Here we are again. I'm at a bit of a loss, so I will start with what has always worked in my writing: memory.
It's 1978, and for the very first time, I am happy. My mother has separated from my father, getting her graduate degree at MTSU, and the movie Halloween just hit. Twelve is awesome in 1978, people. Poprocks, pet rocks, mood rings, and our very first junked-out slasher flick. Sigh. So much life left. So much Fleetwood Mac left. I am happy.
I suppose I still hold my mother accountable for the fall, the woman that had the audacity to finish her degree in a city that she didn't love. And so, the day after Halloween, I began a long goodbye. We packed and planned, refuted the idea of a Christmas tree (ornaments were airtight in Tupperware), broke up with friends and puppy loves and sent our dog, Bugger, to live with a neighbor. Somewhere in the middle of all that, I started to tear up the green shag carpet in the corner of my room and leave the notes. "This was where I learned to play the flute . . . whoever finds this should know I was happy . . . the sound the toilet makes in the middle of the night is not a ghost." Scraps of paper to no one, shoved tightly under green fibers, probably scrapped without being opened when said carpet was scrapped for hardwood.
This is what I thought of when I read the article, "I Am Writing Blindly." I don't want to make more of it than what it was, just an adolescent shove to the universe. Surely, those pieces of paper meant nothing more. Except . . .
Why, over thirty years later, do I think of it? Our author posits that narrative, and the storytelling it weaves, makes us human. An impulse. Finding God in the next sentence. Why not something else, then? Why writing?
Instead of going long, this time, I'm going to leave it here. Call it an experiment. Whatever. I guess I'm writing blindly.
“See what had happen was...”
ReplyDelete“Did you watch TrueBlood last night. OMG.”
“ There’s this guy at the bar who always falls asleep all the time.”
“I made homemade ice cream last night with mint from my garden…and it was the best!.”
These hooks introduce many of the hilarious stories we have told in class this semester. Good times! I usually get to class very early and it’s really awkward. Just sitting there waiting on people to come in. Soon when everyone comes in the class is buzzing with everyone swapping stories. There is usually laughter, sarcastic and witty one-liners, and confused “huh???” (never a dull moment). I usually tell my friends or parents about an interesting happening from class that day. For example, I told many of my friends about how Daniel aka Dmac revealed to us that he has black guy hair and educated the class on Bama Bangs. LOL. When I think about storytelling, it also reminds me of little kids. Little Kids are so eager to tell their parents about their eventful school day of slaying imaginary dragons on the playgrounds, coloring the most epic picture of Barney the Dinosaur, and meeting a new friend who shared an apple slice during snack time.
I think sharing narratives brings in the idea of community and openness. By telling a story about yourself or your life, you let someone get a glimpse of you. We want people to like our stories and feel apart. Sharing stories can also do other things such as passing historical tradition, entertain, bestow wisdom, and also act as cautionary tales. When I read the post I thought of two instances where storytelling can be cautionary. Anne Frank wrote a Diary and has become one of the most important books of all time. Anne Frank, other Jews, and persecuted people like Gyspies wrote their stories show that Holocaust ACTUALLY happened even though a lot of Germans tried to say it didn’t. I also think about the movie Freedom Writers which starred Hillary Swank. The inner cities kids in California wrote in composition books about the gang violence, broken homes, and racism that many of them experienced on a daily basis. Their stories just showed that California isn’t all about Rodeo Drive and glamor.
Through writing, I paint my reality.
ReplyDeleteThe paint? Memories.
The paintbrush? Emotion.
The canvas? A blog, a book, a piece of paper…
The artist? Me.
Through writing I turn the abstract into something concrete and what was once concrete begins to represent something abstract. Do we need to write? As humans, do we need to create stories and record our thoughts? Absolutely. It’s how we process reality. It’s how we deal with reality. Sometimes, it’s how we alter reality.
As humans, we are masters at rationalizing situations. She must have said this because of her problem with this. I must be feeling this way because I went through that. In a lot of ways, isn’t that what writing does - rationalize? Make sense of things? We use writing to analyze why an author used a certain literary device, we use writing to tell stories that explain situations or make sense of events, we use writing to justify actions, emotions, opinions.
Writing is our reality on paper.
Maybe it’s the same reality we live every day. Maybe it’s an entirely different reality. Maybe it’s the reality we wish for, pray for.
