On Writing

So in recent weeks I've had indication that maybe I'm not just writing to a empty void. Maybe? Perhaps? Not that I really was writing for the audience, but a few conversations have left me with the urge to write again. That and, let's be honest, it's been a bit of a rough time for me. This and that, and you know. What I would like to say is that I've been feeling inspired recently - just to live and feel alive - and I think my inspiration to write is coming back with that.

It was especially sparked the other day when, sorting through the mess that is my bedside table, I found this typed sheet of paper, entitled, "What matters in writing?" It was in an old notebook that I had been using to compose lists in. The notebook was from high school, my second-semester English class senior year. It reads as follows:


"Writing forces me to notice things, usually ordinary things, to notice them and give them my attention. Putting things in words - objects, events, experiences, thoughts, emotions - sometimes shows me aspects of the thing in question of which I had not been aware before. In that sense, good writing can make more of something.


Good writing can also lead to the sort of sincerity Cixious describes as 'never speaking from an idea of yourself.' Subjecting my thoughts to the process of precise articulation often shows me what's false in my thinking - which phrases, sentences, and ideas are meant to seduce a reader rather than speak a truth. Hemingway once said that all a writer needs to do is find one true sentence, and then others will follow. It feels better - truer - than anything else I can do by myself, except possibly pray.


I think one can also read from an idea of himself - that is, insincerely - and what I value most in reading is interaction with a text that forces me to read from myself rather than from my idea."


It was my English teacher who wrote this, but I couldn't have agreed more if I wrote it myself. Writing is prayer, writing is therapy. So despite the frustration that it bears, I seem to keep coming back to it. One way or another, I always find myself again at this same place: hunched over a pad of paper, or a laptop, scribbling or typing away furiously and hoping that once the words have been spilled, the world will make a little bit more sense.

love this girl.

http://elisewark.blogspot.com/