Looking Backward
From my blog in 2004:
Writing can be a terrifying process. If you're writing something that you ever intend to let anyone else read, writing can be as nerve wracking as public speaking, as soul-baring as acting, as emotional as singing. Writing is not for the faint of heart. And you cannot do it simply to please an audience -- at least, not well.
I was looking at the web site of one of my favorite authors, and he said that he doesn't write to be read. He writes because there is nothing else for him to do; it isn't a choice, it's a calling. He says:
"If I were locked in solitary confinement for years on end with paper and pens enough to last me, I'd probably be all right. Unhappy, but sane. If I had no books and nothing with which to write, I imagine I'd end up sitting in my little cell telling stories to the walls. It's not that I require an audience so much as I have to put the thoughts somewhere -- I don't care if anyone ever reads them, so long as they're there."
That's the kind of freedom I wish I had with my writing. That's who I was at three years old, in the photograph my mother gave me. I am sitting on our front porch at the old house wearing an old Halloween costume over my regular clothes, with purple shoes on, my bear clutched in one hand, a short stick in the other, singing to myself and narrating little stories in which I was always the protagonist. I never needed an audience back then. I was my own audience; I contained whole worlds of people and places and things in my head, and my imagination was limitless and effortless and free.
Somewhere along the way, I lost that freedom that comes from not needing anyone's approval but your own. Now I find myself lost in worry that something I've written isn't good enough, isn't spectacular enough, isn't original enough or engaging enough or flashy enough. Enough for what? For whom? Even my own private journal that I write in by hand that no one but me is ever allowed to see, I sometimes censor because it isn't "good" enough. Why? Shouldn't my own thoughts be good enough for me?
Writing can be a terrifying process. If you're writing something that you ever intend to let anyone else read, writing can be as nerve wracking as public speaking, as soul-baring as acting, as emotional as singing. Writing is not for the faint of heart. And you cannot do it simply to please an audience -- at least, not well.
I was looking at the web site of one of my favorite authors, and he said that he doesn't write to be read. He writes because there is nothing else for him to do; it isn't a choice, it's a calling. He says:
"If I were locked in solitary confinement for years on end with paper and pens enough to last me, I'd probably be all right. Unhappy, but sane. If I had no books and nothing with which to write, I imagine I'd end up sitting in my little cell telling stories to the walls. It's not that I require an audience so much as I have to put the thoughts somewhere -- I don't care if anyone ever reads them, so long as they're there."
That's the kind of freedom I wish I had with my writing. That's who I was at three years old, in the photograph my mother gave me. I am sitting on our front porch at the old house wearing an old Halloween costume over my regular clothes, with purple shoes on, my bear clutched in one hand, a short stick in the other, singing to myself and narrating little stories in which I was always the protagonist. I never needed an audience back then. I was my own audience; I contained whole worlds of people and places and things in my head, and my imagination was limitless and effortless and free.
Somewhere along the way, I lost that freedom that comes from not needing anyone's approval but your own. Now I find myself lost in worry that something I've written isn't good enough, isn't spectacular enough, isn't original enough or engaging enough or flashy enough. Enough for what? For whom? Even my own private journal that I write in by hand that no one but me is ever allowed to see, I sometimes censor because it isn't "good" enough. Why? Shouldn't my own thoughts be good enough for me?
Labels: writing life
posted by Lacy at
11:39 AM
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