Preachers love talking about preaching, writers love writing about writing, and our cat is just hoping today is the day we all die. I have no idea what that last one has to do with the other two, except to make you laugh before I have to tell you that you’re about to sit through some more random, unfinished notes on writing. I promise this will be the last on the topic for a while. You’ve been very patient.
~~~~~~
Some say they write to understand themselves, to figure out on paper what they’re thinking and feeling, and certainly there is an aspect of that to writing. Words cannot help but bring some sort of order to chaos, even when they are disjointed and poorly selected.
Yet I don’t think we write just to understand our own thoughts. There are times we do this, but usually only as an exercise, a form of stretching before taking the field to play. The real work of writing is knowing and being known.
To be sure, writing has taught me much about myself. If writing didn’t require long stretches alone, at work and focused, I might not have learned I must spend time away from people if I am to be understood when I’m with them.
It is Yeats’ lonely impulse of delight that names writing as my vocation (though not as yet my employment). It is that quiet satisfaction sensor in my soul that says, yes, the scent goes that way, follow it. When I read a song lyric or a description in a novel or an expression of a memoirist’s feelings that perfectly captures something true in life, my heart is home, if just for a second. And on the rare occasions I achieve the same, I have the unshakable sense I am living as I was meant to.
your last paragraph nails it – perfectly. i love this: “yes…the scent goes that way. follow it.” that unshakeable sense of living as we are meant to is what pushes me to keep writing, even if the craft seems a bit bland compared to what others create. it doesn’t matter. i’m learning this. what matters is me still allowing Him to speak through me – regardless of my own hesitancy.
love this post, david.
Good post. I am always trying to figure out the psychology of writing, and I like your ideas here. Is that first paragraph a response to my post from last week about why I write? Ha ha. http://www.tillhecomes.org/why-do-you-write/
Ha! Oops. No, it wasn’t intended to be. I had scribbled these down in a draft weeks ago not sure what to do with them. I liked your thoughts in that post though. Like I said – there is definitely an aspect of writing that allows us to figure out our own thoughts, but I don’t think it’s the final goal. You know what I mean?
that Truth that resonates? it’s sacred space. lovely.
sacred space. yes.
Sacred space indeed. One of the best feelings I know of.
Some great thoughts here, especially “following the scent.” I’m still not sure why I write or what I write–because I don’t quite know what else to do with myself?
“I must spend time away from people if I am to be understood when I’m with them.” however did you know??
i feel you on this…its like hitting that perfect note singing…and you see on the face of those reading…if you got the gift….use it…
it IS like being/going home when we stop at those special phrases, words strung together, but then again, it’s almost like being homeSICK b/cs of the ache it always leaves me w/, you know?
ahh, but i resonate w/ these particular thoughts on writing. home sweet home.
the ache it always leaves me with…
once again misty you’ve let me know i’m not alone with my weird writing-life idiosyncrasies
well said!
But if you died, who would feed him? Actually, I’m not sure I want to know your cat’s answer to that
Nice post, writing as the art of intimacy.
Love your last line. I wish I had used it.
i started writing about a year ago as a way of getting all of the mess that was inside my head out so that i could re-fill my brain with better things….i find that when i am truly happy, which i am most days of late, that it is hard to write anything of value, since i usually write my best things from a highly charged emotional state (or when i revert to my little girl self – which is easy for me to do). being content equals boring writing and in turmoil equals much better writing… for me. wait, does this mean i’m manic-depressive? i wouldnt doubt it. but, to what you were saying – i love the alone time writing provides. some people are just better communicating with typed words what they cannot say otherwise.
So it sounds like you and I write for different reasons maybe. Interesting. I feel like I do my best writing when I am clear headed and in a good mood.
“my heart is home, if just for a second” this it my favorite line. One of our cats weaves between back and forth under foot as we walk across a room, determined to trip us. “Flip!! We have to get rid of him before we’re elderly and falling is really an issue!”, my husband is always saying.
I think cats live in a perpetual state of hopeful anticipation of our deaths. This has been my experience with few exceptions.
Books have always been my favourite things. When I was little, I didn’t play with dolls or play pretend, I read. Books have been my solace, my escape, my happy place. Writing then seems almost natural, a way of pouring back into the well of beauty from which I so often draw. I’m like that with food as well. I love eating so much that creating more wonderful things to eat has become part of giving back, of fully entering into that creation. I don’t claim to do either well, but just enough that my hunger is whetted and satisfied all at the same time.
Grace, I LOVE the imagery of pouring back into the well of beauty we’ve drawn from. What a great picture, and an accurate description. Thank you.
I have often taken the role of writing to pull thoughts out of my head to see them better, but I like your take on it too. Something to ponder. Or write about
How about why would anybody want to write plays? That’s my thing. (Well more or less.) Writing as a performance art is a way to get some unique attention. Enjoyed your post.
Instead of a screaming kettle at my house there is a scorched coffee maker. So sensory aren’t we?
You took issue with my blog this week so I think I’ll return the favour
Maybe we each have different reasons for writing, but I could not keep going if writing for myself were not enough. Yes, I have faith that someday the people who need to will read my words, but I suspect that day is still a ways off. In the meantime, if writing didn’t do something – enough – for me in the immediate, I think I’d give up. Even if it doesn’t happen it was still worth it…
Now, about my blog… I think you make a fair point about the need to help people. But I’ve spent a lot more time with people in the fuzzy in-between, people who struggle and struggle hard. If they keep fighting, like this woman (who is by no means well-off) does, they will make it and take joy in what they’ve done. If they wait for someone to help, they may survive but their souls dry up. For example, in Haiti, my heart was broken by the dependence mentality more than it was by than the hunger and poverty. Dunno
That’s as totally fair analysis. And since you have somewhere between 100 and 1000x’s as much experience with this sort of thing as I do, I’ll bow to your viewpoint.
You’re gracious, very gracious, but I don’t think it’s one thing or another… issues like this probably depends on the audience, don’t you think? It’s like when I lived in Syria and felt I had to defend GWBush in the post-9/11 years. They were so unreasonably opposed to him that I wanted them to hear the other side. Then I’d visit my super-conservative Western relatives and defend the Syrians. Maybe I’m an idiot for trying, but I’ll still try
I might not have learned I must spend time away from people if I am to be understood when I’m with them.
you have a way of saying my heart. and i don’t want you to stop writing about writing.