I think that’s what we’re trying to do in this class, learn how to put reality on paper. Pure, unadulterated, un-candycoated, reality. We’re fighting for something that’s real.
The first thing the article “I Am Writing Blindly” made me think about is, what would I write if I was dying? Would it start with, “I am writing crap. I am writing crap. I am writing…” or would that moment, with my own mortality looming, would I FINALLY have the guts to cut through all the fear that chokes my writing. Would I be able to say everything that I normally hold back because I’m afraid of the repercussions, because I’m a people pleaser? Or would it just be one short, sweet sentence, “I don’t want to die.”
ReplyDeleteWhat
Would
I
Say?
In the blog The Push, Dr. P told us a little about Susan, about how she pushed with her writing. I envy her. (Is it sad/wrong/creepy that I envy a dead girl?) She was facing her own death and yet she was able to become something better before she died. Before it all ended, even if it was only becoming a more skillful writer, she became better. And yet here I sit, very much alive, and I suddenly feel guilty because I’m scared to ask how I can become better. I’m wasting precious time. (I suddenly became aware of the rather loud, obnoxious ticking of the clock on my bedroom wall. Hateful ol’ thing.)
I guess when you have the rest of your life spread out before you, you don’t feel so bad saying, “I’ll do it another day.” You can make lots of life plans and stretch out all that you want to do over dozens of years. But then you hear about people like Susan and the man on the sub and the people on the plane, who don’t have dozens of years, and what do they do? They write. (Is it sad/wrong/creepy that I would love to read a dying person’s last words?) I’ll bet their final words would be the truest of all. Those final words would tell you more about a person than their entire life’s journal.
So.
What
Would
I
Say?
I just don’t know. Death hasn’t come knocking yet.
Reading “I Am Writing Blindly” made me think of how much I love getting glimpses of the past through something personal and this note from a dying man to his wife must have been amazing to see. It makes me think of how permanent writing is. Of course now we have the internet, but it’s nowhere near as personal or permanent than writing. Seeing the person’s handwritten letter on a piece of paper is so personal, that I’m jealous of the people who found that man’s letter. I think if I knew I was dying I’m sure I would begin writing – to try and put my mark on the world, tell my story. Then again, there is always that chance of it becoming lost in the world of literature and never being found. But I like to think that one person would find it, just one, however many years from now, and it would mean so much to them to see something so personal, so emotional, from the past. It has to be emotional because how is writing ever not? People, at least I do, always want to be connected to some great moment of the past, which is why storytelling is so popular in the first place, even though unfortunately it looks like we’re moving out of the generation of storytelling for electronic video games and pre-recorded story books. Majority of people don’t use their imaginations enough nowadays, and it’s sad to see that going. Will people still be able to write blindly in the future? To pour their souls out on a single piece of paper? I don’t know. It’s a mystery. I guess time will tell.
ReplyDeleteI like what MeredithSzabo said:
ReplyDelete"Seeing the person’s handwritten letter on a piece of paper is so personal, that I’m jealous of the people who found that man’s letter."
It's true. Everything we write has a little piece of us in it, sometimes pieces that no one else would ever come to know. My aunt passed away this year, and I have so many great memories with her and pictures to look back on, but the one thing that is most special to me is a letter that she wrote me. It's the only letter she ever wrote me, and the piece of her that I have to hold on to. Her handwriting, her words, her typos - I see her in everything in that letter. I wouldn't trade it for the world.
I wonder - if I died, and if my family or friends came across some of my writing, would it be a piece of me that they would hold on to? Would they see me in every word, every thought, every footnote?
I hope so.
I have this problem of writing the way I speak. There have been events in my life that have made me closed off in a lot of ways. So I find myself telling someone about one of these events, but instead of dishing every detail, I'm skipping things and leaving out the true emotions I felt. I had an epiphany when I read this article. I shouldn't write the way I speak... leaving things out and sugar coating stuff (which I usually never do when talking to others about themselves, only when talking about my past). Instead, writing should be a way to let out all of the details and emotions that I for whatever reason can't say out loud. I have also developed a lot of trust issues from these events, and I think that is reflected in my writing as well. It's like I'm afraid to pour my heart out, even on paper.
ReplyDeleteIt may take me a minute to get there, but I know it will be worth it to keep pushing myself to write. Maybe I should start a journal.
