"Risk solitude and discomfort for understanding [and improvement]."
Books read today:
Post:
I think I finally have a shadow of a feeble grasp on what has changed in my writing since that fateful Expos class that dragged my creative spark through the muck of vague and directionless feedback.
Once upon a time, I knew what words I wanted to use. I never went to a thesaurus except for entertainment when my own endless litany of words ceased to divert me. I stuttered but rarely, and sometimes paused briefly to gather my words. Words were precious. They were worth spending time with in and of themselves. They were toys and instruments of beauty and truth and everything in between. I never really struggled with words, at least not in a way that meant they entirely eluded me.
At some point, this all changed. I didn't know what was different, but I felt the symptoms, like a cancer patient who anticipates the nausea but must accept the chemotherapy as a fact in his life. I have trouble finding words now. I think of one word, and somehow as it makes its transit from my brain to my fingers, I type another. This is the most distressing, because I do not realise it until I re-read what I have written. I stutter, I stammer, I blank out with no idea of what I meant to say, what I'm focusing on. I don't even know if this is just total lack of focus and late-onset ADHD or wholly related to this writing mojo thing. Perhaps per Occam's Razor, I ought to write it off as lack of practice, and not be so melodramatic about it. But it terrifies me, don't you know, that it is now difficult for me even to pieces these words together into a somewhat readable entry. I've been grasping for some kind of awareness of what this is, and-not much to anyone's surprise-I've withdrawn from addressing it directly. (Dear gods, it took me two minutes to figure out if I wanted to write withdrawn or declined or resisted or a word that remains a stubborn blank in my head, but I know it is the right one for that sentence and the one I wanted only I cannot find it! What is this!) (Edit: Demurred from?) (Edit 2: Avoided! That's what I was looking for! Words used to be so rich in my head...) Now I understand what has become my new approach, though I don't know if I can really fix it.
I've started to see words as a means instead of an end. "Distil[ling] meaning from the vapour of nuance" is no longer a cherished instinct, but rather almost a frivolous-and I loathe to say-bohemian exercise. I know this is not the case, and I know that now more than ever as an attorney I must observe the implications and connotations embedded in even boldfaced turns of phrase. How did this happen? When did my words become the gear in the cog instead of the instrument of art?
Regardless of my commitments this year, something about this must be done. It isn't even something so histrionic as rescuing my soul or however one might wish to term it. Speaking practically, it's been a valuable and oft-under-appreciated asset that, while possibly inadvertently developed in my pursuit of books, cannot now be allowed to disappear.
- Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks writing as Ian Fleming
- The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett (I love the pun!)
Post:
I think I finally have a shadow of a feeble grasp on what has changed in my writing since that fateful Expos class that dragged my creative spark through the muck of vague and directionless feedback.
Once upon a time, I knew what words I wanted to use. I never went to a thesaurus except for entertainment when my own endless litany of words ceased to divert me. I stuttered but rarely, and sometimes paused briefly to gather my words. Words were precious. They were worth spending time with in and of themselves. They were toys and instruments of beauty and truth and everything in between. I never really struggled with words, at least not in a way that meant they entirely eluded me.
At some point, this all changed. I didn't know what was different, but I felt the symptoms, like a cancer patient who anticipates the nausea but must accept the chemotherapy as a fact in his life. I have trouble finding words now. I think of one word, and somehow as it makes its transit from my brain to my fingers, I type another. This is the most distressing, because I do not realise it until I re-read what I have written. I stutter, I stammer, I blank out with no idea of what I meant to say, what I'm focusing on. I don't even know if this is just total lack of focus and late-onset ADHD or wholly related to this writing mojo thing. Perhaps per Occam's Razor, I ought to write it off as lack of practice, and not be so melodramatic about it. But it terrifies me, don't you know, that it is now difficult for me even to pieces these words together into a somewhat readable entry. I've been grasping for some kind of awareness of what this is, and-not much to anyone's surprise-I've withdrawn from addressing it directly. (Dear gods, it took me two minutes to figure out if I wanted to write withdrawn or declined or resisted or a word that remains a stubborn blank in my head, but I know it is the right one for that sentence and the one I wanted only I cannot find it! What is this!) (Edit: Demurred from?) (Edit 2: Avoided! That's what I was looking for! Words used to be so rich in my head...) Now I understand what has become my new approach, though I don't know if I can really fix it.
I've started to see words as a means instead of an end. "Distil[ling] meaning from the vapour of nuance" is no longer a cherished instinct, but rather almost a frivolous-and I loathe to say-bohemian exercise. I know this is not the case, and I know that now more than ever as an attorney I must observe the implications and connotations embedded in even boldfaced turns of phrase. How did this happen? When did my words become the gear in the cog instead of the instrument of art?
Regardless of my commitments this year, something about this must be done. It isn't even something so histrionic as rescuing my soul or however one might wish to term it. Speaking practically, it's been a valuable and oft-under-appreciated asset that, while possibly inadvertently developed in my pursuit of books, cannot now be allowed to disappear.