Writing for Real.
I've been blogging since 2001, forever in Internet time. Some of my pieces have been lengthy and personal, some short and informative. At variable stretches I've been chatty and wondering, ratatat and on point. I've alternately viewed it as sketch pad and brain dump, as a catalyst for larger ideas or digital snail trails of my time spent online. The only point of view has been mine.
Ideally I view having a blog as an anteroom to creative freedom. Writing is really the only art I'm good at, the only non-survival activity I must do regularly or I feel wrong, unhappy even, like I've left home without my glasses. Having a few square feet of digital lawn is an open invitation to plant grass, mow, or bring a garden bursting to life.
Lately I fear I haven't done much but rake leaves. Sure, I offer up links, quotes, new words I discover, squibs of useful content that mirror my unending love of learning. But really, this bears much too much resemblance to monkeys at typewriters. Given enough time and hands, anyone could do that. Informative? Sure, eventually, but does it sound like me? Moreover, is it really necessary?
I've always believed that the most important thing a writer brings to the table is themselves, their perspective, their way of sounding out the world that both makes sense to them (utterly unique) and seduces the reader into seeing their own world differently (utterly universal). The best fiction writers do so at a degree removed, inventing characters, places, scenes to say it for them. Sometimes what those characters are saying isn't obvious. The creativity lives in bringing another world to life and inviting the reader to get dizzy in it for a while.
I've never been able to write fiction and never had much interest in trying. Writing to me has always been a highwire version of talking, an rock-opera conversation with keyboard solos and finials that politeness excludes when meeting live. Talking face to face, half your responsibility is listening. Writing is both conversation and asynchronious performance. The writer listens after, not while, they speak. The speaking voice needn't sound exactly like the writer but it must have the writer's essence as its point of entry. Otherwise, you are asking the reader to listen to a lie.
Am I then bringing my best creative self to what I do here? Undoubtedly no. Which is fine as I never intended "really good blogger" to be my crowning achievement. But really good writer? Yes. And one, right now, is not leading to the other.
Something needs to change. I don't want to leave things silent here until I have a 24 karat essay to mount and display. But I really don't want to delude myself into thinking that sprinkling out mint-sized content is the same as a good day of writing. It is not. To believe so is a faslehood this medium enforces like a crack dealer yelling "Free Samples!"
Grand pronouncements I love to make but rarely get me anywhere. I made about 2 dozen around losing weight until, about 18 months ago I decided without fully realizing it that I was tired of dragging extra me around. That extra me is gone now but that slow vanishing began with a whisper, instead of a yell.
So I'm going to whisper two commitments to you here, dear reader. Saying them louder scares me and is dishonest. I am nowhere near certain I can leave up to them. Right now, they are wet and quivering, like infants who haven't yet realized they've been born.
1. Small promise: From now on, everything you read here will sound like me. It's my name above the door, my furniture marking up the baseboards, my artwork on the walls. I don't break news or scour for content baubles you haven't discovered yet. You come here to hear me and I thank you. I owe you then the courtesy of being real.
2. Bigger promise: I'm going to write better and longer here. The web is filled with human content filters more patient, finer tuned and simply better at it than I am. It's not what I have to give and I'd rather not waste both of our time pointing out good writing when I should be creating more of my own.
I've been good at writing long enough to see it as a gift from those who made me. To not make use of a gift is ungrateful. Worse it is bratty and a waste. Our world has unlimited potential and terribly hard ceilings on time and resources. I'd rather work in the possibilities than deny the limitations.
Practically, I'm not quite sure how this will happen. Perhaps by posting less, but when I do more thoughtfully, longer and with an eye towards crafting a complete idea rather than handing off a half-finished old one like a game of hot potato. And because I don't do anything unless I remind myself, I'm going to create a daily calendar alert of what I should be focused on during that day's writing time. That means a) everyday has writing time and b) I say "there is no time" at my own peril
It was the spiritual writer Marianne Williamson who said "We all all meant to shine, as children do." I take this to mean that, at our best, we do not distract ourselves from our own potential, claiming we are "too busy" to make beautiful things. One day we will be gone, the earth will shrug and continue turning without us. I'd rather have my tiny contribution to its story be in thoughtfulness, craft and the service of wonder, rather than cool links, smart alecky asides and laziness masked as public service. Those little nuggets are awesome too. But in aggregate they are not the stuff of a well lived creative life.