When I'm trying to tell a story from memory it helps to be several 'drinks' in before I start weaving and weezing through a tale. Why is this? I think it is because I am free, I am relaxed, I am ready to-for lack of a better word-perform. I also find I can tell the story more truthfully (lacking inhibitions) and with more umph. Like once I wrote some Transformers fan fiction (as a joke) while sitting in Niffers drinking a beer. I was relaxed and the story just came to me. Later in the night I read it out loud to a room of people and it was a hit (once again I had a Gunniess). The only discomfort I had was a bad case of warm face.
ReplyDeleteWe (as writers and humans) crave a good story-the latest gossip, a well-timed joke, some good advice-all of these things are important to our narrative nature. If we cease to tell we cease to matter. So don't be afraid to let yourself relax when writing. No one is reading anyway (insert winky face).
If there is one thing I know about writing, it is that writing has its own meaning to each individual. Some write only because they are forced to, while some write because they feel compelled to. Maybe people write in order to document an event that has happened in their lives, or maybe they write in hopes of making a dream come true. When I wrote in my journal on my mission trip to Nicaragua, I wrote because I never wanted to forget what happened there. A different example is the doomed submariner that the article talks about. This man writes in hopes that someone will eventually find his writing. It is his last desperate attempt to communicate with his wife.
ReplyDeleteThe article talks about one writing to find God in every sentence. I have never thought about it in this perspective before, but there could definitely be truth to it. Why do we write? Are we searching for something? I think often many people write because they don’t know what they feel, or because what they feel confuses them. Can writing one’s thoughts down allow them to see things more clearly? I think so.
I like Kristen Michelle’s idea that writing is how we deal with reality. We often face trials in life that are difficult to cope with. The idea that writing makes us face reality is one of validity. If we can read something on paper, that often makes that something seem more real to us. It makes it our reality.
I really like the question that Meredith asks... "Will people still be able to write blindly in the future?" I think it is a very valid question because we are so used to our writing being put in the public's eye. Social network's like Facebook and Twitter encourage people to write, but the encourage people to write in a way that they feel completely comfortable with because they know other people are going to read it.
ReplyDeleteI think some of the best writing can come from writing blindly. When your emotions just take over and you pick up a pen. You have no idea what you want to say or how it is going to come out, but you just know you have to start spilling what is in your head onto paper. I think this is the best kind of writing. The real writing. The honest writing. The writing that hurts so good while you are writing it.
When I think of writing blindly, I think about starting a paper. I usually write blindly when I am trying to write a paper and this probably isn't a good thing. Writing blindly helps me to deal with my fear of the blank page. If I just start thinking and start typing, something magical happens and it eventually turns into something worth reading. And occasionally... it turns into something that I am really proud of.
I agree with bnp0001 about writing blindly on papers. It’s very difficult getting started on a paper. Once there is something typed, the anxiety of starting that paper dies down. We can play around and rearrange what we just haven written blindly. Half of the stuff that I first write makes no sense to me but I’m getting a gist of what I want to write by writing blindly. I’m guilty of not keeping a journal of what goes on in my life or what I see on a daily basis—probably because I simply don’t want to keep one. I really don’t think people would be interested enough to read it years later.
ReplyDeleteWhen the article was talking about storytelling and past failures and successes, I automatically thought of my grandmother, Mom. She would tell me stories about her and my grandfather, Pop, surviving as a young couple before, during, and after WWII. I was immensely interested in these stories, probably because they were not about me. They were about a man I never knew, and a woman who I greatly admire. These are the stories that hold so much value that I could listen to them time and time again; they never get old. When my grandmother tells me the stories about growing up on a farm and rearing my mother, aunts, and an uncle, I try to figure out what she might have said to them and what they said back to her—I’m writing blindly in my mind about events that I cannot experience. It’s almost as if I’m trying to create another part of her story but in my voice and from my perspective.
So I was watching the news tonight and prepping for my usual routine of cooking dinner and watching Jeopardy! when all of a sudden I became so overwhelmed with everything they were saying. Debt, economy crisis, death, terrorism- there was absolutely nothing positive coming from the television. So, being a product of the 90's- I popped in a Disney movie. (Beauty and the Beast if you want to know) and I was immediately enthralled with the fantastical world of teacups and talking candlesticks. It was around the moment where they were romantically twirling around the dazzling ballroom completely and irrationally in love that the thought stuck me- who THINKS of this stuff? Where does this come from? Do the worlds devised by Disney, Rowling, Tolkien, and Co. just.... happen? Or is it blind writing? They sure as hell aren't watching the same news I am. Or are they? It is just some kind of recessive stroke of genius that randomly crops up?
