sorrows in my life; I fear the reaction of those who see themselves reflected on the page and who may not appreciate the observations I record; I shy away from the criticisms I am certain will come, either directly to me, or worse, behind my back. Even while banging out professions of love or anger, protestations in defense of myself or my loved ones, or preoccupations with things that may only matter to me, I am certain that no one on the other end of the message really cares about anything I have to say. I see little in my writing that reflects originality of experience.
So I don’t write. I only think about writing. I see a story in nearly everything around me, and I push the images and the textures of my days into the back portions of my brain to mull like cider, waiting for the right moment to draw them out and onto a page where I might try to make some sense of them. I’m only waiting … for something, ... maybe maturity or insight or wisdom or less pain, so that I can process the mish-mash of impressions and sculpt them into something real.
And my friend says, after we had later brought this back to the table of our conversation, that perhaps it would be better to get the words onto the page while the pain, worry, fear, and confusion are still driving them. That perhaps the power of the emotion lies within the desperation and the dismay of not fully understanding them. That perhaps the writer releases them and then goes back to craft them into the message that is ready for delivery, and until that delivery, the words are only mine and only a reflection of what is real to me at the moment they are produced.
God, I loved that conversation. It has brought an old dream back to life and lit a fire under the dormant writer in me. I think the “art” of writing is still a long way out of my reach since I have not only been a long time out of touch with myself and my emotions, but also have not used words as a tool of exploration. Certainly, I have done a lot of writing for work, to communicate news to family, to argue various points on behalf of my children on occasion. But actually putting my hands on the English language in a way that transforms it into something fluid beneath my fingertips and allows me to create an image from my heart or mind … this is something I have lost, or given up voluntarily, and I would like to have it back.
For the first time, I think I can do that; I think I can reach into that back section of my mind and begin to make sense of what’s lurking around in there. Also for the first time, I think it is okay to let the words pour out of me, however they wish to be, and to accept them and love them just as they are. I will let them be, let them stare back at me from the page for a while before taking them in hand and massaging them so that in the end, they are who they are … "truth" in a shape and form that helps me makes sense of them and shows the world nothing more than a vision of who I am, have been, and wish to be.