So off I go to do better. I'll let you know what happens, often and in truth.
(many thanks to Merlin Mann and his essay "Better" for the jolt).
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24 Replies to “Writing for Real.”
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Very inspiring post. I really like what you wrote about using our gifts as an expression of our gratitude for them. I’ve finally decided (like, this morning) to commit to writing professionally rather than faking it in a more conventional career that I have no passion for. So I really appreciate what you’ve shared here.
Very inspiring post. I really like what you wrote about using our gifts as an expression of our gratitude for them. I’ve finally decided (like, this morning) to commit to writing professionally rather than faking it in a more conventional career that I have no passion for. So I really appreciate what you’ve shared here.
Erica,
It was my pleasure. Thank you for your thoughts.
Erica,
It was my pleasure. Thank you for your thoughts.
Great post. Yes, post less regularly but with more of your voice. You’ll feel better when others are linking to your content, versus you linking to them. I’ll be reading.
Great post. Yes, post less regularly but with more of your voice. You’ll feel better when others are linking to your content, versus you linking to them. I’ll be reading.
Thank you Karl. You are and remain an inspiration to me.
Thank you Karl. You are and remain an inspiration to me.
This is the most refreshing, honest thing I’ve read online in a long time. By the time you referred to these commitments as “wet and quivering, like infants who haven’t yet realized they’ve been born,” I was marveling at this essay’s wonderful soul.
This is the most refreshing, honest thing I’ve read online in a long time. By the time you referred to these commitments as “wet and quivering, like infants who haven’t yet realized they’ve been born,” I was marveling at this essay’s wonderful soul.
Whispered or not, those are great rules. I think you’ve hit on a fairly widely shared dilemma, one many writers of our sort are struggling with now. I’ll try to submit to those rules too–thanks so much for doing such great work in developing them, and thanks for offering them to us all…
Whispered or not, those are great rules. I think you’ve hit on a fairly widely shared dilemma, one many writers of our sort are struggling with now. I’ll try to submit to those rules too–thanks so much for doing such great work in developing them, and thanks for offering them to us all…
Thank you Richard. The instantaneous charge one gets from “publishing” be it on twitter or a one line blog nugget is dangerously addictive, fun, thrilling even. I just we’re about more than that. And its too compellingly easy to lose balance.
Thank you Richard. The instantaneous charge one gets from “publishing” be it on twitter or a one line blog nugget is dangerously addictive, fun, thrilling even. I just we’re about more than that. And its too compellingly easy to lose balance.
I always love reading your longer posts, so I can’t wait for these.
Thanks for the link to the article that pushed you – I’m off to read it now!
I always love reading your longer posts, so I can’t wait for these.
Thanks for the link to the article that pushed you – I’m off to read it now!
Thank you Christine. Longer to come.
Thank you Christine. Longer to come.
Yikes, the fact that it’s taken me so long to arrive here to read your excellent post tells me something. There’s too much noise on the web, and the fact that it’s my job to live here just makes stopping by my old pal’s digital lawn that much more pleasurable.
Looking forward to some rousing new stuff to read from you! And I hope your example will inspire me, too!
Yikes, the fact that it’s taken me so long to arrive here to read your excellent post tells me something. There’s too much noise on the web, and the fact that it’s my job to live here just makes stopping by my old pal’s digital lawn that much more pleasurable.
Looking forward to some rousing new stuff to read from you! And I hope your example will inspire me, too!
I feel thankful for having such an inspirational friend. As James said, it’s a testament to how noisy the internet is that I’m just reading this now. Wonderful post, Kevin.
I feel thankful for having such an inspirational friend. As James said, it’s a testament to how noisy the internet is that I’m just reading this now. Wonderful post, Kevin.
Thank you James and Liane. Hearing that from you makes the noise go quiet.
Thank you James and Liane. Hearing that from you makes the noise go quiet.