On writing: why I do what I do
I figure that now is as good a time as any to expound a bit upon my writing style and that sorta thing. I've been writing to some degree since I was very little. I have also always had an attraction to things that are a bit weird for as long as I can remember. As a writer, I get faced with a choice between writing what people want to hear or I write what I want to write and just hope that eventually I'll find an audience. There's something out there for everyone, it's just a matter of finding it.
My writing, as of the past two years or so, has also been influenced by the discovery of musicians and writers whose work has resonated with me to a point where I find elements of my style within theirs. These individuals include:
These individuals have had a profound influence on why I write the way I write in that they have given me an assurance that there are people out there who write in a way with a vision similar to that which I seek to convey.
The question may be asked, what it is that I resonate with with these people. It is the overall idea that art--writing--should strive to get beneath and behind the surface of things. It should remove the blinders that we've assented to wear.
I feel that society has conditioned us to agree on a set of criteria that the world fits in. This is obviously not the case because things happen all the time that fall out of the accepted parameters. The world is a much, much larger place than we currently comprehend. But the powers that be don't want us to grasp this.
It is the writer's job to challenge these assumptions--these parameters that we've collectively assigned to the world. As writers, we have an obligation, that we never back down, we say what needs to be said no matter what the possible reaction is. Words have power. Words have the ultimate power to create or destroy.
Only a writer knows the encompassing truth in this. How many times do we write something, just to regulate that piece to the trashcan? How many worlds are called into existence, how many lives are created, only to be erased, incinerated, or abandoned? Writers, in that sense, are like gods, conjuring up worlds and people and places sifting through the images in search of perfection--the perfect combination of person, place, and thing.
I write because I seek to create, I'm driven to create. This is my art, my passion. No one, not even I, can tell where this will take me. But, I make a promise to myself, everyday, to follow the course as it is laid out before me, despite the twists, turns and sudden drops.