ReplyDeleteDr. P mentioned that storytelling makes us human. But it seems that every great "story" somehow surpasses simple humanity- Always focusing on the extraordinary, the exceptional and the unusual. Is this the product of blind writing? Perhaps it is more that we strip ourselves of humanity. For instance, the men aboard the submarine. Maybe they weren't embracing their humanity, but preparing to leave it behind (or it could be one in the same, never having been faced with imminent death, I couldn't tell you) In those moments where people seek to push beyond the everyday and take into account the briefness and fragility of human life writing blind is really the perfect way to escape it. Simply pushing out the thoughts and feelings leaves you free to wander into the world of fantasy and delusion, delight and happy endings despite the reality of circumstance.
And now... back to my movie.
Writing blindly. Such a phrase connotates freedom, truth, purity of thought, and untainted feelings. But why then did the article's author use this phrase, this example of writing, to refer to the way in which those on the brink of death would or do write? Wouldn't standing on the cliff of the everlasting be the point where you want to write so wonderfully and perfectly? Sure - you want your feelings to stand out as the pinnacle of your expressions. But as writers, we would also want our letter to be the pinnacle of perfection.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that this search for perfection applies to us all. Your average construction worker would most likely not be concerned with syntax, style, and voice in his last letter to the world. But would we? As English majors, could we ever write blindly, forsaking perfection for passion, regardless of the level of genius? If I left my last scrap of writing on this planet, I would want it to tell my family and friends exactly how much I love and adore them, but wouldn't I also want it to sound good? Is that a shallow statement made solely because I have yet to be eyeball to eyeball with death? Or is it the statement of a writer?
So I ask you: As writers, are we able to ever truly write blindly, even in the face of death?
If writing connects to anything, it must be to ourselves first. If the point of writing is to get at the truth of the human condition(something all good art would seem to strive for)then we must do it for an understanding of ourselves before and above everything else. Is writing little more than trying to interject a little piece of ourselves into a universe where our placement seems all too temporary? If we can't make an imprint on the world, then we will write ourselves into the world. Where before there was a person on the periphery, observing quietly from the shadows, unaffected and non-affecting; there is now a point of view, a vision of this shadowy deadness as a true life, as participating in life, if only as a narrarator. And whether this person represents the verisimilitude of the world, or the sloppy lies that we all construct for ourselves, in the end at least it is a little piece of the puzzle of humanity. Because that is all we can ever hope to recieve.
ReplyDeleteeponymous: Brilliant.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading "I Am Writing Blindly," I was captured by the story telling aspect of everyone's writing. Although most of us college kids write academic papers, we still add our own twist to it, making it our own creation, our own story.
ReplyDeleteI try my best to write blindly in everything I compose. It's how you make others feel your writing not just read it or scan over it. As human beings, we were made with souls that must be fed by the events of this world. When we write for others' pleasure, we are indefinitely wanting someone to feel our emotions. Step into our shoes and run with our crazy lives.
I like how Kristen discusses that writing has its own meaning to individuals. I feel the same way. It's how we, as readers, get lost in the writing that determines its meaning. I will continue to write blindly and hopefully grab readers' attention through my heart felt words.
Why Writing?
ReplyDeleteStretched out on oatmeal covered carpet on top of a laminated poster board, I am writing. Tiny fingers maneuver a black expo marker, creating new adventures until the lines have been filled, only to wipe them away for more stories. Hours pass on that carper: a perfect quiet child. My mother daydreams of my future academic achievements. Her bragging travels as easily down the curl of the kitchen telephone cord as my crazy thoughts down that skinny marker.
The stories haven't left, merely changed from extravagant jungle tales and musical fantasies to everyday struggles with post marital weight gain and identity crisis. I taught myself how to write in cursive in kindergarten. Writing was instinctive, not a learned activity—something that waited on my fingertips. But the passion is inconsistent now, confined to lesson plans and term papers. I have always desired to be involved with the written word for a career (journalist, novelist, English teacher) because of this inherent love. But why I do it has never really plagued me before. I did it because I wanted to. My words were not policed and the rules were mine to create. I think I get in the way of myself a lot of the time, trying so hard to create something I think is beautiful.
Maybe we make ourselves blind to what we are really capable of as writers.
