Restless Writer // equivocality

Posted in: Thoughts | Tags: expression, high-school, reflection, writing

I have 106 unpublished drafts in my database.

Things I don’t feel like saying. Parts of myself I’m not ready to reveal.

The written word has always been my medium of choice. Photography is only an extension of that, when I need to express myself better than words can let me, and video goes one step further.

I used to be a terrible writer. During a parent-teacher interview in grade 10, my history teacher asked my parents when we came to Canada. They were quite embarrassed to tell him that I was born here.

Aside from picking up a useful word here and there, I’ve never made a conscious effort to improve my writing. The things I say are taken from my memories, experiences, and thoughts. How I say it is inspired by snippets of Nabokov (when I’m feeling lyrical or verbose), Cohen (when I’m feeling sad or romantic), Herbert (when I’m feeling dry), or Irving (when I’m feeling quirky or honest). The only way I’ve been able to gain any semblance of a writer is by mimicking to the best of my ability the lyrical styles I enjoy the most.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever stop. Writing is often a need, not a want. I do it when I’m feeling restless, when I have something to say, when things are unsettled, when I have things to figure out. And the case most often is that life is filled with these moments. Perhaps if I ever find some sort of permanent serenity, I’ll be able to stop.

But I probably wouldn’t want to.

7 comments — Follow the feed

#1 Edrei

Sometimes it helps to close your eyes and hit the publish button. It’s not that you’re a bad writer. I may top you on that rank. It’s just that blogging, like life be a little easier if we just learn to be honest with ourselves and don’t look back.

Consequences come and go, but opportunities only come a handful of times.

#2 Michael

Writing is always easy enough… it’s the re-writing, the editing and the proof-reading that are the tedious buggers for any form of non-fction writing. Fiction is another story [he said, tongue-in-cheek] and includes the caveats of non-fiction with the necessity of having both an imagination and enough life-history to have something to work from.

I like the old comment that ‘Writing is easy. One simply stares at the paper until the beads of blood form on your forehead.” I suppose these days, you’d have to turn the paper into a monitor …

#3 Jeff

@Edrei — It’s definitely hitting the publish button that brings Catharsis. Even with an entry written, it doesn’t feel the same unless it’s out there, published, for everyone to see.

You’re absolutely right in saying that blogging is easier if we don’t look back. That way, we don’t question ourselves and second-guess the things we say.

Makes me wonder why I never thought of that before.

@Michael — I’ve always thought of my own writing as fiction, perhaps with the false belief that I lead some sort of fantastical life. You’ve made me realize that I actually write non-fiction, and that non-fiction doesn’t necessarily mean academic or technical writing.

I have the opposite problem as you. I tend to write line-by-line, changing and correcting each one before moving on to the next, an old perfectionist habit. The essence of my point, or the lyrical flavour I want, gets lost in the details. I force myself to take a P.T. Anderson approach to writing screenplays, where he writes a chunk, then goes back and smoothes the wrinkles (”ironing”, he calls it), which leads him into his next chunk.

Then again, I’ve never had to proof-read anything more than a few paragraphs at a time, let alone an entire book, with the pressure of a publisher to please. I imagine it gets tiring quickly.

#4 joe

Was it only because of your lack of interest in history that your history teacher misunderstood that you had difficulties in the language? I bet your English teacher didn’t say anything.

It’s when you do someyhing as a need, not a want, that you can really excel.

I also tend to write line-by-line, changing and correcting each one before moving on to the next. But this might impede the momentum and fluidity. I suppose it’s good practice to proofread after every chunk before moving on, this way one can also maintain the consistency.

#5 Jeff

@Uncle Joe — No…my writing was actually pretty bad. Very unfocused. I didn’t know how to write an essay at all. A good tutor helped me understand exactly how to get my point across clearly, without any gaps in the words. Of course, this was only for academic writing, I had to adapt it to creative writing.

Momentum is very important when writing. Without it, I find the final product doesn’t have the same essence you want to get across in the words, let alone the consistency as you mention.

#6 Mae

I’m the same way, actually. My favourite writer is Haruki Murakami. I feel that in order to have the voice you want, you need to mimic those you feel are best able to write in that voice even though it is not yours. Mimicry then trains us and eventually we become what we mimic, and by that point the process has been so organic that it’s not invalidated as evolved mimicry, because we’re now naturally accomplishing exactly what we wanted in the first place.

Did that make sense?

I think not, but whatever. I love reading you, even if I’m not a faithful commenter as I should be.

#7 Jeff

That makes total sense to me. I wish I could be an original writer, like Charlie Kaufman, but I’ve come to accept the fact that most artists are influenced by one thing or another, whether they’re conscious of it or not. Perhaps our own voices evolve from the influences of others, as you say. Or maybe Picasso said it best with his line, “Good artists copy. Great artists steal.”