Music: Ladytron, "Playgirl"
I'm not in a good mood today. I'm feeling kinda antisocial -- a combination of lonely and pissed off, lovelies. The real world cloys, the unreal world annoys. What's a 21st-century lonely boy supposed to do? Retreat into writing with eyes that see too much, pen scribbling words to the page, fingers dance to keyboard clacks, weaving worlds from nothingness, or at least from the dark, wet matter in between my ears. Much the same, in the end: out of sight, out of mind.
Writers are not happy people. If we were happy, we would not write. Writing is a solace, sanctuary, and shelter. Not a prison, not a punishment -- the punishment is being a writer, the loneliest profession -- the writing itself is a drug, a joy, a release. But a solitary thing, because even the intimacy of the reader, the distant visitor to your words, they bring themselves to it, meet you less than halfway, see things in the words that you never imagined. It's its own kind of magic, I know. I love when people draw meaning from text I've written that I didn't even see there. It just doesn't alleviate the loneliness of it, though -- writing is nothing until it gets published. Until that happens, it's litter of the soul, festering, piling up, pointless, communicating nothing to nobody -- like uncast incantations.
And here's the rub: I can't live without writing. I'd die if I couldn't write. And so I write. This blog is just a distraction, a little steam valve where I diddle about, now and then. My heart is on the page, in my real work, my vocation. And not even other writers can really relate to the intimacy of the page -- each has their own relationship with the word, some functional, some dysfunctional -- but singular and unique as anybody else. Their own battles to wage, wars to fight with the written page.
No comfort, no relief. Just more words. Beautiful words. I love words, the way I can weave them into beautiful shapes and textures, accessing part of my brain I don't even consciously know; I write faster than I can think. If I have to think, I know I'm in a rut, doing something wrong. The words just come. My only real friends, the only ones that understand me, that never let me down.
Loneliest profession, drowning joyfully in a sea of words. Don't wait for me; I'm going right for the bottom, not even holding my breath.
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2 comments:
oh my god! have you read The Writing Life by Ani Dillard???? if not, please read and let me know what you think! i think that in terms of what you are feeling....the blues but also this deep sense of the magic of writing....that book would speak directly to you.
sophie has read it, too...and loved it.
..."accessing part of my brain I don't even consciously know."
hmmm...writing does this for me indeed.
never stop writing my friend. pour your unhappiness onto us because it moves your readers and takes them places they want to go.
xoxo
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