I write for myself and for others, to tell stories as a daughter, a sister, a teacher, a wife, a woman. I am more than any one story, and the stories are more than just me.
"Is writing little more than trying to interject a little piece of ourselves into a universe where our placement seems all too temporary?" This is awesome.
Over the last few days, I have attempted to write this letter to myself, and I wonder, how can I write blindly to myself when I know what I am going to say?
ReplyDeleteBut then it hit me, I don't know what I am going to say. AT ALL. I mean there is nothing up there in that noggin' of mine...
I am not really one of those people who is very good at analyzing and searching for a deeper meaning in things. I just take things for what they are- whether they be an unfortunate mistake or an unplanned happily ever after. It will be what it will be. So looking back on my past and searching for that hidden meaning has been quite a daunting task for me.
So I just started writing, and kept writing. I had no intention of where I was going to go with this paper, I figured maybe if I ramble something will come out of it. You know, like writing crap. And that's where I came with to the writing blindly scenario.
You see, what Dr. P is teaching us eventually becomes intertwined with each other,it's all related in one way or another.... unlike some of the other classes I have taken. She gives us all of these skills so by the end of it all, our attempts to writing blindly, turn out to be beautiful pieces of works.
Similarly, writing this letter to myself has taught me that all of these things that are a part of my past, have molded me and shaped me into who I am now.
To wrap this ramble session up into something that sort of makes sense. We don't always know where we're going, why we are having the learn the things we learn, or why shitty things happen to good people...you know, living blindly. But at the end it teaches us something. Writing blindly has the same effect, especially with this paper. I didn't know where I was going, but by the end of it, I realized that it turned out exactly how I would have wanted it to. And that to me, is the most wonderful thing of all.
As I was searching for something to grasp on to in all the previous sentences when reading “Writing Blindly”, I soon found it in the following sentence (and by “following” I mean literally this next sentence you’re about to read and relationally to what Roseblatt says)…
ReplyDelete“I sometimes think one writes to find God in every sentence. But God (the ironist) always lives in the next sentence. “ -RR
Actually I had to read it twice, and before I go any further, I’m not saying I found God in that sentence—although He’s probably there. I found some reasoning. I’ve thought a lot of times about why I write, you know, being an English major. It makes sense for me, but there are so many people out there that write to fill time, to convey a message to someone else, or to vent about their poor, pitiful lives. So why do they write? Time wasting, communication, and complaining are all reasons to write and good ones, but I’m wanting to get down to the deeper motivations, like what it does to their emotions that makes them feel satisfied after writing. Not everyone’s going to get the same release out of telling my imaginary paper friend what life’s like through my eyes, or the utter joy out of stringing a couple of unrelated words together to make a cohesive statement like I do. Maybe they really are searching for God, and maybe they don’t know it.
I couldn’t help but think back to class today when we talked about how the religion (or lack of) that we were brought up with relates to who we are as cultural beings. I have no idea if this Rosenblatt guy is religious. I would halfway assume so since he’s brought God into the picture and had enough respect for Him to capitalize His name, but that’s kind of irrelevant. What I’m getting at is, I think he’s saying people write to find the answers that the world doesn’t always give them, and when there is a situation where there’s not a whole lot of explanation, why not look to something unexplainable at times, what we refer to as a “higher being.” God.
Brilliant? Genius? An explanation for the unexplained? God-sent?
I don’t know, but I’ve caught myself even now writing to find the answers, and I’m still writing sentence after sentence looking for them. So maybe I’m proving his point. Maybe I’m that blind writer he’s talking about. But isn’t that what we all are…especially with this blogging thing. There’s no way we all have an answer to everything or know exactly what we are going to say when we sit down to respond to one of these posts or write a paper. Our brains are constantly thinking and forming new ideas, and we just write them as we go, looking for answers or explanations for our having these thoughts. We base what we write on what we are warranted, and we tell our stories from how we saw them happen. I mean how could we not? This Rosenblatt guy’s on to something, and although this is my last sentence, I’m going to continue to write because God’s not in this one.
I believe there is a certain intimacy between a writer and his paper. A type of intimacy that deep down we long to be shared. A desire to say what we want to say without us ever having to actually " say it". Writing blindly offers us the ability to say who we are, the way we think, what makes us-US. Love it or leave it.
ReplyDeleteJUST A DISCLAIMER: I APOLOGIZE FOR THE LONG QUOTES THAT MAY ENSUE IN THE NEAR FUTURE OF THIS BLOG POST.
NOW, that being said. To quote a line from the writing blindly article in regards to the pleasures of writing who we are and the limitless possibility of the written word.. "You write a sentence, the basic unit of storytelling, and you are never sure where it lead. The readers will not know where it leads either. Your adventure becomes theirs, eternally recapitulated in a tandem-one wild ride together."
Ole Mr. Steve Almond referenced Barry Hannah and his collection of shirt stories "Airships". I have mentioned my high esteem for Hannah in prior posts, regarding his writing with the utmost esteem. Hannah can take a sentence, disguise it as seeming bland. His seemingly standard prose function merely as disguise as he radically transforms a sentence and reveals its contents transcend into something that transcends irreverence/humor/ and perfection.
Hannah epitomizes, "Writing Blindly". He is on paper just as he is in life only with the freedom to express himself, through characters, as the brazen cynical mad minded poet of a writer he is (or was, RIP).
He will begin a sentence fearlessly (and blunt) and then take his reader for a ride that is nothing short of mesmerizing. Once he decides to start the ride, Hannah never looks back. He knows, and shows in his writing how he feels he has no other option than to "write blindly" and in doing so force his readers to ingest the guilty pleasures that are his dialogue and descriptions. (this guilty pleasure is something I feel i dare not try and describe in words.)
For example in Hannah's short story, "Love Too Long", Hannaha shows how one seemingly normal sentence can turn into madness; sheer irreverent, pleasurable, creative insanity. The reader is rendered unable to look away.
In the story the main Character and narrator of the story,"Love Too Long" attends a party riddled by pretentious intellectual snoots at an LSD party in a time insinuated to be the 60's or 70's. The dialogue is from an older "something" woman at the party who is talking directly to her husband who has just made a remark about a much attractive and much younger woman.
"Beauty is fleeting," said his ugly wife. "What stays is your basic endurance of pettiness and ennui. And, perhaps, most of all, your ability to hide farts." -B. Hannah from "Love Too Long".
Whether intending to do so intentionally or unintentionally ((though i suspect intent) Hannah has written his biography in this dialogue. Further he has done so using the voice of a person of another gender and age. He has shown us how far as writers we are actually capable of going outside our "warrants". He has revealed his biography to his reader, not through talking of some grand events, but rather, through the thought process of what makes him-him. Which in this case is something of a cynical and humorous asshole.
We as writers have to write blindly, it is a responsibility we shouldn't neglect. If and when we "write blindly"-these "warrants", and the elements such as "honesty" that we have been discussing all semester will be left with no other option than to show through our work.
Someone mentioned in class the other day out writing a letter to themselves as a kid and describing every little detail about their trip and experience. It made me think about how as people get older we tend to shy away from this type of writing and produce a more superficial and perfected piece of writing. I think the reason we write in so much detail and truth as kids is because that is all we know...we haven't been introduced to style, voice, cliches, ellipses, etc. It's just the "real" us. I hope that every time I write a paper that I write blindly, but it's hard. We try so hard to perfect every single word or sentence along the way instead of putting our true emotions and letting our words do the talking. I also wonder if my writing would be any different if I knew I was on my death bed...sure my last words would be filled with more emotion as I realized these would be my final moments, but would I be "real" otherwise? I don't know...
ReplyDeleteEver since I was little, I've had these quiet dreams to become a writer. I believed in the power of the written word and the potential it has to change opinions and outlooks on almost anything. Soceity has started chosing visual media as the one ture source of information, but I do not think that is enough. Sure, we have movies and music to relate to, but those require so many people to be involved. I want to read things that are true to that one person who wrote it. And yet, as I write this I realize I always edit my words, I always play to an audience, and I never let anyone read my true pieces of me. Why? Because I write blindly, I write what I know. I write with me in mind and then I become an adult and I loose the childlike innocence that propelled me to write in the first place. Insecurities,fears, anxiety. It all comes back and I think, "writing as a living isn't practical." I realize that this post is a hodgepodge and doesn't flow, but I have had the worst two weeks of my life and it made me realize that life is too short to care about perceptions of you. I graduate in 2 weeks. I am supposed to take the job offer that puts me in a cushy office making money but making me miserable. I think after class today I will turn it down. I want to be something and I want it to be on my own terms. My writing may be blind to others, but its becoming clear to me.
ReplyDeleteI’m definitely with Luke on the “several drinks in” method of writing. It’s often the only way I can write freely, without holding back. Probably not the most eloquent admission, but it works. Especially since I am particularly prone to holding things back. (hence me rarely speaking up during class) But writing is one place that I can shout out. I can scream at the reader through written words, and MAKE MYSELF HEARD. We all can. Sadly, though, it’s not easy to get an unfiltered thought down on paper. And I think that’s where writing blindly comes in: being able to project a pure human feeling - for lack of a better word; I don’t know exactly what it is, but it is pure and it is real - projecting that purity onto a piece of paper, a computer screen, or whatever. Sure, just about any writing can be made to shout with some tinkering. But if that writing is censored into something I’d show to a Sunday school teacher, it is probably shit. Loud, but boring, shit.
ReplyDeleteEvery so often I find that I’ve written something miraculously honest. The words are me, stripped naked, and (referring to the words) beautiful. So how might I reliably spit out that blind bouquet of writing? Hell if I know. It seems strange to have to practice letting out the natural “you,” but seeing as most of us have been trained to hold back our passions, practice is necessary. I will always both admire and envy those whose work is painfully honest; it’s human. And those are the stories that will actually be remembered. And I agree with the author’s suggestion that story-telling is essential. They bring about little glimpses into each other as we (people) are. If these stories weren’t told, we’d probably still be…I don’t know what we’d be. Nothing? We couldn’t possibly get anywhere.
A lot of you seem to fear that this kind of writing may fade away in the future, but I have to say that I disagree somewhat. Yes, technology is constantly changing things in ways we probably can’t predict. But there may well have been scholarly monks (the ones who made books all those years ago) worrying about the very same thing when Gutenberg introduced the printing press to the western world. Maybe? Yet centuries later, we are still able to find little snapshots of humanity in writing. They’ve always existed and always will. I have to believe that. Because the moment I don’t believe, I might as well strap some bricks to my feet and go for a swim in a very deep pond. Virginia Woolf style.
When I first read the title of the post, "Writing Blindly", I immediately thought of the song Superstition. Stevie Wonder was most defiantly writing blindly when he penned that little ditty, among his many other songs that were also written blindly. It certainly seemed to help ole' Stevie in his monetary and musical pursuits because people like to read or, in this case, hear a story that has been written with having the glare of the real world to cloud your vision. Stevie was able to put his sunglasses on and block out whatever he thought that other people were seeing him as. He did not have to worry about the ramifications of his writing, instead he wrote from the heart. Whatever was dominating his thoughts whether it be superstitions, signing sealing and delivering things, or calling to say he loves me was put on paper because he possessed the ability to write blindly. He is lucky in this regard. Many of us, me included, have trouble separating what we truly feel from what we want other people to feel about us. Stevie Wonder may not have the best eyesight in the history of mankind, but his vision was never entirely corrupted.
ReplyDelete"I have this problem of writing the way I speak." --@katyperry
ReplyDeleteGirl--
there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with that. If you lose yourself in your writing, its no longer yours.
I feel as though writing blindly is writing truly as ourself. We are able to capture those moments that no one else is granted to. Our own feeling, our own emotion. It belongs to no one but us. Don't take this for granted because, no shit... its probably the only thing that is ours-- (you know that facebook bullshit that goes online belongs to them.. yikes!!!) anyway... remain true to yourself and to your voice and to what you want to say, no one will appreciate it like you do, but no one else has to...
I feel like one of those jack ass motivational speakers right now like that dad who isn't a kardashian on keeping up with the k's... all you bitches know who I'm taking about...
regardless, its about you and what you want to do/say so gooo on y'alllllllllll
When I read Writing Blindly. I had a feeling that I only get when I see something that Ive put up for years and stumbled across it cleaning the house. I have written letters and short stories throughout junior high and high school and I put there somewhere safe…why? Because I don’t want anyone to read them… not even myself 10 tears from writing them. Its as if im almost embarrassed by my old writings and scribbling.
ReplyDeleteAt the moment I created them I earnestly cared about the issue, it was something that provoked me to write, a situation that I needed to vent about to someone.. acquiring a blank page as a thoughtful listener I suppose. Is this why we get that feeling when we read something we wrote long ago? Are we laughing inside at the way we felt over something that we feel is so frivolous now? Have we forgotten that that moment either turned the world we knew upside down, or made us the happiest we’d ever been up till that moment?